#PrinceofPeace: Hope

Grandma, my dad's mom, was the only one of my grandparents to survive to see me reach adulthood. Her sweetheart, my Grandpa, died when I was in fourth grade. He was 63 at the time; she was 61. She stayed with us and saw my high school graduation. She let me stay with her that summer so that I could work and fund my college education; I worked like a dog at two full-time jobs, and in the off hours we toured places, had dinner and conversation together, sat by each other in Relief Society, and a hundred other little day-to-day treasures.

My parents had moved our family far from her, following my dad's job, and while we visited her nearly every year, it was more unusual for her to travel to us. She made one of her visits for my marriage to my own sweetheart in the Chicago Temple. A few years later, it was my privilege to stay with her again while we endured a period of unemployment my husband had after his field fell apart following 9-11. Once again, we went places, had long conversations, this time about life and the gospel, and so many other important things. She knew how much we wanted a baby, and was sad with us when it turned out I wasn't pregnant that one time. We sat together in Relief Society again. She introduced me to her friends.

Grandma played the organ at the Bountiful Temple, and sometimes I would tag along and do a session while she was working. A year or two before, she'd sent me some music that helped me to make the transition from pianist to organist when I was asked to play in my ward; Grandma was sweet like that. I hadn't even known that sort of material existed, and she just sent it to me, because she knew I needed it. Grandma was like that. I loved to hear her play the temple's organ. She cried when my husband found work and we left for the Midwest again. The couple of months that we had were precious, and I'm still counting the blessings that came to us from her kindness.  My Grandma is an amazing woman.


Her last trip to the Midwest was Christmas of 2006. The whole family gathered. We had more people in the house Christmas morning than I think we've ever attempted since then: All eight of us kids were there, and a couple of us had spouses, all crammed into our little house. It was wall-to-wall people opening presents that morning. While she was here we took a four generation picture: Grandma, Daddy, me, and Hero.

She survived my Grandpa by twenty-two years: nearly a quarter century. I remember one conversation that I had with her after we'd left her home the second time, where I called a couple of days after their anniversary, and said that I'd thought to call and wish her a happy anniversary, but I hadn't been sure if that was a good idea. I'll never forget what she told me:

"I'm still married."

All my life, I'd heard about how Christ won the victory over death, about how He had taken the sting from death, but for me, there's never been a more profound sermon on what that means: she had such peace. Total confidence, the kind that makes a quiet, but immovable assertion:

"I'm still married." For time and all eternity.

I asked her to write down her and Grandpa's love story one time. I love the three plain, almost terse, paragraphs that she gave me, sketching how they met (she knew his sister), how they got to know each other through ordinary activities like a dance, play rehearsals, and snowshoeing up a nearby canyon. She told how he even stood her up once -- he'd been snowed in at his parents' house in Wyoming. The love she still had for him was apparent in every word.

The epistle to the Hebrews talks about Abraham's patient endurance; my Grandma exemplified that same thing every day of those twenty-two long years. She knew the truth of what Paul taught:

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... hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast...
-Hebrews 6:19

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Christ was the reason for my grandmother's hope. She had accepted the invitation to yoke herself with the Prince of Peace, and she found the promised rest in Him. 

#PrinceofPeace: Prayer

One afternoon several years ago, I helped my son, then about 3, to plant some strawberries in a section of our garden that we had designated as his very own. He buried the strawberry roots we'd bought, he carried his little watering can over to the hose and then back to the garden to give them their first drink. And every day he checked to see if they were up above the ground yet.

As happens sometimes in the spring in our area, a few days later there was a huge storm. High winds, hail, possibly tornadoes... this storm meant business. As I tucked my little son into his bed on the second floor of our house, I mentioned to him that the storm was very bad, and that it might damage his little baby strawberries, and I reassured him that, if it did, we'd replant. Then I listened to him say his prayers.

"Heavenly Father, please protect my baby strawberries."

I gave him a kiss, and when he was asleep, I headed downstairs to my computer to keep an eye on the storm: there are some days where our second-story bedrooms are not my favorite thing, and I don't sleep through bad storms very well. Fortunately, this one wasn't far away, and I wouldn't need to stay up ridiculously late to watch the storm and be able to grab my boy and head to the basement if things got too exciting.

The storm was everything that the forecast had promised. I watched it dye the map red as it passed my parents' town, sixty miles to the west of us, and began to approach our home. As it pushed past their place, the whole storm began to rotate, so that, rather than being hit by the center of the storm, as it originally looked like would happen -- and would have been the usual pattern for weather coming from that direction -- the storm began to shift a little south, and the northern edge moved closer to our home. As the shifting storm arrived in our area, I was amazed. Zooming in on the radar map, I realized that, in all that violent red and orange storm, there was a small green square, where it was only gentle rain, about two blocks by two blocks. And that square stayed centered over my house as the storm rotated on that spot - almost like an eye. Looking out the window, there was nothing to tell me that the storm was a problem: if I had not seen the forecast and watched the map, I would not have known that it was a bad storm. I sat and watched that storm for several hours, first because I was worried about needing to take shelter in the basement, then later because I knew that I was seeing a miracle that had come in response to my son's prayer.

"Heavenly Father, please protect my baby strawberries."

I have pondered the lessons of that evening many times since then. The forces that arranged that miracle were sent in motion long before my son actually said his prayers at bedtime: God knew what he was going to ask before he asked it, and had set in motion the answer long before. There have been times where I wanted to pray for something to happen, but thought that it was too close, too late for anything to affect the situation before the critical moment. But God isn't limited by time the way that we are: He knows the end from the beginning.

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And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
-Matthew 21:22

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Little things matter to God: a preschooler's baby strawberries are important enough for Him to move a huge storm. Even though the strawberries were easily replaceable. I've become aware of His help in a many little things: when we were potty training He warned me many times daily to take my daughter to the bathroom before she had an accident. I realized, after I broke my pizza stone, that I'd missed a prompting that would have saved it. He'd sent that prompting three different times, and three times I'd meant to act on it, but got distracted and forgot. Still, my pizza stone was important enough for Him to worry about, even knowing that I was going to miss the message until it was too late.

One of the lessons I've learned from bad guys in the scriptures is the importance of asking. Laman and Lemuel didn't understand the things their father was teaching them, but when Nephi asked them if they'd prayed about it, they gave a familiar excuse:

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We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us.
-1 Nephi 15:9

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The willingness to ask -it's even a commandment that we ask- is one of the significant differences between Nephi and his brothers. One of the big lessons for me in the strawberries that the Lord saved for my son is that God not only cares about small and simple things in the abstract, as they affect His grand designs, but that He cares about my small matters. The minutia of my life is something that He is aware of -- and He works with it to both teach me to trust Him, and also to make my life run more smoothly. We can take even our small concerns to Him; He cares.

#PrinceOfPeace: Scripture

I don't remember the question anymore, but I remember what my Dad told me: the answers to the important questions are in the scriptures. Go to the scriptures. It may take time to find them, but I don't have wait for someone else to answers and show them to me: I can go to them myself, and I can search out the answers to the questions that are important to me.

This changed my life.

Up to that point, I'd been rather passive, waiting for someone to tell me what is in the scriptures. Partly, this was because I was young: it's not unexpected for a child to rely on her trusted adults to teach her. But my dad taught me to act, rather than waiting for someone else to do it for me. He taught me that my questions are important enough for the Lord to answer them. That conversation taught me that I am strong enough to seek my own answers, capable enough (even though I was young at the time) to understand what the scriptures say and what the Holy Ghost teaches.

He was also teaching me the value of scripture itself; I don't think that you can overstate the value of scripture.

Studying history with my kids, one of the things I've learned more about is the heroes and martyrs of the Reformation. Some of them are names known to many - William Tyndale, for instance, who did the first translation of the Bible into English, and was martyred for his work. Other names are not so famous: many common people sacrificed to possess even a few pages of Tyndale's translation -- and some of them died for their sacrifice. I found myself wondering: would I have been willing to take their risks, to make their sacrifices, to pay their cost, in order to have the scriptures? We live in a time and place where scripture is inexpensive or free, and plentiful. We have copies in our home for all of the members of the family, in as many languages as we care to have, both print copies, searchable electronic copies, and audio copies. We mark and use up our books, and then we replace them. And we do it all without fear.

It is a luxury that our forefathers could not have imagined.



Since that conversation with my Dad I've grown up, moved out, and I've got a family of my own. I've turned to the scriptures to try to find comfort in grief, strength to get through challenges, and wisdom to know how to try to help others. In the pages of my scriptures I've learned to find the Lord's love for me.

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Verily I say unto you my friends, fear not, let your hearts be comforted; yea, rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks...
-Doctrine and Covenants 98:1

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In the scriptures, I've learned that the joy promised to the Lord's people is not some dim, distant future thing, but can be joy in the present tense, joy in the mist of trial, joy that comes from knowing God's love, and feeling the reality of the Lord's tender mercies.

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But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. For thou, Lord, will bless the righteous; with favor wilt thou compass him as with a shield.
-Psalm 5:11-12

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Now it's my turn to teach my own children to love the scriptures, to turn to the Lord, and to search His words for the answers to the difficult questions they do and will face. It's my job to let them see me search the scriptures, and working to conform my life to the things they teach: regardless of the cost.

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It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
-Matthew 4:3

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#PrinceOfPeace: Gratitude

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And ye must give thanks unto God in the Spirit for whatsoever blessing ye are blessed with.
-Doctrine and Covenants 46:32

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It had somehow escaped my attention that gratitude is a commandment. I knew that it's an important virtue. I knew that we could offend God with a lack of gratitude. But I'd never really pondered it as a commandment. But it's not a vindictive, self-aggrandizing kind of commandment. 

"I worked hard to provide them, so you'll eat your beets, and you'll be grateful. Or else!"

It isn't like that; that kind of attitude behind the commandment would be inconsistent with the nature of God: God's love is so perfect that the scriptures tell us God is love, and we also read that love is not overly concerned with itself -- a loving God (or a loving person) seeketh not their own.

The commandments, being given from a place of love, are actually for our benefit -- much the same way that the rules that I impose on my kids (eat your vegetables, don't run in the street, you must learn to read) are designed to keep my kids happy and safe. God being our Father, His rules are like that, too: designed to keep us happy and safe. That's why Nephi, after he arranged for his people to be taught God's laws, described their lifestyle as living after the manner of happiness. Including the commandment to be grateful.

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If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues. Someone has said that “gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
-President Thomas S. Monson (quoting Cicero), The Divine Gift of Gratitude

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Gratitude then, if it really is the key to all the other virtues, is the small and simple thing, the tiny hinge on which our lives can turn, as we seek to obey the injunction to be like Christ.




I think that gratitude to Christ, Himself, is particularly important in our quest to be all He says we can be. A while back, I heard a story that illustrates how gratitude can be the key, not only to the development of our character, but to the ability to find joy in the dark places. The story comes out of the deep darkness of the Nazi concentration camps:

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There is a book that I have always remembered since I first read it many years ago. I feel it illustrates the scripture found in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, which reads, “In every thing give thanks.” Many of you may be acquainted with Corrie ten Boom’s book entitled The Hiding Place. It is the true story of two Dutch women who were imprisoned during World War II for harboring Jewish refugees. Its message bears reminding.

Corrie and Betsie ten Boom lived by the precepts of Christ and found great comfort in reading the Bible. Their prison barracks were dimly lit, dirty, foul smelling, crowded, and constantly patrolled by guards. Corrie was put into a cell with her sister, which was a blessing for them both. Her constant worry was that the guards would see their Bible and take it away, since it was a great source of hope and comfort to them.

The place was so infested with fleas that the sisters could not move without instantly being covered with the bugs. They were very familiar with scriptures concerning gratitude and thankfulness in the Bible. Betsie told Corrie that they should thank God for the fleas. Corrie wasn’t sure she could do this, but she and Betsie bowed their heads and thanked God even for the fleas.

Weeks later Corrie was struck by the blessing that came from her obedience to thank God in all circumstances. Betsie had heard a supervisor say she wouldn’t step through the door of their cell because of all the fleas, and neither would the guards. It was because of the fleas that they were able to continue to keep their Bible without the guards finding it. They were also able to hold worship meetings and share Christ’s message with other prisoners. God asks us to give thanks even when there may seem to be little for which to be thankful. 
-Sharon G. Samuelson, Gratitude -- A Commandment of God

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This example, their gratitude for even fleas, and the eyes that it gave them to see the hand of the Lord in their lives, even in those terribly trying circumstances, has been a lesson that stayed with me. And when I remember to give thanks for my own "fleas" - whatever the current trial is - I find that the situation feels less overwhelming. I am more calm when I use gratitude to bolster my trust and faith in the Lord. I am less susceptible to discouragement and depression and fear. Looking for the bright side, the silver lining (no matter how small), and then remembering to give thanks for it, helps me to keep my balance when the load is heavy, the days are long, and there's no end to the trial in sight.

And that is something to be grateful for.

#PrinceOfPeace: Repentence

It's a mark of His love for us that the Savoir commands us to repent. He wants to forgive us. He wants us. And so He commands us to repent. Knowing that the process is difficult, that sometimes it is all we can do, He promises to be with us every step of the way:

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The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
-2 Peter 3:9

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"Big" sins or "small" sins - the effect of any sin is ultimately the same: separation from God. But He loves us, and He doesn't want that to happen for us, and so He extends us Grace. He commands us:

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Therefore repent ye, repent ye, lest by knowing these things and not doing them ye shall suffer yourselves to come under condemnation, and ye are brought down unto this second death.
-Helaman 14:19

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He wants us, even when it's hard to give up our sins. Even when we stumble. Even when we stumble more than once. His Grace is sufficient; keep trying.

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Christ asks us to show faith in Him, repent, make and keep covenants, receive the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. By complying, we are not paying the demands of justice—not even the smallest part. Instead, we are showing appreciation for what Jesus Christ did by using it to live a life like His. Justice requires immediate perfection or a punishment when we fall short. Because Jesus took that punishment, He can offer us the chance for ultimate perfection and help us reach that goal. He can forgive what justice never could...
-Brad Wilcox, His Grace is Sufficient, emphasis added

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#PrinceOfPeace: Forgiveness

Not too long ago, I read Hawthorn's book, The Scarlet Letter. Set in the 17th century Puritan colony of Massachusetts Bay, it's the story of Hester Prynne, a woman caught in adultery, condemned to forever wear a large, scarlet A on her dress in penance. Shunned by society, both for her sin and for her refusal to name her child's father, Hester's trials and her struggles to raise her daughter work together to make her beautiful and gentle. Her husband, presumed lost at sea, returns to discover her shame and secretly takes his revenge on her lover. The story shows the dignity of repentance -- and it shows the poisonous effect of withholding forgiveness. Near the end of the book she urges her husband to accept the heavenly healing in forgiving his enemy:

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Forgive, and leave his further retribution to the Power that claims it! ... There might be good for thee, and thee alone, since thou hast been deeply wronged and hast it at thy will to pardon. Wilt thou give up that only privilege? Wilt thou reject that priceless benefit?
-The Scarlett Letter (emphasis added)

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It took me a long time to understand why forgiveness is so essential for the person who has been wronged. That always struck me as backwards, as if the one who has done wrong was getting away with something, particularly if they are still unrepentant when they are forgiven. I had it all wrong: forgiveness is at least as much for the person that's been injured, as it is for the one who made the mistake.

When I was in Seminary, we would have these monthly "Super Saturday" activities with other teens from all over the stake, where we would get together and have a lesson in the morning, then do an activity or a service project in the afternoon. I generally enjoyed Seminary, even though it was pretty early in the morning, and these Super Saturdays were some of the best activities they planned for us. As part of the seminary course, we were asked to read the scriptures every day, which I did, only missing a few days in the whole four years' time I attended.

At one of these Super Saturday lessons, the teacher asked those students who had not read every single day to please stand. She then proceeded to tell us how terrible it was, how unfaithful, and lacking in testimony we were, because we had not done our reading the way we were supposed to. I'm sure she meant well, but it was not her best moment. I found it particularly humiliating, because I worked hard to read every day, but there had been a day just that past week where I'd woken up and thought, "Oh. I forgot to read yesterday." And my streak was over and gone. By the time I realized it, it was too late to do anything about it. And so, because I had a moment of forgetfulness, this teacher was including me in her ill-advised public shaming of those kids who were struggling. I was completely humiliated, and I was angry.

I left the class.

We lived in a semi-rural area of Wisconsin, and there were not a lot of members around, so our Stake was geographically large, and these activities were planned first in this town, then in another, so you could end up driving two to three hours to get there, but it happened that that month, the activity was in my hometown, and the church was only a mile or two from my home.

I left that class hurt and angry and humiliated, and the first thing I saw when I got out into the hallway was the building's exit. It was a beautiful day, and it was not a long walk home.

I very seriously considered walking out. Walking out of the class, and of the building... and of the Church. It would have been so easy. Push open the glass door and walk out into the sunshine, and away from the whole thing.

Instead I fled down the hall to the library, which was about as far away from the class as it was possible to be and still be in the building. I cried, and my friend's dad heard me and came to see what was wrong. When I told him what had happened, he gave me a hug, and then he offered me a priesthood blessing. In that blessing, the Lord instructed me that I needed to learn to say in my heart, "Let God judge between me and thee." And I should let Him handle it.

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I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.
-Doctrine and Covenants 64:10

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It took me a long time to understand that, had I left that day the person who would have suffered most was me. Christ's counsel against anger isn't an unobtainable, unreasonable expectation: it's a tender mercy, designed first and foremost for our own protection. Had I left, I would have been cutting myself off from the ordinances of the gospel, from teaching and learning about Christ in the community of saints that make up the body of the church. It wasn't going to bother her if I left - I never knew if she even realized there had been an incident. I believe that she had the best of intentions, in spite of her poor execution that day. But leaving would have had a huge impact on me, and none of it good.

Forgiveness was key, and letting Christ handle it.

I am grateful that I don't have to figure out all the consequences, all the penalties, I don't have to somehow determine what is just, and what ought to happen, and when mercy should be applied: I'm not wise enough to always figure that stuff out in my own home, among my own children -- and that is, literally, just kid stuff! In His compassion, Christ bears that burden, and all we need to find peace is to let Him be the judge; our part is to forgive and be healed.

"Wilt thou reject that priceless benefit?" That's what Hester Prynne asked her husband -- and when he did reject it, it killed him. The anger, the revenge, the bitterness, they consumed him and he died of it. But we need not suffer that fate: Christ is able to save us from it.

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My experience is that we can sometimes forget that the Atonement has two sides. Usually, when we think about the Atonement we focus on how mercy can satisfy the demands that justice would impose upon us. We are typically quicker to accept the idea that when we sin and make mistakes the Atonement is available to pay our debts. Forgiveness requires us to consider the other side of the Atonement—a side that we don’t think about as often but that is equally critical. That side is the Atonement’s power to satisfy our demands of justice against others, to fulfill our rights to restitution and being made whole. We often don’t quite see how the Atonement satisfies our own demands for justice. Yet it does so. It heals us not only from the guilt we suffer when we sin, but it also heals us from the sins and hurts of others.
-James R. Rasband, Faith to Forgive Grievous Harms (emphasis added)

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#PrinceOfPeace: Compassion

The parable goes like this: the man was traveling from Jerusalem, and the thieves got him. They took everything, and left him for dead. A priesthood leader and a temple worker each passed by, crossing to the other side of the road to avoid the messy situation. Then a non-member happened by, but he helped the man, took him to get medical care, and paid all the bills -- including any future expenses.

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Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor to him that fell among thieves? 
And he said, He that shewed mercy on him.
Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
-Luke 10:36-37

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Telling the parable about a guy beaten and left for dead, pushing things to an extreme, illustrates the principle very clearly. But in our lives, typically the situation is not so obvious, the story not so ironic as it was in the Savior's parable: mostly, our opportunities to show compassion are really very ordinary, and I think that sometimes we don't even realize it when we do it. That's just... what you do.

It was in reading a midwifery text book when I was pregnant with my third (I love birth, and had already read the usual "over the counter" books, so I'd found something "prescription strength"), that I realized how, in the Church, we often do compassionate things as a matter of course, and we don't recognize the value of what is being done. I read how student midwives are advised that new mothers need a number of things to have a well-developed support system: contact with women who have recently given birth and other experienced mothers, who will coo over her baby and share the wisdom they have gained when she needs it, as well as assistance with meals and possibly other day-to-day chores in that first time after the baby is born. In fact, after reading this section of the book my thought was, "Oh! What all new moms need is a Relief Society!" Nearly every item on the list was something that is routinely checked on by the Relief Society.

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The Savior has asked us to do the things which He has done, to bear one another’s burdens, to comfort those who need comfort, to mourn with those who mourn, to feed the hungry, visit the sick, to succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and to “teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom.”
-Barbara Thompson, And of Some Have Compassion

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These small things, little kindnesses we do for our friends and acquaintances and the strangers around us, are acts of compassion. Many of us do compassionate, merciful things, often without even realizing it, simply because it's "the right thing to do". All of us, I have no doubt, could learn to do still better at following the Savior in this way: everything the Savior does is focused on One. One hurting heart, one need filled, one pain eased. There is so much hurt in the world, it can sometimes feel impossible and overwhelming, but we don't have to fix it all. We just follow His example and do what we can for one person at a time. The Savior loves us one by one. He heals us individually, one by one. And he sends us to be His assistants, one by one, to one person at a time.

Compassion and mercy are twins - not identical, but so close that they can sometimes be tough to tell apart. Mercy is "the compassionate treatment of a person, greater than what is deserved, and it is made possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. ... Every blessing we receive is an act of mercy, more than we could ever merit on our own. (source)" Christ's specialty is mercy, fueled by His perfect compassion, born in His perfect love. And He delights in teaching us to feel that same depth of compassion, to act in that same merciful way: to become like Him.

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There is one who understands, who sympathizes. He was misunderstood, rejected, knew supreme loneliness, was poor and had not a place to lay his head, suffered anguish and conflict of mind.
He understands.
He can give pardon and bring peace.
The specialty of the Savior is mercy.
And he requires that we be specialists in mercy.
Marion D. Hanks, My Specialty is Mercy, emphasis original

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#PrinceOfPeace: Faith

Part of me is amazed that faith -which by definition is not yet knowing and not yet seeing- can be as powerful as it is. But it is. Faith gives us hope, and hope is the anchor that allows us to weather the storms that life throws at us. I love the image of hope as an anchor, rather than as the flimsy butterfly that it's so often depicted as: hope has substance. Faith has power.

In this, as in all else, Christ is our example, having started as a tiny baby, and then in process of time increasing in wisdom and stature,  as He "received not of the fullness at first, but received grace for grace (D&C 93:12)." We can be like Him: we can grow, taking strength from one experience to assist us in the next challenge, each one teaching us, helping us to trust Him more.

He tells us:

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Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meant in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.
-Malachi 3:10-12

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My parents taught me the importance of tithing when I was a kid. It became an automatic thing, just what you do, and I seldom think about it anymore, other than when I realize that I'm seeing the blessings -- and I do. The blessings are real. Cupboards too full to hold it all, even when we feel that times are lean. Shoes and cars and clothes and appliances that last and last, well beyond their usual life span. Boxes of hand-me-downs have shown up providentially, just when we needed them, with more in them than we could use. If you are looking, the blessings of tithing are huge, and exactly what the scripture says. They show up quietly, unannounced. This time they come this way, another time they take another form. Easy to overlook if you aren't paying attention. I'm so glad that my parents taught me to pay my tithing.

I've come to understand that the faith necessary to pay tithing  is the same faith needed to trust God on any point. To trust that, though I do not see, He does. Though I do not understand yet, He does -- and He will teach me, if I'll just trust until the time is right. Though I can't see the path, He not only knows it, but He has prepared it for me, with just what I really need, even if that's not always what I think I need, or what I want. Christ teaches us to live in a way that brings us happiness and real joy; faith in Him is where it all begins. Tithing becomes the training wheels for our faith; it helps us to catch our balance, and helps us to grow toward the time when:

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... we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children... But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.
-Ephesians 4:13-15

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Faith then becomes the foundation of all righteousness, because it's the thing that moves us to action. Action is a critical component of faith; it's what allows faith to grow: we make the experiment on the Word, and because God is faithful, the sincere experiment can only result in proving Him -- which strengthens our faith.

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But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward tot he fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life. And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.
-Alma 32:41-42

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Bessie's Pillow {Crew Review}

Bessie's Pillow, written by Linda Bress Silbert, is a historical novel, based on the true story of the author's grandmother and her immigration from Lithuania's Jewish ghetto to escape persecution, which we were given to reveiw. After reading the excerpt on the publisher, Strong Learning, Inc., website, I was hooked, and when it arrived (finally!) I sat down and started it.

By the end of the day, I'd read half the book.

If I hadn't been trying to get over the flu, I would have been seriously tempted to stay up late and finish it. Instead, I finished the story before noon the next day. It was a beautiful story and a page-turner. I added this excerpt to my commonplace book, from an exchange Bessie has with her father early in the book:

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"No, Tateh, I am afraid," I say, and begin to cry.
"Boshka," he replies, "There will come many times in your life when you are afraid. In these moments, you must surrender your fear and go wherever [the moment] takes you, and trust that you have the strength to do what you must to survive." 
-Bessie's Pillow, p36

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I think this piece of timeless wisdom, all the more poignant for having come from a rabbi in a ghetto who, knowing he will never see her again, sends his daughter away to safety, encapsulates the message of the book. The story is the story of how she lives this counsel, over and over and over again throughout her life.

Once I had read the book myself, I knew that it wasn't suitable for a family read-aloud, which is what I had first planned for it: my younger two are not ready for all of the challenges Bessie faces. Bessie is fortunate to be able to travel first class, and to have well-off friends and family to assist her when she arrives in America as a refugee. But she comes from the Jewish ghetto, where the pogroms -mobs that attacked the Jews- go on violent rampages with torches and weapons, where parents try to protect their daughters from rape at the hands of the pogroms, and  and where the Russians conscript Jews and send them, poorly clothed and often unarmed, to the front lines of the war. Most of the Jewish conscripts do not come home. It's a harsh life, and the author does her readers the favor of showing the reality of it. At one point after coming to America Bessie takes a job for a few days in a sweatshop sewing factory, where she is locked in with all the rest of the women who are sewing, and treated very poorly, before she is unjustly fired. Bessie also sees the harsh realities of tenement living. And the author remains faithful to her family history when scarlet fever takes the two of Bessie's children, only a day apart. All this is done tastefully, and it's particularly good and timely to have this kind of story when there are so many refugees in the world right now, and immigration is such a hot topic. It's good to have stories of why people become refugees and immigrants, even if it's only part of the book. But I think it's a little much for Dragon(6) and Peanut(4). However, Hero(10) is old enough and mature enough to begin to see the hard realities of the world, and this book did nicely as his next lesson on that point, both in the lessons of seeing the things that Bessie saw, and also in terms of Bessie's own reaction to these things, which was uniformly compassionate and caring. She really was a remarkable woman.

At that point, having read it myself, it was time to give it to my son. I talked to him after he'd started it, to make sure that he understood why it was worth it to Bessie's family to send her away like they did: he hadn't. Although he knows something about our Church's history, and the mobs that our people faced even here in America, I don't think that it's terribly real to him yet, and he didn't understand this either. So we had a conversation about that. And he kept going back to the story. I'd asked him to read the first three chapters (they're short; that was about 15 pages), and he just kept going: he was hooked. It didn't take him a lot longer to read it than what it took me. I know that he kept thinking about it, though, because a week or two after he'd finished the book, he was sweeping the kitchen and commented on a part of the story where Bessie chases someone with a broom. I like a book that keeps us thinking, even after it's done. That's one of the marks of good literature.

Because we got sick (and that was so fun we did it again), we didn't really dig into the extras that the author has collected on her site, as we've spent a lot of this winter just trying to keep our heads above water on the basics while we caught Every Cold Invented. But there are some really fun-looking resources on there: radio shows, dance steps, recipes, all kinds of things to help you place Bessie in her historical context in a more visceral way. There are also other resources for looking through Ellis Island immigration records, and information about the ships that Bessie and her brothers traveled on, the Hamburg-American line, including fun things like diagrams of the ships and menus for what they ate on board. I think that, if you get a chance to read other reviews (click the banner below for a list of all the Review Crew members who are reviewing this book), that some members of the Review Crew even found that they had ancestors who came through Ellis Island!

Creating a Masterpiece {Crew Review}

Hero(10) with his straw.

Dragon(6) painting a sunset.

"Sweet! I love art!" Everybody was jumping up and down, they were so excited, when I told them that we get to review Creating a Masterpiece. We were given the Monthly Plan, so we had full access to the site. We already had watercolor paints and paper, so the first project we tried was the "African Sunset" project. It was perfect timing: we had the stomach flu go through our house right about this time, and this was a great way to keep some of the healthier kids off the screens for a while. We've done a number of things using watercolors; I spent last year studying mixing colors and the kids often painted with me, and frequently paint independently as well. However, this project used several techniques we had never tried before: wet on wet painting and using a straw. The straw, in particular,  was a hit. There were some challenges in doing this project, but it turned out well.

Hero's final African Sunset.

I always encourage my kids, when they're learning to do art, to take what they learn, and then to start to use those techniques to make their own vision take shape. In this way, we move away from just crafts (sometimes called "pea and stick work" in Charlotte Mason circles), and towards a more authentic artistic creation, balancing the acquisition of skill with individual creativity. These lessons work nicely with that philosophy, and Hero especially, once he finished the projects, was comfortable expanding away from the lesson and into his own creations.

An original charcoal drawing by Hero,
done right after he did a charcoal lesson.

One of the cool things about these lessons is that there is a great selection of mediums to play with. We started with the watercolors because I already love those, and I wanted to. But then I went and got some new toys for us to play with: soft pastels and charcoals. We did a soft pastel project as a family, which took the younger kids several sittings.

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"I'm really enjoying the results of my first two pastel projects, and the second one was just improvised!" 
-Hero

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The interface is simple and easy to use - there's an instructional video, with a supply list and some printed tips below that. Longer projects are broken up into several videos, which is nice if you end up doing the piece over a couple of sittings, as we often did. The breaks make it easier to come back to your place, but they autoplay as you go through them, so if you want to watch them all at once, it's very easy to do so.

The course description says that the classes are good for children of all ages, but I found that my younger kids were easily frustrated and confused by the lessons. Part of that is that we watched the video in by the computer, but then had to go to the kitchen table to do the art. Hero(10) did just fine with that. He did more projects than the rest of the kids, because he was able to do these lessons completely independently from start to finish: I just needed to log him in. 

Hero's first work in charcoal, done completely independently.

However, it was really challenging for Dragon(6) and Peanut(4). Even when I did the projects with them, and we would watch a single step, pause the video and do it all of us at once, then go back and watch the next step. The younger kids found it really challenging, and frustrating when it didn't turn out like the model, particularly in the first couple projects. In the end, Dragon was persuaded to be happy with his picture -- which I think is adorable.

Dragon's pastel landscape

Peanut's pastel landscape.

Peanut(4), on the other hand, was really frustrated, especially on the first project. It just was too much for her to do quite yet, and she was frustrated with the outcome. Maybe some very precocious kids could do well younger than about six, but I think a lot of them are going to be better off to wait until they have matured a little more. So much of doing art is about seeing things well, and so if your young child is, like Peanut, still unable to find their shoe when it's sitting alone in the middle of the floor, then they're probably going to struggle with art. Still, even with the struggle, I feel like she benefited. Later, she did another drawing on her own while Hero was working on a pastel project, which turned out cute. If nothing else, she has the experience working with the medium, as well as a little more practice at seeing well. Because she'd ended close to tears, I was surprised and pleased when she chose to do an independent picture of her own while Hero was playing with the pastels. And, the next time we were working on art as a group, she chose to participate and did was much more comfortable with things not looking exactly like the sample project. For one thing, purple is THE color, and her windmill clearly needed more of it. The work was still beyond her fine motor and visual skills -- but she was much more comfortable with the differences between her work and everyone else's, and I felt like that was an important gain from the lessons.

It's still a work in progress, but here is our current project, it's going to be windmills, at the end of the first of three sections of instructions. Although we are not finished yet, I can see clear progress from all of my children, both in their command of the pastel medium, which we had never done before these lessons, and also in their ability to follow directions, to mix colors -this project was particularly challenging because our set of pastels does not have all the colors called for in the project, so we've been mixing to achieve the "rust" color that is needed. Each of the kids dealt with this challenge slightly differently - and successfully depicted the roundness of the tower. I love the lessons they are learning in this project.

Top: Dragon(6), Hero(10)
Mom and Peanut(4)

Overall, I feel like these lessons were a pretty good fit for us. The projects are great introductory projects to a variety of mediums, which is perfect, because I was too busy taking music classes in school, and didn't have time for much in the way of art, due to the limitations on the number of elective classes we were allowed. Creating a Masterpiece has been a very accessible way for us to explore beyond the limited set of mediums that I was already familiar with -- and we could continue to explore considerably farther: there is a great variety of projects, including acrylic and oil painting, wood burning, copper tooling, glass mosaic, and quite a few others. We chose three mediums that fit our budget, which is not huge right now, and within those categories there were quite a few projects for the kids to choose from. I think that you could easily do a whole year or maybe more of art classes with this curriculum, and have a great time trying out a whole bunch of new things. 


If you'd like to see what the other Crew families did with Creating a Masterpiece, how it worked in other homes and the art projects that other families completed, please click the banner below:

Odd Bits: Folk music, Archaeology, and More...

::1::

One of the things that homeschooling has done for me is to introduce me to some lovely folk music. I'd like to learn to play it on the Banjo, a lot of it, but so far, that's an item on my to-do list that isn't so easy to get crossed off. In the mean time, I'm absolutely loving listening to Jesse Ferguson, who sings Scottish folk songs. Have a listen; he's lovely. I always wonder if my Scottish ancestors knew or loved any of these songs.

::2::

On the first of every month, I post a collection of thoughts from my commonplace book, which is one of my favorite self-education tools. I love that using it is participating in the great English and American tradition of self-education, and continuing personal development. Occasionally, I'm asked what it is. The article I've taken this quote from has a pretty good explanation, some pictures, and instructions for how to start one.

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A commonplace book is essentially a scrapbook / compilation of information that the creator deems relevant. Commonplace books became popular with thinkers in 15th century England and were eventually promoted as a scholarly tool by major universities such as Yale and Harvard.
-Jamie, Project: Start a Commonplace Book

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::3::

I stopped buying cereal a couple years ago, and breakfast, which the kids mostly take care of on their own, continues to be a little hap-hazard. Lots of times, the kids will eat leftovers, or open a can of fruit. But if we're low on those things, it can get interesting. I think I might try this idea out: homemade instant oatmeal. Looks like a piece of cake to make, which is perfect: I love that the kids are gaining independence and confidence in the kitchen by making their own breakfasts. She's got instructions on masking tape on her jars, which is brilliant. And it looks like it'd be easy to switch up the flavors, too.

::4::

Archeology is cool. Archeology that shows up just in time to dovetail with our work on Greece and Greek civilization is even better. And that's what this article about a warrior's grave they found in Greece is. And there's a Roman makeup case, with fingerprints visible in the cream that's still in it. Gotta love the never-ending search for the perfect beauty product! And there's the whole kingdom from Arthurian legend that they found. That's pretty awesome, too. Makes me want to go read something about King Arthur: it's been a while. Archeology is good stuff.

::5::

Marginalia. I only recently learned that there's a word for all the stuff that you write in the margins. They told us not to write in our books in school, cautioned that there would be Serious Consequences if we did, because Those Books Are Very Expensive. The caution stuck: I have never really been one to write or highlight in my books, and when I shop, I generally want a clean book, even used. The only book that I've seriously annotated is my scriptures, which I love "making tracks" through, because it helps me to remember what I've learned, find it later, and retain it longer. And it's a visual reference for which sections I've given serious attention to, and which ones still need that kind of treatment. But I think I'm going to start making more notes in other books, too:

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I like to think of these little jottings as being little messages to Jemimah from those same ancestral tombs, that through them she will get to know these people from her history a little better.  She will know how they thought about things, and how they interpreted knowledge, and she will get their input into the very same words that she is reading.  When she reads How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, she will know to listen for how "the light, rollicking metre almost produces the effect of the hoof beats of the galloping horse" because her Great Grandmother will have told her to listen.
-Jeanne, A Peaceful Day: Marginalia

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I love the idea that the notes that their family made in their books has become a connection between the generations, a way for departed loved ones to continue to teach long after they've left us. That's a beautiful, all by itself. It makes me wonder (again) whatever happened to my Grandmother's library, and if she made notes in any of her books. What would they tell me about her? Those little notes can have impact, especially if the reader is receptive, or has a connection to the note-taker:

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As I read Rebecca’s copy of the book, I started to notice how her notes changed the way I was reading. The passages she chose to mark, and the notes she wrote at the end of chapters, framed the way I was reading the novel. ... I’ve read books in the past with marginalia – usually used books that had previous owners unknown to me – and while those notes also pointed out passages to me that I otherwise may have skimmed over or which may not have been necessarily significant to me upon first glance, I never really paid attention to it beyond those pauses. ... This experience – of reading Rebecca’s copy of The Engagements – was markedly different, though. Because we’re not just Book Riot colleagues, but also good friends, not only was my perception of the novel changed, my perception of Rebecca – as a friend, as a woman, as a reader – was also changed.
-Rachel Manwil, To Note or Not to Note: How Marginalia Changed the Way I Read

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::6::

I ran across this interesting post about the difference between an educational system and an educational method. She's talking about how the Charlotte Mason philosophy is a method, not a system, and there are a lot of good insights about the reason the distinction is important, but the thing that struck me was the way that this applies to language learning. Around 2 or 3 years ago, I changed, dramatically, the way that I learn languages, and started studying sentences, harvested from either my dictionary's sample sentences, or from real native Japanese text and native speakers. I make flashcards from whole sentences, and study vocabulary, syntax, usage, and all that all in a single go. If that's all I did, it would still just be a system, but the other half of the idea was to create an immersive environment - a Japanese bubble - so that we also are hearing correct pronunciation, more correct grammar and syntax, and interacting with the languages in ways that are natural, organic, and fun. Fun, guilty pleasure (example: Minecraft videos) is actually desirable in this case. The combination is amazing. Families who successfully pass a heritage language generally do a couple of things, but one of the big ones is to arrange for roughly a third of the day to happen in the minority language: and that is surprisingly doable in a situation like ours where we are all learning together. Obviously, it would be faster and better if we had more live feedback, regular access to someone who knows more than me, but we are making good progress even with minimal contact with people who are fluent, which is pretty amazing.

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Getting good is good. Those things are all good. It’s nice to be full and it’s nice to have a big vocabulary. It’s just that you’re more likely to eat more if you focus more or less totally on making and procuring tasty food than “efficient”, “filling” food. Similarly, if you focus just about exclusively on having fun through the language, while you still suck, while you’re not full yet, you’ll naturally “eat” more of it, and eat more often, and naturally get “fuller” faster.
-Khatzmuto, Why Don't You Learn Like You Eat?, emphasis original (content warning: this article is clean, but if you browse his site, be aware he's sometimes rude, and occasionally pretty crude)

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Into The Wild 8: Wetlands in Wisconsin

Materials for the Webelos Into the Wild pin, requirement 8: Learn about aquatic ecosystems and wetlands in your area. Talk with your Webelos den leader or family about the important role aquatic ecosystems and wetlands play in supporting life cycles of wildlife and humans, and list three ways you can help.


Learn about aquatic ecosystems and wetlands in your area: 

Watch a quick introduction to wetlands through the year:

Read about what wetlands are with Wetlands 101 from the Wisconsin Wetlands Association.
Look to see which wetlands are close to where you live.


Learn about the important role of wetlands in supporting wildlife and humans: 







List three ways you can help the wetlands:
Learn about ways you can help preserve wetlands.


Additional resources for Into the Wild, requirements 1 and 6 are here.

I'd Rather Be Your Mommy {Crew Review}

I love it when we get to review books. Those are becoming some of my favorite things to review so far. I'd Rather Be Your Mommy is an adorable picture book with soft, impressionistic illustrations, recently put out by Home School Adventure Co.

There are so many voices that say that a woman's time is best spent doing something, anything, outside the home, away from her children. I love that this story softly and gently teaches the importance of being the Mom, being present, and the joy that is available in child-rearing.

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“When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens ...prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses? When the surf of the centuries has made the great pyramids so much sand, the everlasting family will still be standing, because it is a celestial institution, formed outside telestial time. The women of God know this.” 
 -Neil A. Maxwell

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I decided to read the story to each of my kids, and caught the Peanut(4) first. We were given the digital book (there is a print version, too), and I do not love the digital format: I am a paper books girl. It's just not as snuggly to sit in front of a screen. But my girl, in her "fluffy princess dress" didn't mind. She sat on my lap, and when the story was done, she wanted to do it again right away. So we did. There is plenty in the lovely pictures to talk about. It was a good snuggle.

The next one I caught was Dragon(6). He'd seen me reading to Peanut, and wanted some of the same -- even on the computer chair, rather than the couch. We had a good time. Lots of tickles and kiss-attacks. Lots of giggles. It was while we were finishing up that I noticed that a portion of the sales of the book goes to Show Hope, which is a charitable organization that helps orphans find families, receive needed medical care while they wait, and they provide services to help with overcoming the effects of abuse, trauma, neglect, and early attachment injuries once the kids are placed with their families. That's pretty cool.

Hero is a big guy now: 10 years old and very nearly as tall as me. He made noise about squishing my lap flat as a pancake, but I told him I'd recover. I could tell that he was a little ambivalent about the whole thing -- but that he wanted to be included, too. So we had fun with it. He'd heard me read it to the little kids, and so I switched it up a little and inserted a couple stories about when he'd been a baby, which is always a hit. And it worked. We had a good time.

The book is beautiful, the story is beautiful, the illustrations are lovely. If you get it, I recommend the print version, so the kids can grab it off the shelf and bring it to you at storytime - the digital copy just doesn't work well for that kind of thing, and I think this book definitely has "favorite story" potential.

There's also a cute coloring book, and they've got some prints that would be fun decorations for a nursery wall or something like that. 



To see what other Homeschool Review Crew families thought of this book, and how they used it in their homes, click the banner below: