Sunday, April 18, 2010

Look Up I Say Look Up

Once again I have had the chance to attend a Time Out For Women weekend. This is going to become my new habit I think. So much of my life is chaotic and this last week has been one I could have lived a million lifetimes without ever having had to endure but endure it I did. After the horrible start to the week, followed by an even worse midweek I was ready for it to come to an end. What I wasn't quite ready for though is for it to come to an end quite the way it did. I attended TOFW last year too so I thought I was prepared...guess that's what I get for thinking cuz um...yeah sorry so wasn't prepared.

Where was I headed next...lemme think...sorry my thoughts are still a little scattered right now. Oh yeah so Friday afternoon just moments before needing to walk out the door to join the girlies for TOFW 2010 I discover something that just leaves me feeling violated and angry all over again and I told Verizon I didn't even want to go. Go I did and I am so glad.

The drive up, or is it over? Over and up maybe? The drive to our TOFW venue taught me a couple of lessons. Adult women, when away from kids and husbands and crazy neighbors are really just teenagers in bigger bodies. We laughed and giggled and screamed in surround sound! It was so much fun. We arrive in the heart of the city and proceed to find our hotel but instead drive around and around and around and around and around and maybe around again. Finally we decide to just park and get our get our hind parts over to the convention center. As luck would have it, I wound up with FRONT ROW seats WOOT!

I need to back up a little bit though...back to that around and around thing. We couldn't find that dang hotel anywhere no matter how what we did. Being women we even stopped and asked for directions, but still couldn't find the hotel. As we left the parking garage and headed to the convention center we were forced to look up..or maybe we just naturally looked up...and right there in front of us just one block away was the hotel.

That experience kept coming to me over and over throughout the event but I didn't quite get it until Mercy River performed their closing song and after the last lyric was sung, they all stood there so beautifully heads lifted to the heavens. They looked up and then, at that precise moment in time, I knew where the prompting came from...

Had we have just looked up, we would have known the hotel was on our right and not our left. Had we have just looked up, we'd have known exactly how to get to where we wanted and needed to be, but it never occurred to us I guess and we remained off course.

I'm sure I'm the only one that this happens to, but when I'm down and discouraged the muscles in the my neck forget their function and my head drops. I find I look down way more than I do up. The plus side of this though is I do get to see a lot of fabulous shoes! I have always thought it was because maybe I wanted to hide the emotion in my face from those around me or because it is easier to pretend nothing's wrong when you don't make eye contact with people or the strange medical phenomenon that happens in my neck or a million other things. Or maybe, I look down to hide from the one person ready and willing and fully capable of helping me. It didn't occur to me that perhaps this was a the exact opposite of what I should be doing...looking up. Look up I say, look up.


Look Up I Say, Look Up
©Masked Marauder

When you can't see around the next bend
let alone the road's end
LOOK UP

When the light disappears from your day
and darkness appears intent to stay
LOOK UP

When you lose control and find doubt
when you feel stuck with no way out
LOOK UP

When you are out of courage and hope
when you lack the strength to even cope
LOOK UP

When you are surrounded by people yet you feel alone
when you want to just crawl under a big stone
LOOK UP

When you feel insecure and afraid
and wonder if you should have stayed
LOOK UP

When you find yourself weak
and unable to find any words you can speak
LOOK UP

Look up I say, look up to Him who knows
in His perfect like everything glows.

Look up to Him for courage and find strength
for your redemption he's suffered great length.

Look up to Him and find directions for life
certain to provide comfort no matter what your strife.

Look up I say, look up no matter how dark the day
look up and he'll show you the way.


It needs some work I know....

How many times in our lives do we drift a bit off course and look down or sideways instead of up? How many times do our struggles seem to difficult to bear and we lose our hope and our courage and our strength for no other reason than we fail to look up? How many times do we need answers and look to our friends, neighbors, family, the Internet, food, addiction, shopping, education, music, etc for the answers; answers that are often incorrect?

What if, instead of circling over and over in the wrong direction we'd have just pulled over and looked up to our Heavenly Father for his wisdom and guidance? Do you think He could have told us we were just a block off course and shown us exactly how to get where we needed to be? Do you really think He cares about us enough to help in all the little things? Of course, but then I wouldn't have had the inspiration to write this blog now would I?

Sunday, April 4, 2010

How they know

So I posed some questions to my children: "Do you know I love you by what I say or by what I do" and "What do I say or do that makes you KNOW I love you...here are their replies:

Mommy's Boy says:
I know you love my by what you do. You kiss my owies, you hug and kiss me, you protect me and keep me safe, you give me courage to be the better person and walk away when people are being mean, and sometimes you let us outside without tickets. You let us go to friends' houses when we're supposed to be doing our chores. You also say that you love us and show that you love us. You do the best as you can at being a mom. You discipline us. You buy us movies and that's all.

Sass Master says:
I know you love me by what you do and say. You take me to Panera by myself, you snuggle with us, you let us watch t.v. when we're supposed to be doing chores, you take us to the park and the zoo and you take us places we've never been. You tell us to keep our head up and you take us to scrapbooking stores and scrapbook with us. You let us have a kitty kat, you buy us fishies and give us packets so we can not be bored at General Conference and you let me share a room with you.

Come-back Queen says
: I know you love us because you care for us. You let us go outside when we're not supposed to, you take us to church, you teach us the gospel, you provide for us by giving us food, clothes, and a place to live, and you struggle to make it so we can get stuff. You share almost everything with us, you worry about us more than you worry about yourself, you try and take us swimming, and you try and give us as many vacations as you can. You create stuff for us like the amazing wall we have.