Right With the Lord

It was the fifth Sunday today and our new Bishop, Bishop Wells gave the joint Priesthood/Relief Society lesson. He talked about the last days and all the anxieties that could and can affect us. What we all need to remember is the Lord is in control, and if we give ourselves over to God in terms of living the gospel and being obedient and perhaps most difficult, trusting God to do what He says He will do, then there won't be anything we can't handle.

I'm in two choirs right now - my own Tropicana Ward and also Hacienda Ward. The Hacienda ward choir will be performing for both wards on the 14th. I had made sure it was the 2nd Sunday before I went to rehearse with them so it wouldn't conflict with the 3rd Sunday where I teach in Relief Society. Sister Enrico asked me today if I could teach my lesson on the 2nd Sunday instead as they have a special lesson prepared. She was going to check with her board and see if they could switch the special lesson to the 14th since I'd already made the choir commitment. It would probably be ok if I didn't sing for the Hacienda program, but I don't like backing out if I can help it.

Tithing settlement was this evening as well. I got a chance to visit with the Bishop and declare that I was a full tithe payer. He asked about what blessings I'd seen from paying tithing and I couldn't point to any specific blessing and say that was from paying tithing - but I do know that a whole lot of blessings come from it. It might be a blessing of protection - the destroyer passed by and didn't come in. I'd never know that happened, but it would be a blessing. Moderating challenges, having sufficient for my needs, health, and so much more.

I am going to pay more attention to the blessings I receive and the impressions I sometimes get regarding the reasons they enter my life. The Lord is so good to me.

More Rain and Quiet Thanksgiving

A wonderful day with more rain in the desert. I love how it smells during and after a rain storm, it's one of the best smells in the world.

I was coughing off and on today so opted out of the places I could go on this Thanksgiving Day. It may have been nothing, but I didn't want to give anyone a cold for the holiday season.

It was a day for finishing up a knitting project, making refrigerator bread dough, doing Family Search indexing and loving on the cats.

I need to cook up the turkey breast I bought earlier in the week sometime over this extended week.

Tonight will be a prayer just of thanksgiving. I have a home, and the gospel, a reliable car and financial security. I have friends and cats and scriptures and the blessings of the resurrection and atonement of Jesus Christ. I have skills for blessing others and my own enjoyment. I have health. I had a wonderful childhood with goodly parents and noble ancestors.

It's worthwhile to ponder sometimes and just focus on all that the Lord has given me. The more often I do it the more I recognize blessings and tender mercies every day of my life.

It's Raining

I love the rain. When the alarm went off, and Shadow took up his post on the headboard, ready to paw the clock if I didn't get up in the requisite 9 minutes I heard the sound of rain, and water running off the roof. Bee-uuu-tii-fulll sound.


Shadow on the Top of the Headboard

Living in a desert we don't see rain very often, and it's even less now than when I first moved here. Some years we get rain in the summer, sometimes it's in the winter. I'm hearing the rain fall as I type this and smelling that wonderful scrubbed clean air. I went to get my umbrella, and of course its not where I knew it was, so time for a bit of a hunt I guess, but right now I get to go scritch Sachi - she's wanting attention and doesn't come to me for it. I have to go to her.


Sachi Being Beautiful

It's a short day at work for me too, by 11:00am I'll have put in my 24 hours of work this week. I like those sorts of days.

Good Friends

My friends and neighbors, the Burdens came over yesterday and did some yardwork for me. Greg had asked me at church on Sunday if they could come by and I agreed. It was dark when I arrived home so I couldn't see all that they had done, but the front lawn was mowed and there were several bags of trash as well as a couple of trash cans out at the curb.


A before shot of the front yard

I could have done all this myself, but I'd had months to get to it and didn't so I'm grateful for the love and service they gave me. They are good and wonderful people.


An Aftershot

Dewey the Cat and Shadow the Cat

I was reading a book today about a library cat named Dewey Readmore Books, rescued from a book drop as a starved frostbitten kitten. He changed the lives of many in good ways by his life and affection. The author of the book and the 'owner' of Dewey realized that all through his life she had held him and he had held her. He died in his 19th year in her arms as the vet sent him to the next life.

Shadow is for me as Dewey was for her. He came into my life in 2005 just months after the end of my 30 year marriage. He has been a loving companion and unconditional support through all the dark days. He waits for me to come home, he prefers to eat only when I'm with him, he sleeps on my shoulder when I'm sitting and by my side when I sleep. If he's not next to me he's where he can see me.



God blessed me with Him. He is a tender mercy from a loving Heavenly Father, a little gray abandoned kitten that has become a strength and a joy in every day of my life. Even now he is stretched on my shoulder, purring.

The First Commandment first

... which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. (JKV Matthew 22:36-37)

We live in a world where good people are filled with confusion about what is right and what is not. We are appropriately encouraged to treat each other kindly, to be tolerant of differences, to be respectful of every human being.

Toleration does not mean we must agree. Toleration does not mean we must accept behavior or teachings that are contrary to our beliefs. Toleration means we allow others to be different from us, not that we roll over, give in, and surrender when beliefs and institutions are threatened.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (JKV Matthew 22:39)

Noble as this second commandment is - it is the second commandment, not the first. If in an effort to love our neighbors we abandon the first commandment, then we've got things backwards. Our loyalty and obedience belongs first to God and His teachings. We cannot keep faith with God if we abandon the laws He has given us in an attempt to "love" our neighbor. That is why we must always love one another, but never accept sin against God's laws as ok.

The Great War

And Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (JKV Revelation 12:7-9)

The battles we fight today against the will of God are part of that same war begun before we ever came to earth. Wherever there is hatred, or contention, wherever there is evil calling itself good and good being called evil there is a battle in this war. Wherever good people do nothing while other good people are under siege, there is another front in the conflict. Wherever we try to sit on the fence and not be involved, there the dragon grins, for apathy is as good a tool in his arsenal as is activism.

The final outcome of this war is certain. What is right and good will prevail, the devil and his angels will be cast out where they no longer tempt and confuse and lead away the Children of God. The only question we really need to ask is this: What side am I fighting on?