FORGIVENESS ROCK-another humiliating and hilarious story

A few years ago I was serving in the Primary and I was in charge of presenting sharing time.  The theme I was to address was about forgiveness so I planned to use to the story about the man who puts a rock in his pocket every time someone does something mean to him or makes him mad.  He carries those rocks around so he can remember all the reasons to be angry with people.  The rocks have a negative effect on him and begin to weigh him down and fill his house just like when we don’t forgive others. 

I decided I would use a backpack and fill it with rocks so that the kids could see how heavy being unforgiving gets.  While at Bear Lake I collected boulders of all sizes and wrote on them with permanent marker things that would be hard to forgive for children and adults.   I put such things as; “friend broke my favorite toy,” “friend said something mean about me to other people”, “had an argument with spouse”, “friend pushed me and made me fall and scrape my knee”, “teenager told me a lie about how the car got damaged”, “church leaders offended me with their counsel” etc. etc. 

I had one child put the backpack on and called up other children one at a time to pick a rock and read it and then put it in the backpack.  The child holding the backpack quickly got weighed down with the heaviness of the rocks.  By the time all the rocks were in there he couldn’t walk at all and the backpack looked like it wouldn’t hold.  Anyway it was a very effective forgiveness sharing time and went well for all ages. 

Well that is only a small part of this story.  Many weeks later we were headed to our favorite town parade with my parents, sisters and their families.  I needed to save our spot on the street with a blanket and it was pretty breezy so I grabbed some of those boulders to set in the corners of the blanket.  The parade was delightful and when it was over I asked my kids to make sure we got all our belongings and the rocks.  They assured me we had and we headed to our car. 

The next day I got a phone call from my brother in law telling me that one of my rocks had been left behind and caused a stake president and his first counselor a sleepless night!  Panic filled my heart as I listened to him recount the happenings of his early morning meeting with the stake presidency. 

As the high council began their meeting,  the stake president set a large rock on the table with writing on it that said, “my church leaders offended me with their counsel.”  He said, “Brethren we have offended someone and we have to get to the bottom of this.”  He recounted finding  the rock in his yard the previous evening, reading it and quickly taking it over to his counselor’s house to show it to him.   He worried that someone had tried to throw it at his house.  The two of them spent most of the night trying to figure out what member of their stake it could have been.  One of them even made a list of possibilities and went through it name by name trying to remember exact conversations and interactions. 

As soon as my brother-in-law saw the rock he knew where it had come from and quickly let him know that is was a very big misunderstanding and I was the owner of the rock.

He took a picture of the stake president holding the rock and sent it to me.  By then apparently the story was funny but it took weeks for it to be funny to me.  I felt so horrible.  I made brownies and wrote a note of apology and delivered them that evening with the intention to leave them on the doorstep and RUN!  Just as I laid them on the porch the stake president opened the door.  Oh the humiliation!

The incident was handled with such kindness and humor and I was so thankful for the forgiveness I received for leaving the “forgiveness rock” in his yard!

 

 

CONGRATULATIONS, the holidays are over AND you lived to tell about it!

I was so proud of myself that through the busy, stressful and chaotic holiday season I only had two breakdowns.  That is an improvement on last year's four and five  the year before that.  Next Christmas  I will shoot for one and maybe with any luck by 2015 I will be down to none!  Always aim high!

All that being said, one evening while driving in the car with my 10 year old son, I asked him what his favorite thing about Christmas was.  Without any hesitation he said, "the joy."  His simple yet profound answer caught me off guard as I expected many other things to come out of his 10 year old mouth.  It gave me pause to ask myself if I was feeling the "joy" of the season. I hadn't been seeing all the joy through all the shopping, wrapping, planning, cooking, cleaning, decorating, delivering, etc. etc. and decided then and there to shape up.  I also thought that despite the chaos and stress every mother feels during the month of December, I had apparently hid it from him and that was a really good accomplishment!  I'm too am grateful for all the joy of the Christmas season and hope it will carry over into 2014!


For me Christmas success is measured in shouts of joy or tears of complete love for the perfect gift.  I plan all year for those kind of reactions and this year did not disappoint.

 


Another most exciting thing was the ever so brief moment when my 10 year old saw the sleigh tracks, reindeer tracks and Santa footsteps to the front door, and I saw him revert to a little child and believe.  We called him outside and he came with disgust and a "I'm too old for this stuff," attitude but as he saw the "evidence," his face changed and wonder filled his eyes.  It was worth the work I went to even if it was brief.  Maybe even my teenagers had a second where they wondered if it could be real and the magic tickled their heart just a little.

I ended up using a PVC pipe to make the sled tracks and a baseball bat (handle end) to make the reindeer tracks. It worked pretty good. 

Naked Mother Saves Children in Driveway

Not all my posts will be this long but this first one had to be!  It's well worth the read!

“NAKED MOTHER SAVES CHILDREN IN DRIVEWAY”
Had anyone been brave enough to claim they had seen me, this would have been the headline for the dreadful day in May when as a mother of 3 young children—ages 2, 4, and 6—I went outside in a towel and shower cap to rescue my two year old from a “hole.”

After a busy morning of mothering duties I finally got all three children outside playing in the fenced backyard and decided I could quickly hop in the shower.  I gave them specific instructions to stay together and stay in the backyard.  Knowing I only had a few minutes and those minutes did not allow for a hair wash, I quickly threw my pink flowered shower cap on my head.  Just as I began to lather myself with soap and almost enjoy the hot water descending upon me, my six year old Jonathan, ran into the bathroom shouting, “Mom, Mom! Nate (my two-year-old) is stuck in a hole and can’t get out! Come quick!”

My mind filled with tragic visions of 18 month old Jessica Morales from Texas that had fallen in a well in 1989 and was trapped there for 58 hours.  I knew we did not have those kind of wells in Farmington, Utah, but all logic left my mind; clearly indicated by my flinging the shower curtain open, grabbing a towel hanging from a nearby hook, wrapping it quickly around me and dashing down the stairs to the backyard with my son following close behind me. 

As I ran to the back door he shouted, “no mom, not the back, the front.”  Once again no thinking took place only the desperate desire to save my child.  I ran out the garage door that led to the driveway.  At the end of the driveway was our blue Little Tykes van and in that van were two screaming children.  I dashed to the van and found Nate curled up in a ball pinned to the ground stuck in the “hole” where the feet are supposed to go.   My 4 year old daughter Addie was also curled up in a ball stuck in the back part of the van.  Neither could move and therefore Jonathan was unable to move the van from on top of Nate. 

Crouching down with one hand holding my towel securely around me, I used my other hand to try and grab onto Nate, he being the one screaming the loudest.  I could not move him in the position needed with one hand so I asked Jonathan to hold my towel.  He grabbed onto it and must have felt the grip he had wasn’t strong enough so he opened the towel up as wide as his arms would go and brought the towel back together to secure it tightly.  No matter what I tried I could not get Nate out.  If I rolled the van any way he only screamed louder.  In my panic I never once thought, “get Addie out first and lift the van off.”  Too bad hindsight can’t come sooner in a situation such as this. 

Suddenly Jonathan lost all interest in the crisis before us.  He let go of my towel and said, “this is taking too long.”  There I was very naked, except for the lovely shower cap, crouched in my driveway with 3 children and a green towel lying in a pile in front of me.  I grabbed the towel and with one hand held it up near my neck.  At least with the help of gravity it hung over the worst area in crouched position!  I used my other hand to continue my rescue.

 At last they were both free and only then did the reality of where I was and what I had just done hit me.  I became painfully aware of my nakedness, my shower cap and my cold, wet skin. I wave of panic washed over me and I looked in every direction to see if there were cars stopped, news reporters, neighbors scarred for life, etc.  Luckily, and thankfully, I saw no one.  I began to back up the driveway slowly keeping my eyes peeled for any movement.  Suddenly a bash to the head reminded me that there was a van parked in that driveway and I had just hit the rear view window. Tears started to flow. 

Jonathan’s interest had returned to my predicament and came to see what had happened.  He saw me and said in a completely disgusted voice, “MOM you should never go outside in just a towel and especially you should never go outside NAKED!” 

Now in full sobs I shouted, “And YOU should learn what a HOLE is!”

 

 

Several minutes later, still upset but dying to know, I called my two next door neighbors and asked them if they had seen anything going on in my driveway a while ago.  Thankfully neither had had the pleasure OR disgust of the episode!  Later that day I received a phone call from a man saying he was from the Farmington City Police Department and they had had a report of “indecent exposure” from someone at my address.  Again the tears came-my next stop was surely jail.

 The man exploded into laughter and told me that he was really my neighbor’s husband.  She had called him right away with the story and he could not resist the opportunity to scare me to death.

Days and weeks after whenever I would tell someone the story they would always ask, in disgust I might add, “why didn’t you just throw on a robe before you ran out there,” or, “Why didn’t you just look out the window first to see what the problem was,” or “Why didn’t you have Jonathan help you lift the kids out?” etc. 

Were these people mothers?  Had they ever felt the adrenaline that washes over you when you think your child is in trouble?- AND I didn’t own a robe!

 I think that is what makes mothers “mothers”-willing to give anything and do anything to protect, save and help their children.  Only Mothers are willing to “walk through a burning building” or crouch naked in a driveway. 





Look forward to my next posts filled with ideas for Christmas and special ways to help your children BELIEVE!


If you need an IDEA for SOMETHING/ANYTHING that is coming up with your family, just ask!