I love Christmas music.  The right music bears such a clear testimony of the Savior.  As I listen to the hymns and songs that bring the spirit, I am renewed.  I find joy and happiness in listening to them over and over again.  Music is such a purveyor of light or darkness.  It will calm my soul when little else will.  It comforts me and strengthens me.  It cheers me up.  I shared above a connection to a song that this seasons that bears testimony to me of the reality of the Savior.  

Terri

I couldn't watch the news tonight.  One hundred and forty four dead children and teachers.  Vengeance once more has reared its ugly head.  Vengeance brings out the worst in humans.  It breeds in humans darkness, anger, pain and suffering.  When God said vengeance was mine, He was protecting us from the worst in ourselves.  I have learned to tell myself to let God take care of the offender.  In my life, forgiveness has opened the door to relief and healing.  I will never understand how an individual can knowingly be so dark and evil as to take such evil revenge on innocent children.  

     Jeff Benedict, a writer in New York and a Mormon, has one of the best articles on families and sons or daughters with same-gender attraction.  I really encourage people to read it.  It has been a help to me and reinforces conclusions that our family came to.    http://www.jeffbenedict.com/index.php/blog/35-blog/378-maybe-ill-meet-a-girl.  I cannot make choices for my son.  But I can love him and keep him near to us so that he is safe with us and hopefully someday will consider coming back to church.   He has had good and bad experiences with Mormons.  We hope there will be those who choose to love him and see all the good in him.  We see the hand of the Lord in his life and we are so grateful for that.  God remembers all of his children.
Terri

     As you can tell I am tinkering with my template.  And I haven't posted a new blog for a while.  Life just gets too busy to do it every week.  
     I have a list of favorite books.  One of them is Jeffrey Holland's Trusting Jesus.  I was reading it again.  Not all of it.  But I came across a section I would like to quote."John Donne said once:  "We ask our daily bread, and God never says, 'You should have come yesterday'…)No, he says,)'Today if you will hear my voice, today I will hear yours'…If thous hast been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damp and benumbed, smothered and stupefied, til now, God yet comes to thee, not as in the dawning of day…but as the sun at (full) noon, to banish all shadows.'  Elder Holland continues "My witness is that He will deliver all the rest of us, too, that He will deliver the entire human family, if we will but "Take of sacred things."  How easily we are distracted.  The Sabbath, prayers, etc, are all meant to help us stay focused on what matters most.  On from where help, strength and comfort will come.  To not forget He who loves us so extraordinarily unconditionally.   Just a few thoughts.  Have a great day.  
    Terri

     I pray at night that my family will find joy in life.  That we will see all that is good in the people around us and in the world around us.  Sometimes it is so difficult to do that.  So here is my joy list for the week.

1.  Climbing up Mill-B North last Saturday before the cold and once more beholding the beauty of God's handy work.  

2.  Having Sally return to school after being ill for a week.

3.  Esther announced that she had a baby in her belly button after her mother told her she had a baby in her tummy.

4.  My 89 year-old mother had a pace maker put in this week.  Waking up the morning after the surgery in the hospital, she asked the nurse how she got there and who talked her into this.   

5.  Finishing report cards.

6.  Having a break from school while Mom was in the Hospital.

7.  My husband stayed home one day with Mom so I could go back to school.

8.  My daughter came and helped Mom.

9.  Having a week free from pain.

10.  Looking at the warm colors of a fleece blanket I bought at REI.  

11.  Seeing Beck be so generous with Andrew when they were playing Legos.  That has not always been so.  Someone is growing up.  

12.  Remember Zara, my friend from Iran.  

13.  Walking from the cold into a warm house.  A pleasure I remember feeling and loving as a child.  

14.  Having a prophet of God on the earth.

15.  Going to the temple.  I go there to be renewed.  It renews my spirit.  I just go there to be.  To relish the feeling.  To be close to my former home.

16.  Talking to my son-in-laws mother.  I call her Moma Bear.  I love her!!!!!

17.  Hearing that Brent's father's rashes are easing.

18.  I have a sister-in-law who has spent the last seven weeks caring for her aging parents.   

19.  Knowing my husband is there to give me a blessing when I want to fall off the cliff emotionally.

20.  Knowing that Heavenly Father loves me, even when I want to knock a few people across the room.  He helps me get those feelings under control.

21.  And so it goes on and on.

I hope you will be blest and find the joy around you!!

Terri

     Yesterday I googled LDS.org.  When it came up there was a clip on suicide.  To me it spoke of the importance of support for those who struggle with mental illness.  Just as a heart will not work right, so can a brain not work right.  That can have devastating effects to an individual's life.  It effects every part of their lives.  It is something they do not ask for.  Many people who are not involved in drugs and who have not been abused suffer from genetic depression.  It destroys their self esteem and confidence.  
     Prior to moving to Salt Lake, I had little experience with mental illness.  Our oldest daughter had a ten month old baby and a very active 2 year old.  Her husband was finishing up graduate school.  It became very clear after moving here that Leann was suffering from a very serious postpartum depression.  It would take her visits to the hospital, over 60 electric convulsive treatments and trying many drugs before she would find some happiness and some normalcy again.  (Finding the right drug combination can be very frustrating and take a long time.)   
     Eight years later, we relish every day she smiles and feels good.  As I watched that clip I thought about how many people surrounded Leann and supported her.   I am convinced that what saved her were those who surrounded her.  Her family.  Her husband's family. (We owe them so much.)  Visiting teachers who "get" mental illness.  And a husband who never gave up on her. (He has a gold throne in heaven.)   
    I am grateful to Leann for never breaking the commandments.  For never self medicating or abusing her drugs.  She is my heroine.  Her therapist said that in the end, when we see what she has become because of what she has endured, we will be surprised at the glory of her countenance.  We have watched countless tender mercies.    
     It has tried my faith to no end.  To watch her suffer.  To see her long to have her self esteem and confidence back.  To have it go on and on.  I had to finally be able to say, "Just help me live with her struggles.  Thy will be done."  
     Time has a way of working things out.  God stuck with me through my anger, my fears, my doubts, my falling off the emotional cliff countless times.  (Thank heavens for Brent.)  I know the Savior lives.  I know that he stands by us in our darkest hours.  Your acceptance, friendship and support could save a life someday.  

     Thursday morning about 12:30 AM, I was having a discussion with God.   I was in so much pain I was sure death would be better.  My bladder was screaming at me.  I was having a flare up of my inflamed bladder.  (No one knows what causes it or really how to heal it.  Relieving the pain can be difficult.)   I was discussing my faith.  Of course I wanted instant relief from the pain, but it went on. 
       I got out of bed and knelt down.  I explained to Him I had parent teacher conferences tomorrow.  I just didn't feel like my faith made any difference.  I tried to explain that when I or someone I love is in the middle of suffering, I am the champion of doubts.  Of wondering if my faith is not adequate and that is why the suffering goes on.  I told Him sometimes He is a mystery to me.  To please be patient with my struggles to have some kind of faith.  It just didn't seem to be getting me any relief.  
     It did ease somewhat and I finally went back to sleep after an hour, but woke up a lot.   I could hardly get out of bed in the morning.  I asked Brent for a blessing.  He promised me I would have the health and strength to do my parent teacher conference and teach. I went to work. (I got the gem of a husband.)   I started feeling better little by little.  By the end of the day I felt much better and had completed my conferences.  It always works that way.  
     I am a line upon line, precept upon precept person.  There is no instant miracles.  But it comes as a warm summer breeze.  I do feel that God is patient with my doubts, my growing pains and my ernest desire to have greater faith.  Elder Bednar of the Mormon Church gave a great talk about having the faith not to be healed.  I have attached it below.
     I am not healed and my never be, but the Savior does sustain me when I am having a flare.  I am really so much better than I was in January.  I do know now the pain will eventually recede and that He will ease and sustain me in my illness.  Whenever I need comfort and strength He will lead me to where I need to go to find it.  The Savior lives.

     Have a great week and may we find joy!
     Terri

https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/ces-devotionals/2013/01/that-we-might-not-shrink-d-c-19-18?lang=eng

    Prior to moving to Salt Lake,  all of our children came to New York to see our son who had recently returned from his LDS mission in Indonesia and to see New York one more time before we moved.  They had all been raised there.  We went on Friday evening to the new LDS Temple in Manhattan.  It was a joyous occasion.  Everyone was happy and thriving.  I thought now our kids were raised, passed the teenage years,  all would be well and life would be bliss.  It was a moment of insanity for me to think that.  I came to realize as post partum depression engulfed our daughter, loss of my husband's job, a son who chose a gay lifestyle, moving, my mother moving in with me and a very stressful teaching job, that life never gets easier.  Challenges come in waves that ebb and flow.  I struggled.  As a mother it was hard not to let my children's challenges consume me.  I wanted to be able to fix them.  A very wise friend and counselor helped me realize that all of the thinking, stressing and worrying would not fix it.  That I had to let go.  I was in the cheering section.  They were in the playing field.  My job was to love them and to find joy in my life.  To see all that I did have. 

      The Book of Mormon wisely teaches us that "Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy."  I begin praying eight years into my daughter's struggle with mental illness that God would help her to find joy.  I longed to hear her laugh.  To know joy.  I learned to accept that things might never changed and to pray that I learn how to live with that. 

     My son is still gay.  That is his choice.  But I can love him.  I can keep him close so that he will open up to me when he needs to.  My daughter is finding joy and doing much better.  I still struggle with stress.  I have listed below two talks of two of my favorite LDS leaders.  They are a great strength to me.  I hope they help you.  My we all find joy!

Terri

 http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1941Elder (D.Todd Christofferson's CES Fireside Talk called "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread.  This is one of my favorite all time talks. ) 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/grateful-in-any-circumstances?lang=eng" ("Grateful in Any Circumstances" by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf)

 

The Beginning

     I am a new blogger!  Why am I blogging?  Because I hope to be of help to some people who struggle with what our family has dealt with.  Depression, Same Gender Attraction, life and Interstitial Cystitis.  
     Yes, I am a devout Mormon grandmother who has the cutest grandchildren known to man.  I loveeeeeeee teaching first grade.  (I have no hobbies.  Only teaching!)  I miss the diversity of New York City. We lived in Westchester County for 27 years.  There I discovered how many amazing people there are wherever you go.  That they come in all shapes, colors, sizes, religions and nationalities. 
    I have learned of the great love God and his son Jesus Christ has for each one of use.  I have learned he is not condemning.  He excepts me where I am. He sees all of my possibilities, even when I cannot see them. When I cannot sleep because of pain, he eases my pain and reassures me He is mindful of me and loves me, even though he may not heal me now of Interstitial Cystitis.
      So, may we all find joy amid the trials of life!! 

      Terri