Sunday, May 20, 2012

I'm Back! Rejoicing in more blessings than ever! (don't miss bottom for the big news)

Hi My Friends! So glad to be back on blogger tonight! Waiting for Isaac to get home from Prom and the rest the house is asleep. With the long nap my husband gave me today and the fact that we went our for dinner tonight and morning (or all day) sickness is a little abated right now, I'll take the opportunity to write. Life's been wonderfully full the past few months. (leaving very few minutes to write about it!-please forgive my not staying in touch!) It got much fuller in February when we welcomed Paige to the family. Adding a ninth child, even at age 17, added a lot to the schedule. It's been a fantastic experience for us to have her and she's added a lot of fun, ideas, happy helping and growing to our fam. We've felt the blessings pour down before in dramatic, historic weeks but may I tell you about our last one? It's that time of year, March through May, when I buckle down and hold on tight, hoping to survive the exciting, but turbulent ride each spring - 7 girls bdays (added Paige's to that this year), Easter, the play, end of school year projects, concerts, trips and tests, the annual stake service project and stake conference, just generally, overall, more than I can keep up with. Though with experience and age, and my baby girl turning 4 I've handled it with near perfect tranquility this year...until the climax last week! All anticipation for big bday week this year - Emily and Anna turning 16, Esther turning 8, getting BAPTIZED! My Mom and brother and family would be arriving at the beginning of the week for all the festivities, Kara coming in Wednesday and my sister and fam with us and other sister and fam coming up for the weekend baptism. SO SPECIAL! But wow, I had no idea what a week it would be! Imagine the delight of my twins turning 16. I must admit, in all the joy and excitement of their births 16 years ago, I never could have imagined how delightful, gorgeous, shining, amazing, talented, and truly loving my girls would be now. I am SO PROUD of them!!! I love them more than I could have imagined when the nurse laid them in my arms for the first time - oh! and HOW I LOVED them THEN!!! So Mike and I were proud and excited for these two to be reaching the long-awaited milestones of 16 in our home - dating and driving permits. Mike took each of them individually on their first date, and then they were immediately booked - out for a first date with guys they really liked and having all the fun they'd been waiting for! Esther had been anticipating her baptism for months - palpable excitement. Such a joy to see that beaming testimony of Christ, His church and the sheer joy and enthusiasm to make her baptismal promises and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. We planned carefully and that special event was everything and more than I thought it would or could be. Such a sacred memory for me already. The dates and wonderful baptism event were seperate from the nights we celebrated with parties - a pony came as a gift for Esther's birthday(which in and of itself was enough excitement for several months!) and a big barn dance was the celebration for the 16 year olds. Such a joyful week! It reminded me of the Sunday that I had 3 girls in white, Emily and Anna baptized and confirmed and Esther blessed the same weekend. That had been remarkable to me. I remember it in reverent thankfulness. I thought it could not be topped. But then there was the couple months of amazement - Mike put in as bishop, our sweet Clara 'delivered', Mike put in as stake president and to top it all off a surprise foal born to our new and favorite horse - one noone had been expecting! That was really quite the amazing time in the family history books, but... As Mike and I and my Mom and sister Kristi entered the ultrasound room Friday morning of this same delightful week of counting our blessings and immediately beheld 2 babies on the screen as he scanned my ONE belly, we topped the charts again for 'most amazing weeks ever'!!! I am still overcome by the news. TWINS!!! Unbelievable. I was overcome with the loving kindness and tender mercy of the Lord in the abundance with which He pours out His blessings. (I know we each go through difficult times of loss and sorrow, we all hit our great challenges in the road and have important choices to make, but it seems as we continue to strive to follow our God the best we can, to keep His commandments, do our best, He simply pours out blessings. There is always an amazingly beautiful rainbow after the storm and our world is new and more beautiful than before. He has promises ahead we cannot imagine if we put our trust in Him, do our best to follow Him.) We are thrilled for this little finale to our family! We are thrilled these two little ones will have each other - as Clara will be nearly 5 when they are born and in this fam one cannot IMAGINE being that isolated from one's siblings! LOL! I truly feared for a moment the news would just be too much for my girls -thought their hearts might really burst with the joy of it!- wish you all could have seen it - screams, tears, hugging and hugging and hugging, falling to the ground and hugging some more as more tears of joy overflowed! What a joyful moment!!! How even more exceptional to get to share that with some of our family and friends. As I lay here right now I can feel the soft tumbling of the babies within - keeping me company already. Isaac just came in and reported on a gloriously beautiful prom night - he went with someone he really likes too, so everythings a lot of fun around here that way these days! ;) Our days (and nights too sometimes!) are full, rich with blessings (and challenges!) I am soooo grateful for all of it! Great to catch up a little! Our LOVE to you and yours!!!! Watch for those amazing rainbows!! Lv, CaMarie

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Best Benefits of Scripture Study! (also see Seminary 100 yrs post)

Through seminary we also get the benefits of consistent scripture study. The students are challenged to read on their own at home but we spend our hour at 6 am together studying the scriptures also and WOW!- the results are real and more desirable than anything else. They let us feel the Love of God. Here are some of those benefits we found as we studied this week: "Power to Prosper! (Josh 1:8),Power to overcome evil (1 Nephi 15:24), Power to live righteously (Alma 4:18), Power to teach convincingly (Alma 17:2-3), Power to call down the powers of heaven (Jacob 4:6), Power to change the heart and disposition (Helaman 15:7), Increased hope and joy (Romans 15:4), Increased spirituality (Alma 31:5) Increased knowledge and understanding (2 Nephi 32:3), Increased power of discernment (Helaman 3:29) Increased testimony (D&C 18:36), and a light to see clearly our way(Ps 119:105). The list goes on and on!

Book of Mormon Benefits!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

He uses 'weak' things...

I've felt so especially 'weak' lately, my faults seeming magnified in front of me. I've ached over my mistakes, the tasks I've left undone, or visits I haven't been able to make (2 friends in the hospital last week) and my heart has only hoped for Heaven's pardon.

Sunday afternoon when I got frustrated with one of my children, my own faults and shortcomings seemed more than I could bear and a literal weight set in on top of me. Now how to accomplish my tasks? It seemed my strength was sapped. Completely.

Thankfully a kind Lord knows and sent a friend to visit the next day. By the end of our fun and stimulating conversation I was lifted again - felt fresh and renewed like the flowers she had brought me. But of course by late night, when all my responsibilities were not done and exhaustion was setting in so did my feelings of 'weakness'.

My husband came to my rescue and said he would teach the seminary lesson this morning. And through the things he taught, as I quietly made the breakfast he usually provides for our family and the students, I learned the lesson I needed to remember.

"The Lord can use the 'weak things of the earth' to accomplish His great works." We studied Gideon whose 'family was poor in Manasseh', who said he was 'the least in [his] father's house'. He only had 300 men, but their hearts were right, and with the help of the Lord, they defeated the armies of the Midianites.

After class I sat down to type a quote from the seminary manual for the students to keep. As I reread it, I recommitted myself to remembering and believing it. "The Lord can do remarkable miracles with a person of ordinary ability who is humble, faithful, and diligent in serving the Lord and seeks to improve himself. This is because God is the ultimate source of power."

I do believe it. With all my heart. "The Lord is my strength" has become our family's familiar saying when we have to arise at 4 am to accomplish the days work, or when my husband is called to operate late into the night after an already overfull and exhausting day, or when we do not know which of the 5 most pressing needs of the hour we should try to accomplish first.

We have come to know that turning to the Lord for help, strength, and wisdom beyond our own yields great and real rewards. Somehow He always parts our own personal 'Red Sea' and and sees us through.

Thankful to remember that this morning.

Love, CaMarie

Thursday, January 19, 2012

SEMINARY is AWESOME!!! Happy 100 years!!!

It never ceases to amaze me what a WONDERFUL blessing and opportunity seminary is EVERY DAY!!!! I am in awe of the whole thing. It is such a powerful force for good in each of our lives - students and teachers! I am overwhelmed so many times with admiration for these 17 or so youth (ages 14-18) that wake up earlier than 5 am to be to class at 6 am.
So many days & nights I do not know how I will have the material prepared for the next day, but through the miraculous blessings of the Lord, His completely inspired program, the support of my wonderful husband & literally relying on the Lord's power to make my weak offering enough, I come away uplifted and grateful every single morning! Hoping the students do too! ;)

Studying the Old Testament this year has been an amazing eye opener for me. I've been so surprised, again and again, to find the roots and reasons of everything our religion practices - it's all in there - from temple worship (which begins with Adam building an alter and offering prayer, to Jacob's temple in the wilderness "Beth-el", to the tabernacle used by the children of Israel in the wilderness those 40 years, and continues on to Solomon's Temple and to the Temples of the New Testament, to the Temples of our day -about 150 worldwide and counting!) All for the same purpose & all with the same reminders of who we are, why we came, where we are going, all with the same opportunity to make sacred covenants with the Lord! - to the call of the Seventy (the Lord directed Moses to call the Seventy when his responsibilities became to great, in the New Testament Jesus refers to the Seventy of His day and today the Seventy in our church have the same role - to do what the first presidency and twelve apostles need them to do in order to fulfill their great, even overwhelming responsibilities). Our prophets and apostles and bishops are all called in the same way Joshua was called when Moses' mission was complete - the same way Christ called and set apart the apostles of His day -by revelation from God and by the laying on of hands the Lord 'gives him of that same spirit'. So neat to see the patterns of the Lord's dealings with the children of men from the beginning of the Bible to the Book of Mormon of our day. I LOVE it!!!
!

Through seminary we also get the benefits of consistent scripture study. The students are challenged to read on their own at home but we spend our hour at 6 am together studying the scriptures also and WOW!- the results are real and more desirable than anything else. They let us feel the Love of God. Here are some of those benefits we found as we studied this week: "Power to Prosper! (Josh 1:8),Power to overcome evil (1 Nephi 15:24), Power to live righteously (Alma 4:18), Power to teach convincingly (Alma 17:2-3), Power to call down the powers of heaven (Jacob 4:6), Power to change the heart and disposition (Helaman 15:7), Increased hope and joy (Romans 15:4), Increased spirituality (Alma 31:5) Increased knowledge and understanding (2 Nephi 32:3), Increased power of discernment (Helaman 3:29) Increased testimony (D&C 18:36), and a light to see clearly our way(Ps 119:105). The list goes on and on!

I've been reading "Fire in His Bones" by Michael Wilcox thanks to my sister who shared it with me over New Years. It has left me even more in awe of the wonderful work of God. I am grateful beyond words for the men and women who were willing to put everything else, including their lives, at stake (many times literally burned there) so that we can have the word of God in front of us to study, use, REMEMBER, drink from daily.

The blessing of strength, joy, guidance and refuge that studying the scriptures in seminary is for our teenagers now is AWESOME. I stand all amazed! We are lovin' seminary every day! Happy 100 years to the seminary program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!!!!!