Something Worth Crying About

I wanted to post something really witty and clever that would make you laugh and make you think I was witty and clever but the truth is I just figured out how to work my dvd player this month and how is that witty and clever?

Mostly I am just singing Joseph songs in my head that sound really great in there and then I open my mouth and well, if Joseph could hear me I think he would be mostly glad to be sold into slavery and not have to listen to my singing. . . sigh. . .

I saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on my birthday 6-ish weeks ago.  You probably missed my birthday post because I didn't write it because I was just not feeling celebratory this year because who's to say that avoiding death and gaining a few pounds are great accomplishments?  Anywho, my friend called on my birthday and offered me tickets to Joseph because she couldn't use them.   I snatched those puppies up because that happpens to be my very favorite musical mostly because it is less than 2 hours long and the only corny songs in it are supposed to be corny.

Imagine my great surprise when the opening number started and I felt this huge building and swelling inside  that pushed the moisture right out of me just like the water show at the Bellagio, only it wasn't pretty.  It was mostly blubbery.  I attributed this to old-age, p.m.s., and Joseph's amazingly cut abs. 

But alas, when we took the kids 3 weeks later to see the show because we thought it was so awesome, the same thing happened.  I was a wreck, an emotional wreck.  Now I like to have a good cry, but not so much in public. 

I have since analyzed my emotional state and I have a theory.  This is the part where I wax all religious so I'm warning you.  Anywho, when I wasn't laughing at Joseph's brothers singing silly songs about Joseph wrassling with a goat, or those Canaan days, I was moved by the power of the story.  God knew Joseph.  Even in his darkest hours, God had a plan.  Joseph couldn't see it; I doubt he could fully imagine it.  But the plan was there.  And since God is no respecter of persons, this gives me great hope that God has a plan for me and for my friend in a wheelchair and for the orphans in Mexico and the lepers in India. 

Redemption.  Another powerful theme in Joseph.  Believe you me I was feeling the love when Joseph forgave his brothers and they could escape that awful nightmare of guilt they must have lived the last several years.  I never sold a sibling into slavery, but I did pin my sister to the ground and paint her entire face with peanut butter while I was babysitting.  She deserved it--just like Joseph.  She never told.  I don't think I ever apologized.  Oh, I'm sure I've done much worse.  Forgiveness folks is happy news.  The best kind of news.  The kind of news that leaves you crying for joy in the middle of a crowded theater.

Comfortable Shoes, Better than Fireworks

A couple of months ago Ric was driving me crazy. He was so annoying. So impatient. So critical. So selfish. He was pretty hard to live with. Then I started doing personal progress because I am a Young Women leader and that’s what young women do or are supposed to do. I started working on this goal, Divine Nature #3  and I chose Ric.

In less than 24 hours, I realized that the man walks on water. I was the “cat.” I was so annoying. So impatient. So critical. So selfish. So hard to live with.

Today I have been married to that man for 26 amazing years. I was not looking for him. When we met there were no fireworks, no butterflies in my stomach. (They came later) Finding Ric was like finding a long lost pair of my most favorite, broken-in shoes. So comfortable. I can’t imagine my life without him. I can’t imagine me without him.

Fireworks come and go, but comfortable shoes are hard to come by, especially if you’re going to wear them for 26+ years.

Hands

I read a book where the main character was obsessed with her hands because she believed that the appearance of her hands revealed much about her.

I have a scar on my right pinky finger that I got at Heritage Halls, my college dorm at BYU, after my roommate and I argued about cleaning the bathroom. As I was cleaning the sink, I cut my finger on the faucet.

When I was 7, I was waiting for my dad to come home and take me swimming. I was so excited to see him that I pushed the door handle with my right hand and the glass with my left, only the door was locked.

I don’t remember the shattering glass, just lots of blood, being scared, shaking, my dad wrapping my hand in a towel and the mad dash to the hospital—running red-lights—sitting snug and safe between my dad and uncle. Nothing is left from that moment, but the memory and three scars on my left palm.

I have age spots too. I got them when I was 21 after I delivered my first baby. The scars, the age-spots, the protruding veins, all say that I lived, right? My hands say that I did more than eat and take up space while on this planet. So hurray for me and my pockmarked hands!

One of my favorite quotes is by Majorie Pay Hinckley. It’s a little dated because if she was alive, she’d be 100 in November. But you get the idea.

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.

I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.

I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.

I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.

I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.

I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

— Marjorie Pay Hinckley



And yes I liked the book, Jacob Have I Loved, I gave it two blemished thumbs up.