It's an umbrella day.

Oh, life. Some days just take it out of me. Knock me off my feet, scare me blind. Then friends caught me when I fell, steadied my umbrella-holding hand, and ameliorated the storm for me and for everyone I try to keep under my umbrella. Except I'm learning how very much that umbrella isn't mine at all, but God's. I am the steward. Under His eye I learn to turn the umbrella just so to hold out the worst of the storm. Deep inside, where my breath is rapid and my heart beats fast and the interior liquid motion is found, exists a well of gratitude, deep and still, for those surprisingly steady influencers who stand by to lift and watch and hold me and my umbrella.


Grateful, too, for the gentle voice of the Holy Ghost in reassuring me. Grateful for the healing and peace that is restored thereby. I remember something I read once, a lesson taught President Henry B. Eyring by his father, who was dying of cancer. Of his father, he wrote, 

One night when I was not with him and the pain seemed more than he could bear, he somehow got out of bed and on his knees beside it--I know not how. He pled with God to know why he was suffering so. And the next morning he said, with quiet firmness, "I know why now. God needs brave sons."

I know too, God needs brave sons and strong daughters and strong sons and brave daughters. He needs children who will hold out an umbrella and who will be willing to get caught in the storm by doing so. And if that's the errand He needs run, I'll run it. I'm just unspeakably relieved that I don't run it alone. 

Winnie-the-Pooh, that gentle bear

"Some people care too much. I think it's called love."

A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

http://timeitneedstime.blogspot.com/2011/10/mother-knows-best.html

If this doesn't get you in the mood for Conference...

October 2011 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Holding on and letting go

Imagine.
Imagine a dream the size of the ocean--
Build it and breathe it and let it go.

And letting go, then dream again.
Dream a dream as high as a mountain--
Build it and breathe it and watch it go.

Then one time more,
Forge a dream as grand as the sky--
Build it and breathe it and never let it go.

Economics Class is Fun

“It’s funny how this major changes you. We make you socially inept. You’re much more likely to cause problems in future Relief Society or Elder's Quorum meetings. You’re much more likely to say something that will just bring everybody’s wrath down upon you.” Dr. Showalter

“I’m in the operating room, and a little disconcerting, cause they were just blaring country music…somehow that didn’t fit the picture I had in mind…” Dr. Showalter

"How do you say 'sun umbrella' in English?"

Today I saw something I never thought I'd see. I walked out of my afternoon class to see a woman carrying an umbrella to protect herself from the sun. This is a sight I've seen many times before, but usually in Taiwan or mainland China and always, always the woman is Asian. But this woman looked more Nordic than anything with her blonde hair and tall nose. I would have stopped to take a picture if I had thought I could get away with it, but even so, she had me smiling all the way home.

Once I was asked by a Taiwanese person what the English equivalent for "sun umbrella" is. I told the person that we don't have such a thing. Maybe I'd better go find that person and revise my statement.

Here?

Of all the things they planted here,
        the ones in this lone corner
                  seem most queer.
Stuff young and old
and black and white--
Both everything of day and night.

Of all the places far and near,
How did I end up here?