Spilled Cereal

I had a feeling that yesterday would be a long, hard day. A lot of things have been on Eric's and my mind lately and it was starting to take a toll. The day began with 3 bowls of cereal and milk being spilt during breakfast within 5 min. of each other. It seemed to just get worse from there. And the crazy thing was that I knew I was creating it all, through my stressful thoughts and choosing to be filled with fear. Old habits die hard I guess.

But somehow, through lots of prayer and lots of doing what I knew I had to do just because it was right, (even though I didn't feel like doing it), by the time evening rolled around, our home felt better. Things seemed and were brighter. And we all went to bed happy. Tender mercy? I think so.

Eric lead a large teacher panel discussion for over 50 students at the U of M yesterday. He's worked really hard on this and even though he felt a little out of sorts, it went well--another answer to prayer.

Josie was student of the day. Lucky girl got to do lots of things, like write sentences on the board. She was a little nervous but said she prayed in her mind and felt calm and happy. Way to go Josie!

Joshua has been pushing the twins to the limit lately. He tries to see how much they can handle before they cry. We've talked about this a lot. Joshua will suck on their fingers and then randomly bite them (not too hard, but enough to make them sad), and yesterday he sucked on Adam's cheek so hard he had a hickey the rest of the day. So, Joshua said that during the day he was sucking on Isaac's finger and thought he wanted to bite it, but then he didn't and listened to the Holy Ghost. That's my boy!

And me, well, it took a while for me to see it, but I realized that even during such a lame day, I was never alone. That despite of all my thoughts and struggles, I was being watched over. In the evening I came across this quote that I've thought a lot about today. President Lee said (when talking about Christ's beatitudes), "Blessedness is defined as being higher than happiness. Happiness comes from without and is dependent on circumstances; blessedness is an inward fountain of joy in the soul itself, which no outward circumstances can seriously affect." So all along I've been hoping for happiness and maybe I got it all wrong. But the idea of praying for this kind of blessedness (and the ability to be joyful in spite of everything that may be thrown at you), frightens me. I mean really, how much can I handle? I wonder if I'm ready to find out.