I’ve been on bedrest twice with two of my pregnancies.  With Engineer I had pre-eclampsia and was down for three weeks.  With Sugar I had "pre-term labor" (not sure how serious/legit it was since she was born at 40 weeks gestation) and was down for six weeks.  Bedrest is lonely, dull and difficult and I always longed for visitors who didn’t seem to come often enough.

I always try to understand purpose in my trials and what I gleaned from my bedrest experiences (aside from healthy babies) was compassion for others experiencing the same situation.  I vowed to never let anyone else suffer with loneliness and lack during a time of bedrest.

A friend of mine recently was hospitalized for pregnancy issues– she’s been in and out of the hospital on bedrest for a month and a half or two.  I have visited once.  Yes, you heard me once.  Every time I was ready to go for a visit, my kids would get sick or I would get sick.  I’ve been trying to get out to the hospital for three weeks now and we have just been pillaged with the plague. And yesterday she had her baby 13 weeks premature.

And I have learned yet another lesson.

Forgiveness.

Not that I am super quick to forgive myself mind you, because trust me I am kicking myself right now, even though the situation is mostly out of my hands.  But I realize now,or am willing to believe, that all those people who didn’t come and visit me weren’t necessarily avoiding me– they just had life happen to them too.  Life pretty much stops for a person on bedrest, but it continues to go on for everyone else, regardless of how good a friend or how close a relative to you they are.  So with this realization I forgive.  And I continue to be a champion for the bedridden with a new resolve.

Who do you know who could use a visit from you?  (That’s sort of rhetorical, no need to leave it in the comments.)

Sugar always has the best prayers…

Dear Heavenly Father,

I am thankful for this day and for my family.  I love my whole family.  Even the ones that live in different houses- aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas.  I love even the old ones that are about to die.  I love them until they are done.

Lord of Commandments, Love One Another, In the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen

I am not sure my children really get the concept of prayer.  I know they know the words to say, the format, and the behavior expected during prayer, but it’s fairly clear that they don’t really understand yet what it’s all about.  Their prayers however continue to amuse me, and they are all over the board:

Engineer (the know it all 6 year old, excuse me 6 and a half year old boy)

"Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.  Thank you for our family.  Please bless Sugar to be reverent during prayer.  Please bless that Spider will stop talking right now.  Please bless us to always be right.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Sugar (the unpredictable, airy fairy 4 year old girl,)

"Heavenly Fath-eerr,  I’m thankful for our family.  I’m thankful we had fun.  Please bless us to be safe.  Bless us to have fun and do something tomorrow.  Lord of Commandments.  Love one another.   In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."  (she will not finish a prayer without the italicized part)

Spider (2 1/2, blesses the food regardless of type of prayer)

"Heavenly father, thankful for this day.  Bless that daddy can go to work.  Bless safe.  Bless the food.  Thankful for the food. Chryst.  Amen."

 So there you have it.  Hopefully when they begin to have real life issues, they will understand that they can turn to Heavenly Father in prayer to give them strength and lift their burdens.  For now though, they can continue to ask to "always be right" and love one another.

(And may the food be perpetually blessed.)

It did.  What can I say, I love great music.  And the Moses story is so incredible.  When that opening song came on and the Hebrew slaves sing, "Elohim, God on high, Can you hear your people cry?" I just started sobbing.  It was so moving.

Of course I really lost it when Jochabed starts singing to Moses.  Can you imagine sending your baby down a river on the chance that he might live?  Seriously.  The faith of that woman.  I can only imagine the angst she must have felt as she sent him down the Nile and I would guess she was just pleading with the Lord to let him live.  I know I would have been begging to see him again.  And I am totally touched by the tender mercies of the Lord toward Moses mother.  She sends him down the river and then the Lord, through Miriam and Pharaoh’s daughter, works it out so that she gets to be her son’s wet nurse. Not only does her baby live but she is blessed to be with him for a few more years.  What love!

Anyway.  I was crying.  I just love that song– Deliver Us.  Totally worth the dollar I spent.  

A really great birthday post is coming….I am just too busy right now to write it.

But!

My sister gave me the movie Evan Almighty for my birthday, and I really liked it.   If you have been afraid to see it because it might be too sacreligious or anything, see it anyway.  It actually has a really great message about life and God and priorities.

I just have to share my favorite part.  Evan (Steve Carrell) is talking to God (Morgan Freeman) and he is telling him that building an ark doesn’t fit in with his plans.  God starts laughing.  "I’m sorry," he says.  "Your plans…" and then hysterical laughter again.

It’s just so true!  Anytime we make "plans" there always seems to be something else that God has in store for us.  And I kept thinking throughout the whole movie when Evan is concerned about losing his job or looking stupid, that if God was asking him to build the ark, then God would take care of him in the end. 

And that is a reminder for us all.  Stop worrying.  It has always worked out in the past, so why wouldn’t it now.

Anyway.  Good movie.  Very funny and very tender. 

The children insisted on candy the other day.  Feeling generous, I gave them both a whopping two skittles each.  Sugar started tantruming and demanding more.   A more experienced Engineer, sat back and watched.

me: Okay, then give them back.
Sugar: waaaaahhhh! I want more skibbles!
me:I already gave you two, but if you’re unhappy I’ll have them back.
Sugar: waaaahhhhh! I want more skibbles!
me: Sugar, how would you feel if you gave me a present and I said, "waaaaahhhh!  I want more!"  Would you be sad?
Sugar (making pouty sad face): Uh-huh.  (pause)  I want more skibbles!  WAAAAAHHHH!
me: You are making me so sad.
Engineer: I didn’t make you sad!  I just ate my skittles!
Sugar: waaaaaahhhhh!!!!! 

How often do we do this as grown-ups?  How often do we receive bounteous blessing from our Heavenly Father, and rather than being thankful and content, we whine and ask for more?  Sugar didn’t need the skittles, nor did I need to give them to her.  I wanted to give her more, but more wouldn’t have necessarily been good for her.  And I definitely wasn’t going to give her more after she threw that fit.  And yet she was getting something special that she asked for, and didn’t usually get and she was unhappy with it.

I know I do this in my life. I have so many blessings, and few of them are actual "needs" and yet sometimes I still want more.  Sometimes I neglect to be thankful for what I have.  Sometimes I forget that Heavenly Father is in charge, and he wants to bless me, but he does it in the way that is best for me.  Sometimes I am a whiny three year old.

And that’s all I have to say about that.