Look Up. Find the Joy. The 40 Day Journey.

Okay, I think this is going to be kind of fun.

Well, let me explain first.  My husband started his first day of work on Monday (I still can't believe we're finally done with school!) and we decided to have me and the boys stay in Utah with my parents for a month and a half or so while Kyle saves up a few paychecks and then we'll join in at the beginning of August.  I'm imagining that we are back in days of the wild frontier and he is going alone, to tame the prairie and build a place for us, and then he'll send for me once he gets our little home with a white picket fence all set up.  ha.  But we do feel good about doing things this way and I know everything will work out and that the time we'll pass and we'll get through it.  I am a little bit concerned, though, that this summer is going to get LONG and HOT and that I will get tired of not being in my real life with a real schedule and a real husband and that I will get burned out of parenting and the limbo time of this transition.

So, while I am seeing things clearly, I've decided to begin a little adventure.  I realized that we have about 40 days (or so) to be here, and that seems to be a great amount of time to experience real spiritual growth, so I'm going to try something.  I'm going to see if I can find at least one way, every day, to really look up and find the joy.  And then, even if it's just one sentence, I will post a daily telling of my discoveries.

To me, this will be more than just an exercise in positive thinking.  "Looking up" doesn't just mean looking on the bright side.  It means pointing our eyes toward Heaven, toward God, and praying for the eyes to SEE how He is blessing us and tailoring our experiences to our needs.  And "finding the joy" is more than just focusing on something good that happened that day--it is gathering the good, the bad, and the ugly all together and finding ways to rejoice that we get to experience the whole thing.  Not joy in spite of the hard stuff, but because of it, and through it. Well, that's some lofty philosophy.  Now we'll see how well I can do.  :)  Here goes...

So today is Look Up.  Find the Joy.  #1:

 I found joy today as I reflected on my "reading time" with Ethan.  I'm really trying to dedicate time to help Ethan learn to dig in and painstakingly sound out words.  He is not loving it, and is not exactly catching the vision that I have for him, but he is making some progress and I just know that he is going to feel ecstatic when he figures it out and starts being able to read things by himself!!  I am so excited for him to get the hang of words and sentences and then be able to read books and LEARN stuff and KNOW things and read the scriptures and write things down... Reading will unlock a new world of possibilities for him.  I see it so clearly, but he doesn't really have any way to understand that yet.
As I pondered about all that tonight, I realized that God feels the same way about me.  Spiritually, I am still learning--and  trying to figure out what love is and how to express it better, and why I shouldn't covet and how I can really access the power that is available to me through focused prayer and scripture study, etc.    I wonder if the gap between my potential and my actual ability is frustrating to Him at times and He wishes He could somehow help me to see what is possible if I would just come to Him.  And yet, because of the way I love Ethan and the joy that I feel from just watching him sound out the word "help" all by himself, I caught a glimpse today of the vision the Lord has for me and who I can become if I spend a little time each day letting him teach me and putting forth some honest effort to try to understand.  I don't know all that He has in store for His children, but from my limited parental experience, I can guess that we can't even begin to comprehend how incredible the possibilities are.
I found joy today in the thought that God is my teacher, and my friend.  I am just struggling to sound out the words sometimes, but I know that He has plans for me, and that He will patiently walk me through, sentence by sentence, page by page, and that over time the mysteries of His kingdom can be unfolded to me, in ways that are beyond my ability to even imagine.


So there you have it.  Day #1.  Let the journey begin...