Dustin Graduates

He’s done.  It’s over. He has done all that I ever expected of him, and so much more. He has made opportunities for himself to learn, network, travel, and expand who he is.  I am floored, stunned, and embarrassingly proud. Why embarrassingly?  Because, I did so little work towards the accomplishment. I brought him to church, I taught him about God, and told him to work hard in all that he does. That was it. And now? Look at him! He’s incredible! He’s a little on the short side, but he is fit, physically and mentally, and spiritually? Spiritually he is a giant. I mean, no joke, he is out of this world spiritually educated.  He has been to hell and back alongside me, more than once, I have watched his heart break, and turned him to the God we know and love, and he has run with it.  Grown in leaps and bounds, and taught so many others around him that it can be done.

Now what? What can I do? As his mom, I am bound to protect, nurture, and love him in all of his choices, good bad and indifferent.  When I became pregnant with my 5^th son, I cried as I contemplated having to let yet ANOTHER piece of my heart walk around outside of me, to be hurt, and struggle.  But, those pieces of my heart? All five of them? When they succeed, when they are loved and honored, and appreciated for who they are? The joy is tenfold to me.  I know who they are, I know each of their souls, and how amazing they are, and it brings me so much joy to hear others recognize it too. 

But this piece, this piece of my heart is a man now.  He actually has been for a long time, but please don’t tell him that.  He is an adult in the eyes of the law, and the world.  He has completed the training I had for him with his high school graduation, and has added upon it graduating from seminary.  I know the choices I want for his future, I know I want him to serve the Lord for two years, and then make the most important decision any man can make in this life, to covenant marriage in the temple.  But I cannot make him.  No longer will my threats of driving away without him, or not getting a dessert after dinner, be effective on this man.  He can meet his own needs. And many of his wants. He will begin looking for that instruction, that blessing, that direction, elsewhere even more fully than ever before.  He will make his own decisions.

And I will watch.  I will joy in his success and happiness, and grieve for his losses and sorrows. I can only hope he remembers what he was taught. I can pray for him, pray every day as I already do. I can ask the Lord to watch over and guide him, as I do each of my children, but he has the ultimate gift, as do we all.  He has his agency. Camping trip? I cannot say no. Where to work? I cannot tell him, or make him save his money. College? I cannot tell him where.  Mission? I cannot make him go, or stay when he arrives.  All I can do is offer to listen if he is willing to talk to me.  I can listen to him as he reasons it all out, as he shares thoughts and ideas with me, his feelings about choices and activities, if he asks I can offer counsel, and prayer, and advice, but never again will I have authority for him.  It is at the same time a helpless and a glorious feeling.  Congratulations my son. You are amazing. I will love you more than you will ever comprehend, forever and always.

A Day of Gratitude...

My dishwasher quit for good before Christmas, and I have washed dishes by hand since.  It had quit once before, when he was still around, and he soldered something behind the power button and it worked again.  But the power button itself had a whole in the front, so you saw the little dot behind the plastic instead of the nice, flat, plastic push button.

I do not know how to solder, or where to solder, and there was rust on the racks and the front looked awful with the button, so fixing it was a non option.

I am not a fan of most housework, but I have always HATED dishes.  I mean bad.  I am the wrong height for dishes, it makes my back hurt.  And I am too messy, my stomach always gets soaked.  And the water has to be really hot, so it's... well, really HOT!  But I couldn't pass off the chore to my kids, partly out of guilt for not being able to fix the stupid dishwasher, but mostly out of the inability to face the chance that they would do it wrong and I would eat off of dirty dishes.

Yeah, I know.  Uptight.

Anyway, through this trial, as in sooooo many of the trials I have been through, the Lord has helped me  to be strengthened, or calmed, or uplifted, or whatever I needed to lessen my burden.  And I have learned to play my music, dance, and wash dishes at the same time.  My back has not bothered, probably due to the dancing, my hands are not chapped, and I love, love, LOVE the feeling I have when my upbeat playlist is cranked through the house.

That said, I am really happy to announce my new dishwasher arrived today.  My beautiful, wonderful, gracious best friend went to my house while I was working in order to let the delivery people drop it off.  I had asked her to do so, and I'm thrilled she was able to because otherwise it would have been after this weekend that I finally had it delivered, and I could not have installed it during the week.  Which she had offered to help me do as well.  Huge levels of gratitude right there.

But then, in an interesting turn of events, while I was at work I got a text message from said friend.  It simply read, "My husband and I have earned soda from Cumby's.  Your dishwasher is installed and running."

Day.  Made.
Week.  Made.
Month.  Totally made.
2014 is really shaping up to be a great year!

And I'm SOOOO excited to go home and tell the kids to unload and load the dishwasher!!!!! :-)

I forgot...

What it was like knowing these other women who blog, and seeing them as friends! I went looking for some of my favorites I remember reading daily, moms who are so much more eloquent than me at getting their points across.  I was sad to see some of them have stopped blogging as I had. I mourned the loss of sweet Kathy of Count it All Joy, who passed years go, and left my condolences to Cute Boy.  I rejoiced in being able to search out and find several others whose blogs have not only been kept up but flourished, I am so happy for them!! I have missed them a lot, it's like reuniting with old friends! Or if I ever went to a high school reunion, I imagine they would have been similar emotions.

MJ

Well hello there,

So, back when I had only four boys (I know, as if any should ever say "only four") I started a blog. Then I had boy #5, and I stopped blogging. I tried picking it up again, and that bombed, who had time? Well now I am divorced, I still have five boys, a house, a dog, a car that is far from new, two jobs, and a whole lot of chaos in my life.

But it's good chaos. It's the kind of chaos that brings peace, which is probably hard for anyone with two or less children at home to understand, and yet somewhere out there a mom of a large family is nodding her head, getting it.

A few years ago I had experiences that taught me about the reality of God, and the immeasurable love He has for each of His children, all of us who walk this wonderful Earth.  I learned about the love of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and while I still cannot comprehend it's depth and breadth, I know it is indeed real.  Those experiences I wrote about before when I blogged, and can be found online still, at BetweenYouMeAndTheFencepost.blogspot.com.  I would have continued there, but I was unable to make the layout changes that I wanted, and so now I am here.

New life, new blog. I am not the same mother of five I was, nor am I the same disciple of Christ.  I have learned a lot about turning to the Lord from my divorce. I have learned about not being enough, as a human being, to do all that is necessary of me.  This is what I told God on my knees the night my husband left for good. I am not enough for these children. Please, make me enough, because I know that through You, humans can do, or be, anything that You require.  So now, here I am, new blog, new look, same name, same me... but not.  There are a lot of experiences I have had, and am going to have, that I would like to tell you about, cyber world.  I have a new favorite quote for my life, it's from of all places David Bowie! He says, "I can't promise where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring!" Join me, wherever we end up I doubt we will be bored!

MJ