Miniature Crisis

Tonight when my son got home from
Boys Scouts he decided to make Frito boats

His burn was soaked in water, dead skin scrubbed lightly then cut off,
treated with bactracin ointment, wrapped in gauze. Given pain medicine

.

(Made with Frito Lay Chips---you top it with Chili, diced tomatoes, onions, cheese, and olives. Yummy!).  He was feeling tired, so he decided to pull a chair up by the stove and instead kneel while he heated the chili.

I was standing nearby doing dishes, and heard a crashing sound.  I looked over to discover the chair he was kneeling on had broken into pieces (it's an antique of about 100 years old) and he fell through it.  As he feel he reached to grab hold of something....he touched the hot stove coils.  It seared one of his fingers and left charred skin.  I rushed him off to the emergency room at a nearby hospital.  It was cleaned, and dressed and bandaged.  He was fortunate to have not gotten worse damage to the skin tissue.

I couldn't help consider how life has a way of taking us by surprise.  One moment things are running smoothly, all seems well, and then --boom-- something symbolically explodes.  You are left to wonder if you could have done something differently to keep it from happening.  Or you wonder if things are going to be alright.  Depending on the severity of the unexpected, it is not uncommon to questions whether you have the strength and courage to survive the challenge that now lay before you.  The common thread with these unpleasant type of surprises is that they always alter our plans!

There is a song that I felt God helped bring to my mind a couple months back.  I think it helps to express this concept of how life changes without warning, but that it's all a learning experience.

Time of Your Life (by Green Day)

d
Another turning point a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go
So make the best of this test and don't ask why
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time

[Chorus]
It's something unpredictable but in the end
Is right I hope you've had the time of your life

So take the photographs
and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while  





IN life, we all find ourselves at symbolic stops, destinations, and forks in the road. But, with the help of our Heavenly Father, and faith in his infinite and eternal plan of happiness, we can make it through those trials, whether they are short or very long. 

I was reminded of this scripture as I awoke this morning. 

3 Nephi 27:33

33 And it came to pass that when Jesus had ended these sayings 

he said unto his disciples: Enter ye in at the strait gate; 

for strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leads to life, 

and few there be that find it; 

but wide is the gate, and broad the way which leads to death, 

and many there be that travel therein, 

until the night cometh, wherein no man can work.

          

I took this photo while hiking in Ohio with my sister.

To me, that scriptures teaches us to walk the narrow less traveled way of our Savior Jesus Christ toward our eternal destination.  It is often a lonelier path, and in order to stay safe you are required to walk within narrower margins that easy walk ways.

Imagine how beautiful it is to go hiking and see places where fewer people have walked or climbed.  It's often greener and more beautiful.

God's path is perhaps a more demanding and a steeper climb at times, but it makes us stronger and helps learn to experience a depth of emotions that teaches us to see with much more beauty and greater love than we ever would have imagined.  More love for ourselves, and more love for others.

The path with the wider gate and wider path is the one that too many people choose because they aren't brave enough to be different from those around them.   It is the path that leads us away from God, and distracts us from the real reason we came here to earth.(Learn more about this: http://mormon.org/faq/topic/purpose-of-life/question/purpose-of-life)

Symbolically, the easier path is where many of your fellow travelers tell you that it's alright to think about yourself and your needs first and foremost and All the time.  This wider path suggests that work is boring, and too hard.  This past motto goes something like this, "If it's not fun, it's not worth it."  People on this path don't encourage you to think of others, like they do on the path toward God.

My sister and her family take me on a beautiful hike.

I could go on with the differences of the choice of paths.  I will only add that the way of God is not the easiest way.  It requires a lot of faith and courage, time, and yes, even hard work.  Just like you might work to develop you physical muscles and strength through exercises, so do you also need to exercise and develop your spiritual and Godly muscles. 

Instead of taking the "easy way out," I hope you will each choose to face whatever challenges are in your life and the paths of which you each walk.  I hope you will take time to kneel down and ask your creator for help and direction and comfort and strength to bear all that you will face.   God, that supreme being, is aware of each one of us wherever you are.  We read in the last two lines of that scripture that the "night cometh" and that when that happens the time of preparation of finished.  When that time comes, the decisions of our path will be finalized through the clear decisions we chose to make along the way. Chose wisely!

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My statistics for this blog let me know you are from many varied places...here are some of the places my visitors hail from ---Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, South Korea, Poland, Serbia, Sweden, and the United States of America.  The amazing thing is that no matter where you live in this world, a loving God waits with open arms for you to reach out to Him for help and direction.  And
whether you do look to Him, or  you don't,  He still loves each you!  

It's just easier to feel God's blessings upon your heart and to see His mighty and miraculous hands in your life, if you are looking for them. Remember it's never to late to turn to Him for help, no matter where you are or what path you stand upon, you are never lost to Him.  Let the good desires of your heart be reflected in the choices you make every day.

You are loved. You are special!  You are Remembered!

Christine

P.S.  If you'd like a FREE book with more scriptures like the one above, then you go go here and get one.  It really is free and easy!! :) http://mormon.org/free-book-of-mormon/