Last August my husband's little sister was in a terrible plane crash. If you don't know the story, her blog is nieniedialogues.blogspot.com. She is an amazing woman and hers is an amazing story of survival. What I want to share is how her accident changed our lives.
Shortly after the accident, life was pretty darn serious. Our dear sister and her husband lay in a coma for three months. There were days we weren't sure if they would survive. Daily activities, such as shopping at WalMart or running through In-N-Out for a burger felt pretty silly. I consistently thought, "How can I be doing these things while our family members cling to life?" But life marched on, so we had to carry on.
During this sensitive time in life we inadvertently cut the world out of our life. Frivolous songs on the radio were replaced with quiet music, often times hymns. Reality TV got turned off and good books were read. Mindless activities like video games were traded in for board games played together around the kitchen table.
As time went by our loved ones got better, came home from the hospital, and continue to make efforts to heal. It only seemed natural that it was time to let the world back into our life. Only thing is, we found we didn't like the world so much anymore. It wasn't hard to recognize how harsh outside influences are and how they hurt the tender new spirits we'd developed. My kids were actually asking me to turn the radio off and put the hymns back on!
So I'm throwing out a challenge. A challenge for you to turn off the junk on the radio and replace it with uplifting music, books on CD, or perhaps the 24/7 Christmas channel. Turn off the guilty television pleasures that you enjoy after the kids have gone to bed. Read a good book instead. May I suggest the conference issue of the Ensign that just came out? Make some time for family time. Time to share a laugh and make some fun memories together.
Give it a few weeks and see if you don't notice a difference in your life. I guarantee you will. Also, I'd love to hear about it. I've fixed my "comments" so anyone can leave one without jumping through hoops. There are so many ways to negotiate how we will spend our valuable time. May I suggest we choose the better part.
Lunch, Please
5 days ago
So you're negotiating with your readers now I see. Very good. Ok, I'll tell you a couple of things I do to shut out the world and find a moment's peace in the craziness of a day. I leave the Ensign on the front seat of the minivan. When I get a few minutes, I pull it out and read it. Sometimes it takes me two months to get through one issue, but I'm always glad I did. I too have a few good CD's in the car but my kids call me out on it the minute they get in. Still, I find sometimes that I need it to calm my racing heart when I'm peddling as fast as I can from one thing to the next. Breathe...that's a challenge too.
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