Every Step Counts

by Kari Diane Pike

Each and every day, I wonder why it seems to take me so long to "get it." By "it," I mean understanding -- understanding of my spouse, understanding of my children, understanding of what makes people do the things they do, and understanding simple gospel principles. I know my teenagers often question whether or not I will ever "get it."

Last week, my daughter Kati talked me into participating in a 10K with her. (I  should have known that anything other than 14K was going to leave me feeling tarnished.) Yesterday morning, I fought with my phone so it would play conference talks while I made my morning training run (okay...walk). Every thirty seconds or so, I would lose the signal and the session would be dropped. I found myself spending more time on fussing with the phone than accomplishing my fitness goal. After several minutes of frustration, the thought came to me that perhaps I should spend my training time listening to the Spirit and paying attention to what was going on around me. I started to pray as I jogged along and tried to focus on what the Lord might want me to hear and see. It didn't take me long to notice how easily the sights, sounds, and smells of the world distracted me from my intent: the pounding of feet on the pavement by sweaty runners, the whirring of bicycle gears, dogs barking, children laughing on a nearby playground, leaf blowers, dust, the stench of stagnant puddles, the snarl of traffic, the echo of tires bouncing over the  expansion joints of the overpass and the unrelenting heat of the desert sun. Every time I caught my mind wandering, I wondered how Heavenly Father manages to be so patient and always be there when I finally tune in again. He never gives up on me! (And I think perhaps He wanted me to pay more attention to the world in which I live.)

This morning I approached my "long practice run" with  hope and enthusiasm. Surely, today I would "get it" and shave several minutes off my time. It didn't take long for my hopes to be dashed. I slowed my pace and pondered on my feelings of discouragement about not being "fast enough." I kicked at the pebbles on the trail and watched the dust poof as my feet pounded the ground. I thought about the sometimes dusty, sometimes frozen, rocky trails the pioneers had to walk along. Hello! They walked! Step by determined step, they made their way across the open plains and over the mountains to reach their destination. Life isn't a race. It's a journey, and every little step I take helps me get closer to my goal. Little things, over the course of time, become big things -- for good or for bad -- and every effort I make -- even if it means I have to crawl -- counts. All I have to do is look forward, and with a steadfast faith in Christ, take that first step, and He will direct my path.

As far as my writing goals go...I just looked back at the number of blog posts I have written over the past several years. And you know what? I could have written a book! I still can -- and will -- one word, one chapter, one piece of chocolate at a time! Just watch me!

hugs~

The Parable of the Glow Sticks

by Jill Burgoyne

My daughters are both toddlers. At fifteen months apart, one is a year old and the other is two. We are in the midst of room consolidation. Clarissa, the younger one, gets the crib. She is thrilled to be with her sister. Emery, the two year old, is likewise thrilled with the prospect of a roommate! The issue; however, is getting them to sleep and doing it safely.

Emery loves to jump into the crib with Clarissa and she just wants to play, but she doesn't know how to be careful when she jumps in. More often than not, she jumps right onto her dozing little sister. Clarissa wakes up with piercing screams and the process of settling down restarts.

For three nights, we simply slept in their room as guardians of the crib, until they were both asleep. It didn't take long for my husband and I to feel like walking zombies and something had to change. So we prayed for inspiration.

It wasn't long after we got our pillows and settled down on the bedroom floor last night, that the inspiration came; we'd use glow sticks. Glow sticks are a particular family favorite and we had just stocked up from the dollar store. The incentive went like this: each girl would get two glow sticks. If they were good (we specified staying in your own bed, and not pulling down the blinds) then, they got to keep both glow sticks. If they did not follow our rules, we would come take one glow stick away. The rules were mostly for Emery, because all Clarissa can do is try to go to sleep, but both were equally delighted with the glow sticks. We then left them alone.

An hour later, our rules had grown to include not throwing anything into Clissy's (Clarissa's) crib, not stealing glow sticks, and not taking blankets. Eric and I took turns going in and checking on the situation and one time, Emery got into the crib.

We could tell by Clarissa's cry that Emmy was in the crib and my heart sank. Emmy cherishes glow sticks and the novelty of having TWO in BED was so magical to her, that I couldn't be the one to go into the room. Eric bravely walked in and confiscated a glow stick from our two year old. She was devastated.

She cried and cried at the door; "I will be good Mommy, Daddy! Please give me my orange glow stick back!" Meanwhile, Eric and I sat on the couch holding hands, our eyes full of pain for our small child's plight and hearing her sobs and pleas through the door.

"Mommy, Daddy, I promise to stay in bed! I am sorry Daddy! Daddy!"

Desperate to ease our little girl's pain over her glow stick, we prayed and racked our brains for an idea. It was Eric who spoke.

"What if we gave her something extra to do, so she could have her glow stick back, like make her lie in her bed for two whole minutes without moving?"

I was up for anything. So, he made the deal with little Emery.

"Emery, I talked to Mommy and we have thought of a way for you to get your glow stick back....you can repent...if you lay in your bed for two minutes, you can have it back,"

Emery's sobbing turned into a teary eyed smile.

"I will stay on my bed Daddy," and she did. And she got that glow stick back. And she stayed in her bed the rest of the night.

My husband's use of the word "repent," caught my attention. I wouldn't have used it, but that is what she was doing.  It made me think of how our Heavenly Father feels about us. There are rules set out and we can't keep them all. He loves us so much that he wants us to be happy and He has prepared a way, through our Savior, for us to be able to be happy in returning to our Heavenly Father and becoming like him.

It wasn't until I became a Mom that I understood more about how our Heavenly Father loves us. Teaching babies to sleep through the night is really tough on me. They don't want to sleep alone and they cry and cry and they want to get out. But we don't get them out because sleep is so important and them learning to sleep through the night is good for them. They don't understand. I remember crying and crying some nights in my crib, but what I never saw was my mother kneeling on the other side of the door hearing me and praying for me the same way that I did until my girls started sleeping through the night.

Question - do you write for something you believe in?

By Leesa Ostrander

This post is in honor of National Breast Cancer Month.

I want to ask everyone, when you write do you find more gratification when you write for something you believe in or have a passion for?

I ask because I write marketing material. Sometimes it flows and other times it is like washing the car with water from the Rio Grande.

Once I found out my mom has breast cancer last week, the words flowed from me. I could see clarity in why I was writing to encourage patients to pay attention to their health; a direct opposite from the previous week.

I found it easier to write and know my motive, then turn the thoughts into legible words.

Then I turned the passion back to my WIP. This section may not fit in the whole work, but it felt good to get it on paper.

Back to the question, do you add your personal agenda’s to your WIP (hoping to omit personal bias when writing technical writing)? Does your passion shine and your readers take notice where you are coming from? How do you hone in this talent?

Indeed!

By Tracy Astle

Here's a quote for you.

          Every pint bottle should contain a quart.

                                                     Sir Boyle Roche

Okay, so when he said it, it didn't make a whole lot of sense, but this is actually a great maxim for writing if you think about it. 

First, if we look at it from the angle of trying to cram too much into too little, it reminds us to only say what we need to say, no extra words. If we use more words than are necessary, our writing can feel bogged down or overwritten.

Second, we can gather from this quote the idea that if we choose our words wisely, we can pack a quart's worth of meaning into a pint sized space. Think of how rich writing feels when an author can speak volumes with only a few words. 

So, next time you see a pint bottle think of your writing and ask yourself how much meaning you're fitting into the space you're using.