Wednesday ponderings . . .

Yesterday the news was filled with the latest bombings which took place in Belgium . . . these things strike fear into the heart of every European.  I think because we all know that it could be in any town, in any country . . .  and that it is really only a matter of time before it happens here.  You end up just having to turn the television off in the end,  because it just goes on and on and on.   Not because you are not interested in what is happening, but . . .  because you can't let it destroy or steal any more of your soul than it already has.

One of God's greatest gifts to us was the gift of Agency  . . .  the gift to be able to choose for ourselves.  This means that I do not have to bend myself to the will of anyone else.  When it comes right down to it, the choices I make are truly my own to make,  and I can choose good or I can choose the opposite of good.  It is the same for everyone . . . however  . . . trouble comes when others use that agency to choose the opposite, and it ends up impinging on your own life.  The drunk who chooses to drive.  The thief who chooses to steal.  The person who chooses to end their own life by blowing themselves up in a public place . .  . and then takes everyone around them on the same ride . . .  each choice denying others that same right to choose . .  to live or to die, with or without fear.

As a Westerner . . .  and as a Christian, such things are unfathomable and incomprehensible.  This isn't the way my God works  . . .  He doesn't ask His sons to die for Him, and also kill everyone around them at the same time . . . rather  He sent His Son to die for us, and in our place.




When things like yesterday happen . . .  it is quite easy to be afraid . . .  to react in fear, or anger, or in hopeless helplessness.  But we know,  or should know better than that.  For we know the end of the story . . .  and in this story GOOD always prevails, good always wins in the end.   We know that this is not a part of God's plan of happiness for His children, and whilst such things are incomprehensible to us . . . love is always the answer.  Light will always chase the dark away.

And while we are tempted when things like this happen to feel despair . . .  and find them very difficult to understand, there is truth that we can cling to, and which will help to get us through these dark times . . .

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. . . . The Lord . . . will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble." (Psalms 46:1–3; 9:9) 




Four missionaries from our church were injured in yesterday's bombings. Elder Richard Norby (66) of Lehi, Utah; Elder Joseph Empey (20) of Santa Clara, Utah; and Elder Mason Wells (19) of Sandy, Utah. were all accompanying Sister Fanny Rachel Clain (20) of Montélimar, France, as she prepared to leave to fulfill her missionary assignment in Ohio.   It is almost an irony in a way that four people who were about the business  of  sharing God's Plan of Happiness for his children should be seriously injured by people who were about the business of sharing the total opposite.  I am very grateful that the missionaries survived and my heart and prayers are with their families as well as with all of the families of all those who have been directly impacted by this dastardly act of cowardess and insanity . . .  and with the people of Belgium who must be reeling in feelings of fear, doubt, anger, etc.

“Pure Christ-like love, flowing from true righteousness . . .  can change the world.”
~Jeffrey R Holland 

 

I have begun my next knitting project.  I am making these little egg cosies from a pattern I found on Planet Penny.   I was trying to do Jane Brocket's pattern for some egg cosies from her book, The Gentle Art of Knitting  . . .

 

Faberge Egg Cosies  . . .  but for the life of me I have not been able to figure it out.   I began and pulled them apart a bazillion times with no success . . . clearly they are beyond me.

 

This pattern however . . .  is not.  I can't wait to see them finished.  I am so in love with that egg carton.  The eggs are long gone, but the carton lives on.  I adore it.  I quite simply adore it.  And I think I will adore these egg cosies.

Egg cosies . . .  whoever thought of a little hat for to keep a boiled egg warm . . .  genius, pure genius.  Flowers.  Spring flowers.  It's just plain right.

 

We dropped half of the missionaries in our District off at the bus station in Chester after our District meeting yesterday and one of the sisters was sharing this chocolate with us in the car that a friend of hers in Sweden had sent to her.   Milk chocolate filled with tiny toffee bits flavoured with licorice.  I confess that although I should have resisted . . .  I could not.  Milk Chocolate.   Crunchy Buttery Toffee.   Licorice.   It shouldn't work together, but it does!  Beautifully.  It was gorgeous  . . .  which just goes to show that  sometimes even things which sound like they wouldn't go together can get along together . . .  and in a most delicious harmony.

A thought to carry with you through today  . . .

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄ƷღೋღೋƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄ƷƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄ƷღೋღೋƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
"True, enduring happiness, 
with the accompanying strength, courage,
 and capacity to overcome the greatest difficulties, 
will come as you center your life in Jesus Christ."
 ~Richard G Scott
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄ƷღೋღೋƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄ƷƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄ƷღೋღೋƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

Spiritual Enlightenment




In The English Kitchen today  . . .  Cereal Wheat Bread Rolls.  Delicious!


Wherever you go and whatever you get up to today, may it bring you joy. Be safe and be happy and don't forget . . .

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And I do too!