More Social Distancing Activites: Look at the Moon

 

January and February of a any year are usually the hardest for me. I have good coping mechanisms for living in such a non-sunny locale, but yesterday and this week I (and a lot of people I know, including my kids) have been slightly off kilter.  It's been nothing but grey, grey, grey since last week, when the sun shone brilliantly on the afternoon of the temple announcement!  

I always know when I get that feeling like the greyness is going to close in on me, that I need to get outside of myself and do some service.  The "Who" and the "What to do" came easily.  As I was getting ready for the day a few times this week, the names of specific people came to my mind.  I ended up texting those people and checking in on them.  Yesterday, a few more nudges came, and although it was a terribly dreary day, I found a way to get out and do something about the nudges.

It didn't lift the fog completely, but it felt good and it helped.

As I was driving back to my house after running some service errands, I saw the moon.  It was a full moon.  But it was so hazy in my night sky that it was literally almost unrecognizable as a moon!

I looked up stuff about moons today, and it turns out that every full moon has a name and a meaning assigned to it.  I guess I knew that, I just never paid much attention to it. January's full moon is named the "wolf moon".  As it is the first full moon to come after the winter solstice and the days are getting longer, it is thought to celebrate LIGHT winning over darkness.

I thought that was interesting.  Here I am trying to push back my own winter/pandemic-onset blues, and here is this moon reminding me that light has already conquered darkness, that no matter what dark things we are facing, Christ has conquered it for us and will walk with us, even if we only see him occasionally as the clouds part and even if we have to go by faith that, yes that is the moon I am looking at or yes God is with me.

I'm grateful for the reminders the He is there, that we can find in the world around us if we look with eyes to see.

Here is a calendar of the full moons for 2021.  This site outlines the names of the moons with interesting facts and gives the fun idea to do some full-moon-watching social distanced gathering.  Check it out!

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All Together Now

 

Whenever it's time to change the drawing/phrase on my kitchen chalkboard, my kids all jump at the chance to be the one to create something for the board.

This one was created by my 8 year old Honor at the beginning of January, and I just thought it was an appropriate reminder for all of us during the politically charged day/week/season.

Ultimately, we're all in this together.  WE have so many challenges to face, and we will certainly only beat the terrible things in our lives, when we do it together.

I wanted to also take a moment to thank those of you who have reached out to me and offered words of support, encouragement, and advice in my parenting woes.

I definitely needed that.  I needed to not feel alone.  And you, dear long-time readers, have done that for me, and I appreciate it.

We're all in this together.

In church this week, someone quoted the scripture that has always been the theme of this blog: 2 Nephi 25:26:

And we ^atalk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we ^bprophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our ^cchildren may know to what source they may look for a ^dremission of their sins.

...and I was reminded how much that scripture has meant to me and guided my parenting in the past.  And I silently pondered to myself, "Do I really believe in this scripture?  Am I still willing to let this scripture be my guiding light as a Mom?  Because I've done the talking of Christ and the prophesying of Christ part for my kids, but am I ready to focus on the part where I just stand back and point them to Christ as the One who can help them with the remission of their sins part?"  Because that's the part of parenting that I'm now at....the part where I let my past last 15 years of teaching speak for itself and I stand back and let them rely on Christ for the rest.

Anyway, I think I have enough faith, and you guys have helped me to be braver and lean a little/lot more on His merits this week.  And I thank you.  We're all in this together.

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Who Is Coming To Our House...Christmas Book Activity: Day 2

The ornament that we made to go along with today's Christmas book might have only been made of toothpicks and old Christmas cards, but it was full of sentimental value.

When I was three years old, I made the ornament pictured above with my grandma. The memory of making this ornament together is so clear in my mind. I can see us sitting at her kitchen table, carefully choosing the cards. She chose the image of a girl in a muffler for the back, because it looked like me and a stained-glass image of Mary and Jesus for the other side. I can see the picture that used to hang on her kitchen wall. I can't see her face very clearly, just her hands, but I can feel her love for me.

I no longer have to close my eyes to see the picture that she loved so much, the old man's head bowed in prayer, because it now hangs in my house.

And I don't have to close my eyes to remember that time spent together, so sweet and special to a little three-year-old girl, because the ornament that we made together hangs on my tree every Christmas.

The kids and I tried to recreate that experience today, although, let me say, my grandma must've had a lot of patience and time on her hands. Waiting for that glue to dry and keeping the kids involved was no easy task!

They were happy to do their ornaments their own way.

Scarlett's "ornament", a picture of rudolph, ended up looking like this:

The other ones pretty much looked like they should.

The book we read was simple and sweet.

In Who Is Coming To Our House the animals are whispering about someone who is coming and they hurry around the barn to make ready for their special visitor.

In the midst of their cleaning and preparations some animals show doubt that the visitor will really come:

"But it is dark," says Cat.

"They will never come," says Rat.

"Yes, they'll come," says Mouse.

"Someone's coming to this house."

What do I like about this dialogue? It makes me think about the hope that people had from the beginning of time--hope in Christ--hope that he really would come and fulfill the promises foretold by prophets of old.

I'm sure there were times when their hope faded, times when life seemed dark, and times when doubt crept in. There must've been times when they thought, "...he will never come..."

But Jesus Christ did come.

And He will come again.

This is the hope and joy of promises fulfilled. This is Christmas.

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