Big

Tom Hanks has an adventure as a boy become a man overnight due to a single wish made at a carnival.

As we sat here watching the movie for the hundreth time tonight the thought crossed my mind: "Just what would I do if a wish was granted overnight for me?"

What would I wish for and why? How would that wish ripple out and affect the lives of everyone else in my life?

In the movie, Josh only wants to be bigger than he is at that one moment so he can ride a carnival ride with a pretty girl.

But what happens is SO much 'bigger' than he anticipated and so much more complicated than everyone else would ever comprehend.

So, if I were granted a wish from the Zoltan machine, what would it be?

Would I wish to be thin again with the body that I now only see in decades old photographs?

Would I wish to be in college and 'do it right' this time?

Or would I wish for something for someone else?

Could it be possible to make life better for someone else or would that wish make things worse for another?

Oh, the power of a wish!

We teach kids to 'blow out the candles and make a wish' on their birthdays and swear them to silence telling them that if they share their secret wish that it won't come true.

We see a shooting star and wish for things in the silence of our heart.

As night falls, the first star to peek out of the velvet darkness is known as the wishing star and desires are uttered as if that heavenly body can truly govern who or what we are in life.

We make wishes on eyelashes, over candles and sometimes over drinks.

We have foundations set up to take money and grant wishes to people who are dying as if somehow the wish will make up for the passing of life that will soon come.

How does one wish suddenly become so big?

Maybe it is just the idea that we can, with the simple desire to change something, become more than we are all on our own.

It's almost a genetic belief that if we want something enough, we can wish for it to be so and it will come to pass.

I'd like to return to the days where the power of a wish trumped all semblance of reality.

It made the time pass by in heady excitement with the dreams of what might be.

Maybe that faint remembrance is why we enter sweepstakes and contests. We are still captivated by the power of a wish.

The excitement of what could happen overshadows the bigger picture of our daily reality that is just too dull to contemplate. But, with a wish, we can be more than we are right now.

Wishes can make us bigger, stronger, faster, prettier, more able and somehow make up for the difference between who we want to be and who we really are when we see our own flawed face in the mirror each morning.

I'd like another wish. . . I just don't know whether I am ready for it to become true.

But I think I'm ready to give it a try.

Slom, Drinds and Blue Jeans

Jean Kerr, author of several books, wrote of her experience in having movers come and pack up her household goods and label them variously for the relocation to their new home.

After laughing myself silly at the antics of her family in her books and the puzzlement over the indication that one box contained 'Sloms, Drinds and Blue Jeans', I realized we have all shared something similar in our lives.

During the course of our married life we have moved like nomads in search of an oasis several times. School, jobs and sanity propelled us to make the moves. One such time, we had a box carefully labeled 'stuff'.

Upon opening the box, I discovered the contents to be pens with no ink, pencils that were broken or worn down to the nub, a broken plastic ruler, empty pencil lead tubes, some scissors that needed to be sharpened and repointed, rubber bands that were no longer elastic and a host of other desk drawer items that most certainly were bound for the dumpster instead of the moving van.

Why we kept these little gems is beyond my comprehension.

Likewise, we had other boxes which were dutifully moved WITHOUT OPENING THEM for a couple of moves.

I finally decided that if there was something we truly NEEDED in those cartons, we would have opened it up long ago and threw them out.

Having mentioned that to a lady at church one day, the look of horror that crossed her face let me know that I had committed sin tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Stammering her objections to me she said, "But what if there was something VALUABLE in those boxes?"

When I recovered my breath from laughing so hard I got a stitch in my side, I truthfully informed her that we were NOT related to the Getty's and that we didn't HAVE any valuables.

While I haven't ever employed professional movers to help us relocate, I have used the assistance of friends, church members and people from work who owed me a favor. This might explain the contents of the 'stuff' box that defied all worldly explanation. I can take solace in the fact that maybe, just maybe, I DIDN'T pack that box and maybe someone else is to blame!

At the end of the yard sale today, I was left with a collection of things that simply had been trotted out too many times to be useful to anyone anymore. They hadn't sold and weren't going to sell. It was time to pack them up and make that long drive to the thrift shop and donate them to a charitable cause that could get a nickle out of the stuff that I couldn't sell.

I have noticed that stuff which wouldn't garner a second glance at a yardsale is stocked in a thrift store shelf somewhere, it starts looking like a much better deal than in someone's garage or on a table under the tree on their lawn.

Not sure why that is, but it exists nonetheless.

It is almost as if somehow the legitimacy of a storefront makes junk seem a bit better than it does when it lies on a table filled with dusty knick-knacks like posed pigs and cute kittens in a wall hanging display.

It's an elevation in status by location. That, of course, is the first rule of business - location, location, location.

If only I could move my yard sale to a store front with helpful and understanding clerks who could move the "junk" into the realm of "merchandise".

Maybe the secret is to find a family who is moving, and carefully drive by and deposit a strangely labeled box in their moving van which has been filled to the brim with those things that you no longer wish to keep.

Then imagine the fun when they arrive at the new place only to discover a box that everyone swears they didn't pack!!!

Oh well. Delusion has set in and it's time for bed.

Besides which, I don't have any neighbors who are moving . . . yet.

Music soothes the savage beast

Having been plagued with nightmares of a most horrendous variety for most of my life, there have been some stretches of time where sleep was a vague memory. Night after night, the terror comes and even awake, the dreams bring frightening emotions and feelings that are persistent and feel very real. A constant in all of these episodes is a feeling of impending doom and dread that is as difficult to shake as anything I have ever known.

But, when those times come, I can get a relief and release from the grip of the terror in only a couple of ways.

While I pour my heart and soul out in my prayers, I reach for my scriptures and for my music. They are the only solace for the agony.

I have been directly counseled to do just those two things when the night terrors come. They provide a source of comfort that none else can.

And the blessing of having a worthy priesthood holder in the home who can help me sort through the madness is something I cannot underestimate. No matter what time of the day or night, Rick is willing to help me and share his and the Lord's strength with me at a moment of total weakness and helplessness.

It is a true saying that music soothes the savage beast. While some sayings are just that and full of mostly hot air, this one is right on target as it not only soothes the beast, it removes it.

How thankful I am that a loving and kind Father in Heaven provided solace and calm in the simple melodies and harmonies that can bring peace through the storm!

I remember reading a sign on a billboard by a little country church that I pass on the way to Jared's school now and again. It read "Stop telling your God how big the storm is. Instead, tell the storm how big your God is!"

The simplicity and truth of the statement isn't lost on me.

On those nights when I have nothing left but the tiny flame of hope to cling to, I reach out to the One who can and will make it possible to survive the night.

Then, the beast recedes, the peace and calm are restored and the living presence of an all wise and caring Father and His Merciful Son come and bring a lightness that defies all human understanding. It is a blessing that I ardently seek in those scary hours when the night seems so very dark and long.

Through the inspiration of the scriptures words and the gentle whispering of the Holy Spirit in the music, there is peace and the soothing calm brought by the touch of the Master's hand on a troubled sea of emotional turmoil.

I know I have far more doubts in my life than I should. I can't always claim to act faithfully. I know that Father is willing to reach out to me even when I don't always reach out to take His hand. But in the times that I do, something akin to miraculous occurs. The things that seem so very troubling in the shadows of the night are swallowed up in the glorious light of His truth.

He is in charge.

HE IS IN CHARGE.

And with that, the peace and calm are brought near and the music echoes His promises made in the Holy Scriptures that He will always love and care for us as His Children.

One of those days all day long

There is no such thing as the perfect life.

Dream all you want, but it simply doesn't exist.

Nothing could have brought that thought into such sharp focus than today has. Sometimes, stuff happens. We can't stop it, we can't fix it, we can't make it all better. We have to endure it.

We pray over our family, our circumstances and the many friends who touch our lives, we plan and we dream and we hope. Our towering thoughts create powerful images of what we believe to be the 'best thing', but, through the midst of all of this frenetic activity, we need to remember that our Father in Heaven is in charge.

Sometimes that is a lesson that we forget. He knows things we don't. Really. Some stuff that is historically bad personally and emotionally that leaves a seared and raw scar can also bring some of the greatest and most wonderful blessings of walking with God in order to survive. He carries us through the realities of our mortal life. He makes it possible to know that there is more than this one moment.

Even when we THINK we know how things should be, Father has a plan that sees so far beyond our mortal ability to perceive and understand, that He can create blessings in our life anew that surpass our most wild expectations. He can bless us in ways we simply cannot imagine or even think of until that very moment arrives!

Blend that blessing with the reality of our mortal journey through our personal afflictions and the daily slog through the morass of daily living.

What you get is a complete day filled with reminders that "I am not in charge".

I have cried today and prayed today and in weakness pleaded for understanding to things that are beyond my ability to comprehend.

I have felt the weakness of the mortal part of my eternal self in a humbling reminder that I NEED my Heavenly Father and desperately desire the blessings that the Atonement of His Son, my Savior, can bring into my life.

Then, through the miraculous and most appreciated blessing of the priesthood of God upon the Earth, I have felt the spiritual healing that brings a brilliant shaft of Light into my being and helps bring me back from the arms of despair and into the warmth of a Love so fluid and so wonderful that my entire being - body, soul and all - is suffused with a joy that has helped me to see that I don't need to know everything, I just need to know the One who does.

It's been one of those days all day long.

But I honestly believe we have these days to remind us that we matter on an individual level as real children of God who must seek him on the days when nothing makes sense and tragedy is manifest in the lives of those we care for from day to day.

Peace be unto you.

What beautiful words! And within those simple words is a universe of healing even in a day that seemed to be broken in many pieces and beyond repair.