Life and Gratitude

It never fails that life always gets ahead of me, and I find myself not blogging again. I could make excuses like I have kids and a house and our laptop died and I lost all my pictures and didn't want to blog without any pictures. But really it all comes down to the fact that I'm a numbers girl . . . . hence being a math teacher. I never feel like I have anything to write about that is important or worth the time writing or your time reading. But today I feel a lot of gratitude and wanted to share with you.

I feel so grateful that I have a happy and healthy family. Two things have made me feel this way, they are both very tragic and I am a little disappointed in myself that it takes something like this to make me realize how blessed I am. All to often I am caugt up in the business of life and don't stop to see the little things like my blessings.

First off, Kiya's preschool teacher was my Young Women's president for a while and her children are my age. One of her sons a year ago all of a sudden lost his sight one day, they have no idea why, and at this point have not been able to do anything to restore his sight. Then right after Thanksgiving his only child (2 years old) had an accident where some fencing fell on top of him and he has severe brain damage. I look at their little family and can't even imagine having to deal with both of those challenges so close together. And even though they still have their little boy here with them on earth, he will be completely different forever. They may never hear his laugh again, or see him running around playing. It just makes me treasure every moment that I have with my girls because you never know when something could happen.

The other thing happened last week. A lady in our ward went in for a simple routine surgery on her foot and everything seemed to be fine. The next day she went back to the hospital for heart pain and since then has had heart, lung, and kidney failure. She has been on life support since last Saturday, and the doctors are trying to figure out what is best for her. She has some bad infections and had to have her leg amputated on top of all of this.
Our ward has had specials fasts for her the past two weeks and talked a lot about faith, and miracles. I have participated in fasting and praying for her, and have felt the spirit many times throughout the past week. Things seem to be getting better at this point and not worse so that is good. I am grateful to have my faith and testimony strengthened through this experience.

This again is proof of how quickly your life can change, and I'm just glad to have a wonderful husband who I know is beside me through everything, and two beautiful girls who make me smile everyday.