Cranky and tired, but I have a plan to soften my heart

Firstly, I'll update on the status of things here in our home.  Our baby is doing well, she's quite a good eater, and growing like she should.  She's begun to do slightly longer stretches at night, sometimes going 4 or 5 hours between feedings, so I'm still tired, but it's not so bad.  Holding her feels so good to my heart, and I am pretty certain she's held and doted on more than any of my other babies (and not just by me, as anyone who has watched my husband with her can attest.)  It is sometimes hard, I look down at her face and can see the resemblance she has to my other children, even to Gideon.  It makes me miss him, and wonder how he'd be doing by now likely uttering his first words, walking, and curious and into everything.  It also makes me so grateful for the chance I have to nurse and snuggle her, even to hear what her cry sounds like.  I sometimes wonder as I see her focus on places in the room where no-one is standing. if she can see Gideon, and hope he knows that we love him and miss him still.

That's not what I intended to blog about today, though.

I have teased people about borrowing my children when they need to understand their scriptures.  Not because my children know and understand so much, but because they aren't afraid to stop and ask questions.  If we read a word or phrase they (or we) don't understand, instead of skipping past it, we talk about it, guess at its meaning, and seek for ways to understand it.  Often, as we attempt to understand things and spend a little time pondering, our minds and hearts open up, and we gain insights.  I understand my scriptures way better as I read them to and with my children.  (Says the Mom who is going on 3 nights in a row of skipping family scripture study because it got too late and the kids need sleep--and so do I.)

On one of these "break it down" moments, as we talked about hard hearts, I stumbled upon a great metaphor for life.  Our hearts are like playdoh, and God is the creator.  He's trying to shape us, to create some awesome stuff.  Playdoh is perfect right out of the box, but just from being out in the world, it starts to dry up, just as we tend to become more tough and hardened by the world.  This is easily remedied with a few drops of water after playing with it--and as we make sure we partake of daily living water (scripture study/prayer/spiritual experiences), we keep our hearts soft and easily shaped.  Another way to keep playdoh in good shape is to make sure it's container (it's home) is sealed well (a holy place where the world can't get in and dry it all up.) Occasionally, the playdoh gets quite dry, and it takes more water to help it be able to be used.  And sometimes, it's just so hard, there's not much to be done besides start over with new playdoh.  Hard playdoh can't be shaped--it MUST be softened before anything can be done with it.

Several times in 1 Nephi, Nephi explains about his brothers' hard hearts.  It makes sense that no matter the amazing tools the Lord was using to try and shape their lives (Liahona, seeing an angel, witnessing miracles, a father who was a prophet), nothing worked.  Their playdoh needed to be softened first.  And occasionally, they did add water, the spirit touched them.  They just never maintained the habit of adding living water, so their hearts dried right back up again.

This is a cautionary tale for me as much as anyone.  I noticed today (after a few days in a row of falling short on my scripture study) that I have a very testy temper, I feel not like my best, most patient self.  Once I realized that I am not being as nice as usual, I started thinking about what I needed to do to fix it.  Sleep would help, but I've been running on lack of sleep for many weeks now, and I knew that wasn't the only culprit.  I tried to remember how many days it has been since I did good scripture study, and it's been a few (less than a week, but several days) and my prayers have been more sporadic and not as deep (again--tiredness taking its toll).  I remembered about the playdoh, and I know I need to do better, to get myself back where I want to be, where the Lord can shape me and help me be what he knows i can become.  I need to do better about adding living water into my life each day, more so now, with the tiredness than before.

Another part of the parable that applies particularly right now is that playdoh dries out faster in different temperatures/climates than others.  Heat/dry air will definitely take a toll faster than cold/wet air.  Some days are harder on our spirits than others.  Gideon's grave marker finally was put in at his grave site, and it was hard for both Scott and I to see it.  It's not news...but there's still such a finality in seeing his grave marker, all that it represents, and all that we're missing.  I need the scriptues and the spirit and prayer in my life MORE on days like that, but I neglected them, and I can tell by my crankiness.

ALSO, I promised I'd share a picture of Gideon's grave marker, and it's finally here.  This grave marker is bigger than he was (he was tiny).  I find myself out of words when I see it, it is heavy in more ways than one....so I'll just leave its picture at the end.