First, I have to apologize for not posting in a while. Between having my birthday, my daughter’s birthday, and then having an unscheduled, fast-track surgery last week, I was not super focused on posting to this blog. But, I do want to share some thoughts and experiences from this past week.

First, I have had more people follow this blog than I anticipated. In all reality, I started this for me and my children; but I hope that as more and more people find it, they will also find JOY in Jesus Christ. This past week was full of ups and downs, but I can honestly say I felt joy each day. So thanks for taking time to read this. I’d love to hear your comments or whatever thoughts you have to share from your own life that bring you joy, too. We are all God’s children working toward the same goal of returning to live with Him again, so He wants us to help each other. It’s definitely a group project not a solo assignment.

This photo was taken on my birthday a little over a week ago. It was a fun, relaxing day. Our girls attend a local gym several days per week, and we went with them to see how they’ve been improving over the last eight weeks. They work so hard and are doing so great. To celebrate them and my birthday, we went to Kneader’s for breakfast: a rare treat for sure! Then we spend most of the day at home doing puzzles, playing games, and watching some Harry Potter movies. We’ve all read all the books, so every once in a while, we watch the movies. My oldest daughter told me she felt that it wasn’t much of a birthday celebration, but it was just what I wanted. Low stress, low key, and lots of time with the people I adore most in this world. My husband, Jarom, spoiled me by doing a full crab boil with Alaskan King Crab. (He bought it on sale a few months ago and saved it for my special day since it is my very favorite.) Looking back over the years of my life, I never could have imagined my life being as it is now with all the blessings I enjoy. But my wish for my birthday this year was one of gratitude: I am forever thankful to be alive and spending time with these wonderful people. Each new day I live, I am blessed to meet more people, interact with friends and neighbors, family and strangers. I hope that as I do, I can be more like Jesus and see them as He sees them and love them for who they really are, not for who they may seem to be. I will strive to be better at that this year.

Another thing I loved about my birthday was spending some one-on-one time with my daughter, Evanie. She is in the 5th grade and always teases me that she is a complicated tween (yeah, not even close – she is such a sweetheart). She was writing her first talk for sacrament meeting, but she had some strong emotions about her topic from personal spiritual experiences that she didn’t really feel comfortable sharing because it was too tender for her to talk about. She told me all the things weighing on her heart and we had such a great visit. She sorted out what she wanted to say in her talk. At the end, she apologized for taking up my birthday fun time. I gave her a huge hug and looked her in the eyes, telling her with all sincerity that there was no other way I wanted to spend my birthday than with her talking and crying and sharing like we did. The Spirit was so strong during our time spent together, and we are so much closer because of it. She is such a sweet spirit, and I am so blessed to be her mother. If there is ever any doubt, my dearest, darling children, please know I always have time for you. I always want to know what’s on your mind and how you feel about things. I will make time. Every time.

This same daughter – my oldest daughter, Evanie – has her birthday only a few days after mine. It’s a great thing we didn’t share the same birthday because we are both kind of obsessed with our birthdays and need our own day. 🙂 She requested a turtle pull-apart cupcake cake. (Disclaimer: I do not consider myself crafty in any sense of the word, but like most moms, I will give all I can to make my children happy if it is in my power to do so.) I did my best. You can see from the picture, it’s more like a Nailed It! dessert, but it made her happy. It did taste good if I can say so myself, but it was a struggle. We always celebrate with the grandparents coming over to eat cake and open presents and visit. Sometimes we play games, but we didn’t this year. Evanie was most excited because she asked for a box of 96 crayons. I couldn’t find one, but I found a box of 152 crayons. Apparently, this is the largest set anyone has taken to school. She loves drawing and coloring and this one the one thing she wanted most. See what I mean, she’s cute?

What I didn’t tell anyone other than my husband the day of the turtle cake birthday is that I was not feeling well. I had had a couple of UTIs in the month of January already and I felt like I had another one coming on. I had just finished the antibiotics a few days before. I put on a happy face to celebrate with Evanie, but after she went to bed I did too. It was a terrible night of pain and discomfort. Early the next morning, I had a doctor’s visit with my urologist surgeon. I definitely had an infection – the same infection from the previous two infections of the month. It just wasn’t going away even with the antibiotics. He gave me more antibiotics and scheduled me for surgery to replace my ureteral stent (I won’t go into great detail here because this post is already getting long, but basically, I have to have a stent in my ureter from my transplanted kidney to my bladder because without it I cannot drain the urine and I could die. The stent has to be replaced every 90 days.) The surgeon suggested that by moving my surgery up to only 6 weeks after the last procedure, we could get rid of this infection better and for good. It took a lot of coordination and scheduling and help from family to watch my kids, but I had the surgery on Friday. It went well, but the healing seems a little slower than usual. I am sure it is because of the active infection I am still fighting and currently on more antibiotics. So, that leaves me to rest and try to heal.

I hate resting. There, I said it. I love to be busy and doing things. It is no fun to rest and recover. I can only sleep and read and watch so many shows. I love podcasts, but I love them on the go more than in bed resting. I get restless every single time I have to recover or heal. It reminds me of when I was on bedrest with my second daughter, feeling so restless and unable to do what I wanted. I heard the song “Restless” from Mercy River and it stuck in my head, playing over and over. Even today, I can hear the tune and the lyrics:

You dwell in the songs that we are singing,

Rising to the Heavens, rising to Your heart, Your heart.

Our praises filling up the spaces

In between our frailty and everything

You are You are the keeper of my hear

And I’m restless, I’m restless

‘Til I rest in You, ’til I rest in You

I am restless, I’m restless

‘Til I rest in You, ’til I rest in You

Oh God, I wanna rest in You

Oh, speak now for my soul is listening

Say that You have saved me, whisper in the dark, the dark.

‘Cause I know

You’re more than my salvation

Without you I am hopeless, tell me who You are

You are the keeper of my heart

You are the keeper of my heart

And I’m restless, I’m restless

‘Til I rest in You, ’til I rest in You

I am restless, I’m restless

‘Til I rest in You, ’til I rest in You,

Oh I wanna rest in You

Still my heart, hold me close

Let me hear, a still small voice

Let it grow, let it rise

Into a shout, into a cry

And I am restless, I’m restless

‘Til I rest in You, let me rest in You

And I am restless, so restless

‘Til I rest in You,

’til I rest in You, Oh God

Let me rest in You.

The Lord gives us rest. Even when we aren’t lying down and taking it easy, running around doing all the busy things life brings us, Jesus Christ gives us rest. In the New Testament, Jesus says to “take my yoke upon you and I will give you rest.” I have felt this time and time again as I have to step back and focus on letting my body heal. It is a good opportunity to focus on the Savior and what He has done for me. It is a way to feel the peace that only He can give. When I cannot attend the temple because of my health, I can find Him in my scriptures, in my prayers, in my backyard, in my snuggled children, and in my pondering. If I will let go of my worry and stress and trying to do all the things and just be still, then I can feel His rest. Sometimes it is a real struggle, but I am looking at this through my birthday wish: how can I be grateful for needing to rest and heal? The first thought that came was that I can work on my spiritual and emotional and intellectual goals while my body heals. In doing so, perhaps I will learn more of what I need to do to become more like Jesus Christ. Signing off so I can go rest. 🙂