Mr & Mrs Smith

Posts

Will We Seek Jesus?

God expects us to hold happiness and sorrow at the same time. It’s a beautiful contrary that many of us struggle to understand, but it’s really key to understanding our purpose on earth. We can easily find ourselves in a battle of emotions if we can’t accept that both can exist at the same time; we will falsely accuse ourselves or others as either ungrateful & weak, or overly strong & fake. Perhaps a lot of it is how we speak to the struggle. Our main purpose is to experience heartache & frustration (one side of the coin), but to overcome it through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which provides everlasting joy (the other side of the coin). In order to really value the Atonement of Jesus Christ, many of us are humbled by the feeling of hopelessness. We will all experience some level of loss & acute awareness of our own weaknesses, usually when things start to feel out of our control. But what does holding both sorrow & joy look like? That is a quest...

And so it begins, again

At what point do you ... 1. Keep holding on waiting for inspiration to come 2. Try something different 3. Let go & walk away I'd say most of us are usually somewhere in between #1 & #2, but there are occasional moments where I find myself locked into another Jane Austin film with some oreos & milk ignoring reality all together. Today, I'm trying to rise above some level of complacency & clear my mind at your expense. Mr Smith & I had a good run of it, but since blogs became obsolete in 2017 while Instragram chained us all to algorithms, I had no audience nor desire to write in this world. But times change, after it murders our souls, and alas we are famished for an authentic keyboard with less distractions again. So, let's catch up. They say it comes in threes... Since our job change in 2017, we experienced three more moves, three additional job changes (that don't necessarily align with the moves), and three additional children. 2018-2022 were ver...

Side Note on Traditions

Many may know I've battled with family traditions, specifically Christmas ones for awhile now. I don't fall in love with most traditions, especially those that are just for the sake of tradition and Mr Smith even more so. However, I do believe the scriptures make reference to righteous AND unrighteous traditions of their fathers, so we can filter for our own families. I only want our heart in it. I want our kids to enjoy time as a family and traditions are great for them. With Christmas, I also need Christ in it. We are celebrating Him and that's why "happy holidays" makes me a little squeamish. So it's Hanukkah too and some Christians are beginning to wonder if it's best to celebrate with them vs the pagan roots of many Christmas traditions (or are they, it is debatable?!). I think there is a balance with no need to go to the extreme. While other cultures are fascinating, we do have to find a way to celebrate Christ. While our daily efforts are ess...

Breaking Silence for Religion

I've never been good at being concise. I like words too much. I think outloud. And I haven't had time to blog all these conversations & posts & mental thoughts and it's eating at me to write it all down, to get it out there. These are some words that no one understands anymore: love, tolerance, faith, forgiveness, covenants, judgment, respect, moderation, self-worth, humility, equality...at least if they say they do, I wouldn't believe them. In truth, I think we should be forever understanding what these words mean. Yet I hear people affirming over & over again in their actions & with their voice that they want to be right and they want you to know it & accept the choices they're making. So much for democracy & freedom. They might say "to each his own" but I'm not idealistic anymore, people don't really believe that. I reference "the world" a lot. Let's clarify what I mean. We can start with Holly...

Managing Time

I haven't been good at managing my time. I've learned to lower my standards, but I'm afraid I get to lax & make TV too much the babysitter. I miss the pre-k activities I'd try to do with Lexi. I just get exhausted by the idea of planning something for all the kids. Our park excursions when they work out is the best I can do. I'm really trying to make a more concious effort to SEE my children & not just dismiss the odd things they get excited by & try to listen to Lexi's next greatest idea. I need to value her imagination; even if I just see a chaotic mess, she sees a beautiful party. It really doesn't take much to make them happy. And I've come to realize how much joy Lexi gets from making me laugh. Anytime I laugh at one of her sayings, it makes her happy. I still just stare at her realizing that she is growing up so fast; it's like I'm trying to soak her in. I even started noticing that sometimes she brings her lower jaw out over he...

Memorial Day & the Dirty Thirty

We are less than theatrical around here when it comes to anniversaries or parent birthdays. I always try to get my free food (Cafe Rio credit, Jamba Juice & Firehouse subs), but we otherwise spent it relaxing as a family (Mr Smith cleaned up the house) & attending Gpa & Gma Smith's gravesites. I was very imoressed with Mr Smith when he walked up to an elderly lady we passed. He asked her who she was visiting with Lexi and she proceeded to tell about her brother who served on a boat. Lexi didn't realize why that was important, but I know it touched her that we were trying to teach our children. She teared up talking about her family. I was grateful for Eric's example of taking time to touch a stranger. We are grateful for all the brave men & women who fight for freedom. Those we lost, are not gone forever & definitely not forgotten. There is so much joy in teaching our children that. Earlier that week we had the awesome opportunity to tow our van o...