Expect the Unexpected

I’ve been thinking lately about answers in unexpected places. One of the first unexpected places that comes to mind is the garbage, where (I’ve heard) Alexander Fleming, a British bacteriologist, found a discarded Petri dish with the mold penicillin holding staphylococcus bacteria at bay. So began the answer to treating infectious bacteria.

I think often of another unexpected answer that came two years ago, the year my older son missed eighteen days of fifth grade. Germs seemed to flock to him, and, by extension, the rest of our family. The school office started dropping hints about his truancy.

I looked for answers in the expected place: his pediatrician. Could we do anything to boost his immunity, I asked. No, she said, some kids just come like that.

A few months later I took the kids in for their routine dental checkup during a rare break when no one was sick. The dentist called me in to look at my son’s teeth. “They’re eroding too fast,” she said, and suggested either pop or stomach acid as the culprit. To my children’s chagrin, about the only time we have pop in the house is after they’ve gone to Safeway with their dad for a frozen pizza run and detoured through the soda aisle. Therefore I knew stomach acid must be the guilty party in my son’s mouth.

The dentist sent us to a gastroenterologist to check for acid reflux. What the GI found was eosinophilic esophagitis, a food allergy disease in which white blood cells attack the esophagus when allergens are present. Acid reflux is a side effect.

So my son spent all of the fifth grade sick because his immune system was busy somewhere else.

And the answer to the problem, or at least the beginning of the answer, came from the dentist.

Of course answers in unexpected places aren't always so dramatic; they may simply come as quiet direction, like a soft breeze on a still day. Whatever the case, I find the thought of unexpected answers both inspiring and comforting. Maybe, if I’m living well, I can be someone’s unexpected answer. And hopefully, if I’m living well, I can recognize the unexpected answers in my life.

Alone in the Water

By Sarah Albrecht

Two simultaneous classes ran during a recent session at my preschool daughter’s swim school: hers, and a mom and tots class. The last day of the session, only my daughter and one little boy that looked about two came to their respective classes. The little boy had cried through every class.

Today was no different; in fact, it was worse. For this final class, and according to normal procedure, his mother didn’t come into the water with him so that he could experience working through the various activities with someone else. He hated it. He hated it so much she had to leave in order to not be a distraction.

Near the end of class, as the little boy wailed, I stepped into the small adjacent office to fetch a tissue for my daughter. The boy’s mother sat on a white resin chair just inside the door, a lovely woman with long dark hair and sculpted cheekbones, her hands clasped tightly between her legs. She was carefully monitoring her son while just as carefully staying out of sight because his progress in the essential skill of swimming depended on her absence.

Most parents have experienced similar situations. Since I witnessed rather than participated in this one, though, I could see the big picture more objectively. In fact, it reminded me sharply of our loving Father, sitting just out of sight to monitor our progress in essential growth while we, not understanding the trial in the larger scheme of life, feel alone in the water.

I like to picture Him there.

Overcoming The Weeds Of Life

Valerie J. Steimle

I had the chance to get outside and do some yard-work today. After some weeding in the front flower bed and edging with the weed eater on the side of the house, I had to tackle the weeding of a rose bush I had planted a few years ago.

I hadn’t realized the time had gotten away from me and those weeds had grown so fast over my low growing bush that I could barely see the bush itself. During the blossom season, there were beautiful pink blooms popping everywhere. Now the weeds had over taken it and I had to save it from the invasion.

After pulling the weeds away, it was amazing to find how well my rose bush did. I was very pleasantly surprised how my struggling rose bush was growing so well even with those fast growing weeds all around and over it. It was just growing like crazy. I thought this would hinder the growth. The bush looked as if it wouldn’t have grown at all. It looked as if it would have been smothered. But it flourished and grew anyway. New shoots had grown all over and I actually had to cut it back.

I had to reflect on this idea because humans are so very vulnerable to trials and challenges. We meet bumps in the road or very fast growing weeds and it discourages us from going any farther. How many times have we had the weeds of life come upon us and try to smother us and we just keep growing? How many times do we let those challenges in our life overtake our attitude of “we can get through this” and do it with a smile? Many times we let unimportant setbacks ruin our day of other wonderful accomplishments. I’m guilty as well and need to take a lesson from my own rose bush. Don’t let the weeds of life pull you down so much you don’t follow through on your goals in life. Don’t let the weeds of life over come your worthwhile life of family, friends and the gospel.

Loaves and Fishes

by Sarah Albrecht

I love to read the story of the loaves and fishes from the New Testament and to imagine the multitude being taught and then fed by the Savior. I love the often-heard interpretation for our own time, that the Savior is merciful, and if we come, He will feed us bountifully.

At a time when I felt utterly inadequate in almost every aspect of my life, as if whatever I had to offer was not enough, another application flashed into my mind.

It came as I sat bent over a children’s version of the story with my little daughter. When I saw the picture of a plate with a loaf of bread and a few small fishes, I suddenly thought of who had supplied the Savior with the food with which he fed the masses: not a merchant or a fisherman; not a baker or an innkeeper accustomed to feeding groups, but a boy. He probably brought the Savior his own lunch, or maybe he’d been out getting dinner for his family. In any case, it wasn’t much, and certainly not enough to feed everyone.

But here’s the key: he offered what he had, and with the Lord’s help, it was enough. The realization swept through me like a sudden breeze, cleansing the stagnant despair and leaving a brightness of hope and a confidence rooted on the surest foundation.

If I offer all I have, with the Lord’s help, it will be enough.

Practicing What We Preach

One day about 15 years ago when my number two son was eight, he and his older brother were out playing with some friends in the apartment complex we lived in at the time. It was a chilly day in early October. Back then, money was very, very tight and we had four kids at the time, so we had to make do with very little. Even still, we were blessed with everything we needed.

That afternoon when the boys came in for dinner, I noticed that T.J., my number two son didn't have his jacket on. We had only bought the jackets a few weeks before, so I was pretty concerned. I asked him where his jacket was. He told me he gave it to one of his friends. Both my husband and I immediately got upset because we had so little as it was, and for him to simply give his jacket away was too much.

"Why in the world did you give your jacket away?" I asked him, trying not to raise my voice.
T.J. looked at me and answered simply, "Because he was cold and he didn't have one."

His simple and humble answer stopped us both cold and we were instantly chastened and humbled ourselves. How many times had we said to our children that we need to help others in need? And there we were, getting upset over a mere jacket.

From that moment on, we vowed to practice what we preach to our children, and we have tried to set those Christlike examples whenever possible. And even though we are still far from perfect, the lessons learned from our children bring us a little closer. We will never forget that they are always watching and we are their example.

What do you want to leave behind?

This past month has been an interesting one as we’ve parched through my parents’ possessions.

It’s been a lot of tears as we’ve remembered the good times, and laughter as we relived the adventures, There was stuff to throw away and stuff that we took into our homes cherishing it for the next generations. But mostly for me, it was a time of learning and understanding.

One neighbor kiddingly came over to ask if we’d found anything shocking or of noted interest as we went through their things.

“No”, we responded, “They were pretty much who we had always believed them to be.”

We found love letters to each other and journals that expressed their thoughts and feelings. We found boxes and boxes of pictures that captured every worthwhile memory and some that we wish hadn’t been captured. We found temple clothes and patriarchal blessings, notes and letters from each of us and pictures we’d drawn – all stuff that would have been boring to the outside world (no novels to write here) but all things that gave us comfort nonetheless knowing that our parents had loved and cherished us and given us a good life based on eternal principles.

It wasn’t until I got home, though, along with all of my mothers papers that I did find something shocking – something that I’d never known about her. As I opened one of her boxes, I found her most cherished collection – one none of us had ever known she’d even had.

We’d known about her Santa collection and about dad’s book collection but this was something that was near and dear to her heart that in the quiet of her room dictated her loves and desires.

For years in her nightstand I’d seen a highlighter and a small pair of scissors and had wondered why she kept them there because I’d never seen her use them. Of no great consequence,….until I had opened this box.

Inside, placed lovingly were hundreds of clippings out of the Church News of a feature called ‘Applying the Scriptures’.

For the better part of 20 years, my mother had carefully cut these little features out, highlighted the things that stood out to her and had then gone to the scripture referenced and used that as a study guide as she studied. More notes had been made in the margins of her scriptures as she gained further insight.

Suddenly this box full of what at first appeared to be nothing more than a collection of recyclable goods, took on whole new meaning and gave me insight into a part of my mother’s life that I had not know before.

She had not made it a public practice of showing that she had done the right things but had simply and quietly just done them. And I, nor any of my siblings, had ever known the deep commitment and faithfulness with which she had lived her everyday life in this one area until after her death when I so fortuitously had stumbled upon her most prized collection.

The whole experience made me really think about what I want to leave behind. What do I want those who come after me to find that will dictate my life, passions and desires? And furthermore, what do I want to collect for my own personal enjoyment rather than for the sake of the world?

I also have to admit though, that I can’t wait to see my mom’s neighbor again so that I can tell him that I did find something shocking that gave me new insight into who my mother really was.

I will also gladly share with him that her heart, passions and desires were more than I ever could’ve dreamed of and that I can only hope to follow in her footsteps one day.

We Came to this World to Sing

Senor Morales, my most-wonderful high school Spanish teacher, made his classes memorize one stanza from the Argentinian epic poem Martin Fierro. If I remember right, it went like this:

Cantando me ha de morir
Cantando me ha de enterar
Y cantando me ha de llegar
Al pie del Eterno Padre.
Desde el vientre de mi madre,
Vine a este mundo a cantar.

Roughly translated, it reads:

I will die singing
I will be buried singing
And I will arrive singing
At the foot of the Eternal Father.
From my mother’s womb,
I came to this world to sing.

I told my husband that if I could substitute “writing” for “singing,” the poem would describe me to a T. Basketball would suit him, he answered. In a sense, writing is my song, basketball his.

All of us come to this life with some passion, some drive, something that brings us joy or satisfaction in the doing. Something that we came to this world to do. Most of us get swamped with daily tasks and burdens and struggle to find space for the passion we arrive with.

Of course it’s impossible to ignore obligations. But what did you come here to do?