Sunday, September 30th I am the Gardener Here

Church was very good today. Logan was good, he played on the floor most of the time, and when he is good,  Jacob and I get to leave church feeling edified. A couple of thoughts were shared about the Lord and the way He works with us. Often, our faith will spare us from trials, such as it did for the stripling warriors and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But then other times it just gives us the strength to bear whatever the Lord sees fit to allow us to go through, as it did for Abinadi and Emma Smith. Another thought that was shared was that often we get answers to our prayers or are promised certain blessings or receive revelation to do a certain thing and then opposition comes, and you find yourself shaking your fist at God, trying the grasp the meaning of it all. Abraham was promised seed, but his wife couldn’t bear children, and then when she did, the Lord commanded him to sacrifice that son. The brother that shared the thought shared a story about how he felt that it would be really important to have his 3rd child born in October. Not sure why, but just knew that it was supposed to be that way. Well that daughter was due in October and was born in July, weighing 1lb 12 oz. And he was mad at God, and felt as if God was making a mockery of him since he felt that his daughter should be born in October. But later on, it became apparent to him that if his daughter had been born earlier like he and his wife would have preferred she would have come in the spring. He is CPA, and he is completely busy during the spring because of tax season, and if she had come earlier like they wanted she would have been born during tax season and he wouldn’t have been able to work and provide for his family. So what he struggled to find meaning in turned out to be a tender mercy from the Lord. I have felt that so many times in my life. I’ve struggled to find meaning in an event that occurred that seemed opposite to God’s promise of happiness and peace in our lives, and have later realized that it was a tender mercy directly from His hand. He loved me enough to cut me down so that I could grow to what He wants me to be.

I love this video that a friend posted on Facebook this week.

I like the message in this video. The currant bush had grown tall and big but was yielding no fruit. So the gardener cut it down to just small stumps, and the currant bush seems to say, “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth, and now you’ve cut me down. I thought you were the gardener here.”

And the gardener responds, “Look, little currant bush. I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I don’t intend for you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree, I want you to be a currant bush. And someday, little currant bush, when you’re laden with fruit you’re going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down.’”

At the end the man shares a story about how he was denied a position because he was Mormon and shook his fist at God asking, “How could you do this to me?” That thought came into his mind, I am the gardener here, so he got down on his knees and said, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.”

Saturday, September 22nd

Meet our new doggie. She’s a miniature schnauzer, and we haven’t named her yet, but we will. We picked her up yesterday from an old family friend, and so far she has been good. She’s a little shy, kind of timid, not a barker at all, and a good dog. She’s still getting used to us. I think she misses her other people. So I hope she feels at home here soon. We also picked Sadie up to come over and have a sleep over last night. They’ve been having a blast reeking havoc in our home. Children have the innate ability to make an absolute mess of something in under a minute, especially when they combine mess-making forces. My house is a  disaster, the boys’ bedroom is covered with popcorn, but at least the baby is sleeping and the kids are having a good time. Sometimes that’s all that matters for the day. The messes can be cleaned up later.  Having a dog will be a new adventure for us, but I think it will be great.

Thursday, September 20th

This week has been eventful.  Monday and Tuesday I baby-sat for my friend Hillary’s little boy Walker who is just 5 weeks older than Logan. He’s somewhat of a perfect baby, and so in comparison Logan is super high maintenance. We love our little needy Logan. He’s not as bad as he was when he first started being fussy. We still get good times from him during the day where he’ll sit on the couch and play by himself or is content to be entertained by the boys. But he is certainly not as carefree and easygoing as Walker was. Teagan and Easton got a kick out of him. Monday I ran some errands and took the younger 2 to G-Ma Patti. After I finished my errands I picked Easton up from school and headed back to G-Ma Patti’s to hang out for the evening and eat dinner over there. While we were there Jayden discovered some kittens in the hole in their backyard, and of course I was bombarded with pleas of, “Mom, can we have one?!” But I held firm, and I said no to those mangy little kittens. They were actually really cute, but I don’t like what they grow up to be. Upon leaving their house kitten-less Easton’s tears flowed like the great flood, and I really was sad, but we couldn’t keep one. I am allergic to cats. And really the reason is that I don’t like them. So thus began our week’s quest for the perfect Edgel family pet.

That night I came home and looked for free sad little dogs on craigslist. So Jacob and I convinced ourselves that we wanted a dog. But I like big dogs. Ones that can protect your home and keep you feeling safe if your husband is gone hunting. So we looked at a “white lab” that turned out to be a mutt. And then this morning Jacob picked up an American Bulldog from someone else on Craigslist, but when he brought the dog home we cowered with buyer’s remorse wondering what the heck we had just gotten ourselves into. That dog would have killed my baby. She couldn’t be restrained, she was 11 months old and already really big, and she would have destroyed our house. We don’t have a backyard to accommodate a dog of that nature. So Jacob called the woman back and got her to take the dog back. We dodged that bullet. At this point in our lives, we need a dog that doesn’t require an immense amount of home training. I need one that won’t massacre my children if I leave the room. One that can fit nicely and quietly in my house.  We spent the day rethinking our dog idea and opted to find other pets for the boys. Jacob took the boys to a pet store while I went to lunch with my friend Hillary and our friend Kim (both who I met serving with them in YW’s) in hopes to dissuade them from wanting a dog. They decided a hamster would be good, or maybe a frog, but now I have a friend on FB who has a mini schnauzer that she wants to get rid of.

I should say, “No, we don’t want a dog.” But every time I imagine bringing a little doggy home and seeing the pure excitement and happiness on my little boys’ faces, I can’t help but decide that I really DO want a dog. Not for me, but for them. I am so in love with the idea of making them so happy, that our quest for a pet has been on the forefront my mind since Monday evening. And I’m not a pet person. But I am a little boys type of person (not in a creepy way), and I sure love making my little boys happy. So we will see what the next few days bring. Perhaps we will be the proud owners of a dog that I swore I’d never want.

I’ve done some school this week, planned some things for my sister’s shower, cleaned, schooled Teagan, spent hours trying to keep Logan from crying, and all the other things that accumulate and take up my time. Becca and Sadie came over to play yesterday for a bit before Juddy got home from work. And that has been our week thus far.

My dad is recovering nicely. His PT has been quite impressed with his progress and all the moving around he’s been doing. My dad doesn’t like to sit. He works out regularly, and I think all the sitting is driving him crazy, but he’s really doing well.

Logan spent most of last week napping 3 hours a couple times a day. It was crazy – I had to wake him each time. But yesterday and today he seemed to be back to his habit of a 1-hour nap schedule. His second nap was 2 hours, but the first one was short. I really loved those 5 days of 3 hour naps. I was living the life.

Sometimes I worry about Logan and his motor skills. He didn’t lift his head when he lay on his belly until he was about 2 or 3 months. Both E and T did that almost right away. He didn’t start bearing weight on his legs until about a few weeks ago, and E and T also did that right away. He doesn’t do well with eating food, he just kind of moves his tongue around and thrusts it out of his mouth. He doesn’t have much belly strength and is nowhere near sitting. I don’t feel like he grabs things as well as he should either. At his age Teagan was sitting and up on all fours rocking back and forth. Teags crawled at day 1 of 6 months, and Logan will not be anywhere near that on his 6 month mark. I probably shouldn’t compare him to Teagan because Teagan did everything earlier than most babies his age, and I don’t know if there is a legitimate concern here, but I do worry that he might have some developmental delays. Not cognitively, but physically perhaps. He definitely seems like he’s all there otherwise.

Well, I’m off. There is school to be done and a husband that needs snuggling, and morning always seems to come before I’m ready for it.

Sunday, September 16th

It’s been a busy week with school and scouts and motherhood in general. My little Logi Bear has been napping really well these past 3 or 4 days, like 3 hours at a time, so thanks to that I haven’t had to be up late doing school work. Since I started my medication again it makes me more tired than usual, at least the first month or two that I take it.  So I’ve been going to bed earlier, which Jacob appreciates. He can never fall asleep anyway, so I don’t know why he goes to bed early. So many nights he goes downstairs to watch TV and make himself fall asleep. He has the hardest time sleeping a lot of the time. I’m out a few minutes after I hit the pillow, and I think I’ve been that way ever since I had children. They suck the life out of you. In a good way, of course :).

On Wednesday morning we went to the family courts so that Jacob could officially adopt Easton and Teagan. We are happy that this is something that we have been able to do, and I honestly never imagined that it would ever be a possibility. But Heavenly Father often blesses us in ways we can never imagine. He is so good to us.  Our judge was Bryce Duckworth, and he was a very kind and gracious man. The boys got to pick from his treasure chest and he gave them both a little teddy bear. I don’t think they really understand what was going on. I told Easton about it briefly since he had to be there in court and would likely wonder what was going on, so when I told him about the adoption he said, “Oh, so Jacob isn’t my step dad anymore, he’s my real dad, and now I have 2 real dads.” I thought that was a great way of looking at it. The boys will of course still have the same relationship with Adam that they do now, and we in no way intend to sever that. But we are still excited to have our little family be legally official.

After the hearing, I took Easton to school, and then Jacob had a test to take at Kaplan where he is trying to get into their nursing program. He passed the test (Yay!!), and now he just has an interview left and then we will find out at the end of October if he got in. If he did he will start Dec 5th and graduate June 2014. It’s only a year and a half program, and that is awesome! We have 3 children, so the faster Jacob can get his schooling done the better off we will be.

We went out to dinner Thursday night with Patti and Mark to celebrate the adoption. They are happy to have some more Edgel boys in the family (Budge-Edgel is what we changed their names to).

Friday we took the boys a birthday party for my cousin’s girls. The boys had fun in the bouncy house and playing with Sadie.

Jacob worked Saturday to make up for missing work on Wednesday for the hearing and test he had to take, but the boys and I went to Amanda’s for an end-of-summer swim party. It’s sort of out in the open now, but Amanda is having twins, and so is Laura’s brother Jared’s wife Pansy.  She was at Amanda’s yesterday too with her little boy Nixon. Fun things ahead for them! I’ve always wanted twins. In theory. But I need my mom to come live with me for a year if I had twins. I don’t know how parents of mutliples do it! What do you do when your husband is at work? Do you just never leave the house for the first year of their lives? Anyway, we spent several hours at Amanda’s eating and swimming. Logan had fun hanging out in the pool with me. He was so good for a couple hours while we sat in the water. The boys had so much fun as well. Easton played with all the grown-up guys like he’s such a big kid or something. He acted like they all had been friends forever.

After Amanda’s we went to Becca’s for a couple hours and let the kiddos play. I got home late and put the baby down and got the big boys down. And in a little bit we are off to my parents to visit with G-Ma and G-Pa.

Tuesday, September 11th

My dad was released from the hospital today, and he is doing well. He is in a lot of pain, of course, but he is a stubborn man and I’m sure that will work in his favor this time. He will have to use a walker for a while, and he’ll have physical therapy for a bit, but he will be fine. He had a rod and screws inserted in his leg, so he’s just healing from that now. Again, we are just counting our blessings that it wasn’t worse than that.

Amanda came over for lunch today and brought us Subway. I haven’t seen her for a while, so it was nice to talk to her and hear about the good things happening in her life right now. We just love her. She would do anything for anyone, love her!

Our trip to Disneyland last week was a lot of fun.On the way to Cali, Easton heard me ask Jacob if he got the directions to the hotel. He said from the backseat, “A hotel?!! This just keeps getting better and better!” Its’ the small things.

But BOY was it hot! I suppose it wasn’t too hot temperature wise, but add in that humidity, and none of us could stop sweating. Logan did really well. He napped a couple times at Disneyland, rode in his car seat in the stroller, or hung out in the baby carrier all of the day. Then Patti took him back to the hotel around 8pm, and boy was he pooped.  We got to Disneyland at 9am, and then the boys stayed with Mark, and Jacob and I went off on our own around 7 pm. We all left together at 10pm, so we had a nice long day. But the lines were not long, except for towards the later part of the afternoon. Jacob and I were able to ride all the things that we wanted to (perks of going with grandparents) that I couldn’t ride last time since I was pregnant. We got to do California Screamin, which was SO fun, Tower of Terror, Splash Mountain (which we did with the boys), Space Mountain, Star Tours, and that’s about it, I guess, for the big ones.  I will have to post pictures soon, but I have to get my Chemistry homework done, and we have an early morning tomorrow. It is our adoption hearing, and we have to be there bright and early, so I’m off to get my homework done.

*pictures from Disneyland

Sunday, September 9th Man’s Extremity is God’s Opportunity

Jeffrey R. Holland said, in speaking about Joseph Smith being imprisoned in Liberty Jail, “The lessons of the winter of 1838–39 teach us that every experience can become a redemptive experience if we remain bonded to our Father in Heaven through it. These difficult lessons teach us that man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, and if we will be humble and faithful, if we will be believing and not curse God for our problems, He can turn the unfair and inhumane and debilitating prisons of our lives into temples—or at least into a circumstance that can bring comfort and revelation, divine companionship and peace…

“…Whenever these moments of our extremity come, we must not succumb to the fear that God has abandoned us or that He does not hear our prayers. He does hear us. He does see us. He does love us. When we are in dire circumstances and want to cry, “Where art Thou?” it is imperative that we remember He is right there with us—where He has always been! We must continue to believe, continue to have faith, continue to pray and plead with heaven, even if we feel for a time our prayers are not heard and that God has somehow gone away. He is there. Our prayers are heard. And when we weep He and the angels of heaven weep with us…

“…We are not alone in our little prisons here. When suffering, we may in fact be nearer to God than we’ve ever been in our entire lives. That knowledge can turn every such situation into a would-be temple…”

I thought I was in the clear this time, but it seems that my anxiety and depression have come back in full force the past couple weeks. Since Logan was born, I have only struggled with it here and there a little bit, so I’ve been grateful that it hasn’t been bad. After babies, I tend to struggle with these issues pretty badly unless I’m on an anti-depressant. After I had Easton, I had no idea the horror that would follow for the next year of my life. I kept waiting for it to go away, waiting for it to get better, but it never did. It just got worse and worse until one day, in absolute desperation to feel something normal again, I finally had to swallow my pride and put aside all my apprehension and fear and go on medication. That was extremely hard for me to do. I like to do all things natural. I didn’t grow up in a family where people went to doctors and got on medications. I came from a natural family, and so whenever I can, I like to do things naturally. But when nothing was working and my anxiety became debilitating in every way, I took a leap of faith and went on an anti-depressant, and I seriously believe that it was an answer to prayers. It wasn’t the answer I wanted, though. I don’t think I saw it then as an answer to prayers because I felt defeated. I would tell myself, “Rachel, your life is wonderful. Nothing is wrong with it. Why can’t you just feel happy and stop feeling all these other things?” Or I’d think things like, “Good normal people don’t have these feelings.” And “members of the church aren’t supposed to suffer from anxiety or depression because the gospel is a gospel of happiness and if you aren’t happy, something is wrong with you.” That was six years ago, and sometimes when I find myself feeling like that again, I say the same things. You would think I would have learned by now. But somehow I’ve always felt like this puts me into the category that nobody wants to be in. I’ve always felt inferior because this happens to be a trial that I’m faced with every now and then, like I somehow did it to myself.

When I couldn’t talk myself into feeling good, I felt defeated. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to negotiate with Heavenly Father to bring me another way out of my misery, ANYTHING but medication. I didn’t want to be one of THOSE people. Maybe others don’t think like that, but I always did. I remember hearing about people suffering from depression, and I so foolishly would say, “They just need the gospel in their lives.” And then Easton was born and something went terribly wrong a few days after his birth. These horrible feelings of panic and anxiety swept over me and never went away. Then depression sank in, and it was like that for a year before I got any help.

I kept it to myself, besides telling my mother. I tried telling my ex about it, but he would just say, “Stop thinking about it.” He was no help at all, and I suppose it’s because he didn’t understand it. So I was quite alone in my misery, always trying to hide it from my husband and not wanting anyone around me to know how horrible I felt for fear they would think I was crazy. I don’t know how I lived like that, how I kept it a secret when I was dying inside and barely able to function as a human being. I probably cried every day for that year, and luckily my sweet mother had the same problems after a few of her babies, so she was a great comfort to me, as was the Lord.

Now I have an amazingly sweet husband who is so much help to me and probably one of the reasons I have been able to be off medication for 2 1/2 years. To know that he cares and that I am not a burden to him works wonders to lift my spirit and calm my worries. He is my rock, and when I think of him and his capacity to love, I see the hand of the Lord in my life. He knew that I would need a husband who could be compassionate and understanding, and he is so very good to me.

I have been very private with this struggle because of my own insecurities and previous way of thinking about people who suffered from depression. I’ll tell people all sorts of things about me, but this is one I like to keep secret. It is my way of feeling normal, feeling like I’m the same as everyone else. But I remember a sister in my ward in Idaho struggling with the same things after she had her 3rd child, and somehow I ended up telling her about it and was able to help her. Sometimes I wish I had known that other women had struggled so that I didn’t feel so disconnected and inferior.

Easton is almost 7, and I know now that other women struggle, but I never want to be one of those women. I still struggle to accept this as something that I have to deal with. I still try to tell myself to snap out of it, even though I would never tell anyone else that. Somehow I feel like I have to be perfect when others around me aren’t.

For whatever reason, this is one of my struggles, and as hard as it was for me to do, I had to get back on my medication. I started it on Friday. After so many bad days in a row, and after starting to feel disconnected from God and the people I love (which is my least favorite symptom of my anxiety), I went to my nurse midwife and got a prescription. I try not to see it as defeat, but I struggle with that. I try not to tell myself that I am weak and unable.  I try instead to thank the Lord for providing medications when natural things don’t work.

Sometimes you pray and pray and pray for God to answer your prayer in the precise way that you want it that you fail to see the way that He is already answering it. After Easton I prayed and prayed and prayed that He would take all the bad feelings away and that He would make me feel better because I knew He could. And when He didn’t, I almost wanted to curse the heavens and ask, “Where are you when I need you? How could you let me feel like this?”

It is humbling to know that the Lord always know what He’s doing. It takes a huge measure of faith to trust that when He denies you what you so desperately are sure that you need that He really does know better than you. I don’t know why He just doesn’t take this from me. If a pill takes it away, why won’t He just take it away? I’ve asked myself that, and I never know the answer. But I try to trust.

Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. I’m not sure what He plans to do with me, but I trust that He knows better. And on my hard days, when I really feel my worst and can’t feel Him near, I love to read the quote above by Elder Holland. It is comforting to be reminded that God can turn every experience into a redemptive experience. It is comforting to be reminded that God is with us, and that when we weep, He and the angels weep with us.

I try to count my blessings and think about specific things in my life that I am grateful for - People that say kind words and act as the hands of God when He isn’t here on earth with us, my sweet children and the funny things they say, the warm grasp of my husband’s hand around my own, my sweet mother and her constant attention, my sister who is my best friend and makes me feel not so crazy, and the gospel that gives me hope. I love to read good talks, like the one mentioned above by Elder Holland, Lessons From Liberty Jail. I feel like the Lord pours down so many answers to my prayers, even if they aren’t the answers that I’m looking for. I have spent a lot of time praying for healing, but I’ve learned to change my prayers to ask for strength to bear my trials and to not feel them so heavy upon my back, the same way the people of Alma prayed and had their burdens lightened.

I am constantly learning, even in my worst moments. Holland said in his talk, “You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experiences with the Lord in any situation you are in. Indeed, you can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experiences with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life—in the worst settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced.” I believe that to be true. And I always pray to know what the Lord would have me learn, even when I feel so bad that I can’t feel His presence which fortunately is not how I feel most days.  The good news is that I can use medication to help me for a while and accept that as a blessing directly from Him instead of seeing it as a personal defeat since it wasn’t what I wanted.

Today, after church, my mom called me and told me that my dad had an accident while he was cleaning his gun. The gun fired and shot him in the leg. It missed the femoral artery, but it went right through his leg and broke his femur. We spent several hours at the hospital tonight, and he’s in a lot of pain but doing well. They are going to operate in the morning and insert a rod into his leg. Instead of cursing God for our problems and asking, “Where art thou” we are giving thanks that he didn’t hit the major artery that could have killed him if he had done so. I know the Lord watches out for us and sends us blessings, and we have to be waiting with our eyes and hearts open to see the blessings that are lurking in disguise. Tonight I am grateful that my dad is okay, that he is still with us, and though he will have a good 6 weeks of recovery, I am so very grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord that likely saved his life. 

Sunday, September 12th Arizona Visitors

Well we survived the first week of school, and I only had a slight headache after it was over. Doing school with a baby is much trickier than I had anticipated. I don’t have a lot of free time to be reading my textbooks and doing the assignments, but I’m sure we’ll manage. Easton had a great first week, no complaints, and he said he made a lot of new friends. Most of this week was spent just adjusting to school starting and running some errands. I went over to Jacob’s parents one day this past week, and Mom Edgel sewed the curtains for Logan’s room, so now his room is mostly done. I say mostly done because I don’t feel like anything is ever really “done” being decorated.  But I LOVE the finished curtains.

 

On Thursday, Jacob went to Kaplan University and took one of their initial tests to try to get into the nursing program. He passed that one, and he’ll test again on the 12th of September to see if he can really get into the program. Praying hard that he does.

On Friday afternoon, Erin and Kaylee  (Arizona cousins) came to stay with us for the weekend. Julia was supposed to come to but she had school things she couldn’t miss.  So Friday night we got a babysitter for the boys and went out to dinner with the rest of my family. Joe wanted to set Erin up with Laura’s brother Dallin, so we all went out to dinner at BJ’s. Kaylee didn’t have a date, so we invited Jacob’s brother Jayden to come hang out with us and be Kaylee’s date. After dinner, Jacob and I and Erin and Kaylee headed to the strip to see the Bellagio Fountains, and then we met Joe, Laura and Dallin and a restaurant called Serendipity. They are famous for their frozen hot chocolate, so we got that of course. Pretty yummy.

We had a fun time seeing the water show and eating dessert, but we didn’t get home until 1 am, and I am a mother. I have children. I can’t go to bed that late. Mr. Logan decided to randomly wake up the next morning at 5:50 am. I nearly died of tiredness. He was sleeping in his play pen in our closet, so maybe that’s why he woke up so early. He hasn’t been sleeping until 9am since we went up to the condo, and 7 am is early enough.

Yesterday we went to Bass Pro Shop with the girls. The boys had a ton of fun, and the girls liked seeing everything there.

After Bass Pro, we came home and I made dinner while Jacob got called to do an on-site for work. Luckily he was only gone about an hour. I put Logan down, fed the children, and then put them to bed with a movie while the grown-ups stayed up and chatted. Bec and Jud came over and we ate some treats and watched Jim Gaffigan’s Mr. Universe. Hilarious. Bec and Jud left about 11, and then we all headed to bed after a late night a little sleep the night before.

Today we went to church, the girls left after sacrament to visit some friends of theirs in Vegas, and then after church we went to Jacob’s parents’ for his dad’s birthday. We were there a couple hours and then headed to my parents’ for dinner with my family and Uncle Don we came down Friday night suddenly. Now we are home, the older boys are spending the night with Sadie at my parents’ house, and Logi Bear is fast asleep in his bed. Poor baby was completely off his schedule today. Church tends to do that to him, though.

Erin and Kaylee are leaving in the morning. The boys will be sad, and we will miss them but they might come back in November for Joe’s wedding. It is always fun to have visitors around here.