"Old Love!"

Oh my goodness, it is December 5th and I haven't had a minute to write anything! You see, that is why a journal is hard for me. Oh well!!! I'm dead in the middle of finals and grades and teaching, teaching, teaching, and Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat! (Hope I'm not!) But, I can say I'm really doing well shopping for gifts. Well,maybe pretty good. Forget my house being decorated! I need Lara!! But at least I have the tree up. Slowly getting things on it, of course. Did get Daisy groomed for Christmas! The calendar is filling up, up,up!

But I have to say, I am so glad that I have been able to make time for one thing and that is studying or reading the Holy Word of God! If I don't then I suffer immensely! Right now I'm in 3rd Nephi Reading about his ministry over here in the Americas and loving every minute of it. Also, I was called upon to give the YW lesson to all the YW last week on developing talents! It was wonderful as usual for the teacher to learn or remember what you already knew! His gifts are innumerable to us as we have to ask for them. Then the VTing message is becoming an instrument in His hands through charity! That is one of the most difficult gifts to acquire and to keep! I sincerely have to ask for that regularly! I love that Howard W Hunter says we can't force people to be better, but we can inspire them to be better! I have a few people in my life who do just that for me!

Then on a secular point I was reading Smartmarriages that I get regularly and loved the article on "Old Love' vs "New or Young love" and found it profound. I totally relate to the insights there. Here is a sample:

This is research that has encouraging news!
It's also that brain researchers say older people may simply be better able to deal with the emotional vicissitudes of love. As it ages, the brain becomes more programmed to be happy in relationships...
Young love is about wanting to be happy, old love is about wanting someone else to be happy.

She was very aware that contradictory things live together. You can't look at it and say he did it purely for love, it's a complicated issue, because there's a lot of life that has been lived. It's not going to be simple"

"As you get older you begin to recognize that this isn't going to last forever, for better or for worse," "You understand that the bad times pass and you understand that the good times pass, as you experience them, they're more precious, they're richer."

"As people get older, they seem to naturally look at the world through positivity and be willing to accept things that when we're young we would find disturbing and vexing."
It's not rationalization, the reaction is instantaneous. "Instead of what would be most disturbing for somebody, feeling betrayed or discomfort, the other thoughts-about how from his perspective it's not betrayal-can be accommodated much more easily," "It paves the way for you to be sympathetic to the situation from his perspective, to be less disturbed from her perspective." "Young brains tend to go to extremes-the swooning or sobbing so characteristic of young love. Old love puts things in soft focus.

Researchers trying to understand aging and emotion performed brain scans on people across a range of ages, gauging their reactions to positive and negative scenes. Young people tended to respond to the negative scenes. Those in middle age took in a better balance of the positive. And older people responded only to the positive scenes.

Of course not everyone showed a generous response. But it goes to show you as you become "old dogs" together you really do just like to be together, warts and all, looking out after one another, disagreeing without getting defensive and accepting and remembering the positive things. '

So glad I'm getting there!