Out to lunch, appropriately named!

Well, this is a surprise! Look I'm actually writing a personal blog!! Aren't you surprised, could have fooled you, right? Well, I am, and it is only to update you as to the heavy duty life I've been living as so many of you have as well.
My life has been full, that's for sure! But it is full of joy and of sadness all at once. I truly feel beaten up! I remember well Bro. Christensen always saying in class, "I feel beaten up every day and it is getting more intense each day I grow older!" I have to say I feel the same way. We have had a few funerals of those who are near and very dear to us, we have seen close friends begin a journey of cancer or early dimentia. We have gone through a difficult surgery but it has turned out great so far! We have children who care about us and who are growing in ways that we never would have guessed how it would happen, but we knew who they were and they would all get there in spite of obstacles placed before them! I love them and they are mine!
We got to go to Hawaii for a week, we have our grandchildren calling us and wanting us in their lives, and enjoying a long talk with all of them! We have had difficulties with different personalities, and we have had very joyful ones that boost and lift us! There are now challenges that are getting more and more difficult due to the economy! More pressure to tighten our belts and not enjoy life as we thought we were going to in our retiring years! There has been problem solving every day as we serve one another as well as be served! But ultimately, everyone, none of this matters, one day it will all go away and the important thing is we stuck together, we grew closer to our Savior, we kept our eyes on the Prophet, and kept his commandments.
I have said in other blogs, we have been called judgmental before, we have been called other choice names, as I am sure you all have because the reality is the intensity against the Saints is increasing, and it is increasing FAST! Does it hurt?? Of course it does, does it matter? Not really. But what I really pray for is a soft heart and endurance! Endurance to the end, one with compassion, one with understanding as so many have lost this. I know we are being refined. I just hope I can allow it, because I know it is human nature to resist it. I would like to share a little sentence that has mean't so much to me, "I will have people in my life who will hurt me spiritually and physically, but I will always reach out in forgiveness and understanding!" I really do hang on to this, because I can really say, that I have. One day, it will all be made right! This, my friends, is where the endurance comes in! Frankly, there are days I'm just plain tired of trying to be the big girl, the adult! So thanks for my place of sorting this out in my mind, by writing it down. My little place in cyberspace! So if you think I'm out to lunch, that is fine with me. That is why this blog is appropriately named!
Time to go and get some rest! For tomorrow is another day!