I've learned a lot about perspective in the past few days. Actually, I think I've been more reminded of things I knew about perspective.
______________________________
Spring is puppy season for us. We generally have a litter of pups which we sell two months later. We love this season. We love the pups. We love the hard work. We love hearing back from owners.
We have prided ourselves on the fact that we have never lost a pup, nor had any pups with health issues. The vet can hardly believe it, and sometimes I think he actually looks for problems when we bring them in.
Our oldest dog, Roxy, was due any day. She started to go into labor on Wednesday morning. I had to leave for Philadelphia at noon, so Hannie stayed with her the rest of the day. Roxy ended up birthing 13 puppies--more than she's ever had--and we were concerned. 13 puppies is a lot for a mama dog to care for. Making sure that they are all safe and fed is a task.
That night, as John and I tucked the dogs in, John noticed a pup in the paper shreddings. It had been ignored, or perhaps just misplaced, by Roxy. It was dead.
We were so sad for one reason: the loss of life. We love our creatures. We feel sad when one of our pond fish dies, so seeing a lifeless pup? Heartbreaking.
The next day, I noticed a red pup not with the group. When I picked it up, it was cold and hoarse. I rushed it to the vet where they ended up euthanizing it.
Then, looking at the litter again, we noticed that the runt of the litter was showing the same signs as the red pup. Unfortunately, by this time, the girls had named the pups. John left at midnight for a delivery at the hospital, and I tried to fall asleep.
Hannie woke up at 2 a.m. to feed the pup, and found it almost dead. She brought it up to my room. We spent the next hour, crying over it and holding it while it passed away. We tucked it into a little box and thanked Heavenly Father that we had known it for the day it had been alive. Hannie spent the rest of the night with me. We lay in bed, talking. We thought about how much we love our animals, and how thankful we feel that we have had all of them, even the pond fish and the day-old puppies.
____________________________
Yesterday, John attended the funeral of a woman in our church congregation. She was elderly, and had died from uterine cancer. John had been the one to diagnose her cancer, but unbelievably, she had refused treatment. At least, she had refused medical treatment. She spent thousands of her own dollars, traveling down to Mexico to receive holistic treatment for her cancer. She refused to believe that modern medicine could help her. Some of her family supported her in this choice; others thought she was crazy.
It was a sad coincidence that the family wanted a member of the Stake Presidency to speak at the funeral, and John was the only one available. He was concerned about what he would say for several days previous to the event. The family thanked the "witch doctor" who attended the funeral, but said nothing about John (who again diagnosed her originally). I can just see John, sitting there, guileless. He showed no anger that he was not thanked, and he showed no resentment that he was not appreciated. He offered words of comfort, and in the end, only one family member thanked him. It brought me physical pain to think of what he had to endure.
____________________
I offended someone this week. Someone whom I love dearly. I didn't think of their feelings over my own, and I brought pain to their soul.
____________________
What do these stories have to do with perspective? It is because we lived through them that we were able to appreciate one more story all the more.
Every day for the past couple of weeks, two boys show up at our front door. I would guess they are about seven, or eight years old. They are very respectful, and walk all the way around our property to get to our front door. They have one request. Can they look at our tractor? If we aren't using it, and we are near, they are welcome to hop on. There have been times when it has been pouring rain outside, and they still come to our door and ask if they can look at the tractor. I usually tell them "no" because we aren't out with them.
Today, they asked for a ride. Actually, they asked John, because they assume he's the one who can drive it. Imagine their surprise when I drove around the house and found them waiting (after John told me they were there). Kids ride on our tractor all the time. Adults love to drive our tractor around. I had them stand where it's safe and hold on. I put the tractor in low gear, and we were off. We were having some good conversation, when I heard one boy say to the other, "My sister isn't going to believe it when she sees me riding this!" The kids were all smiles, and it reminded me of a time when my kids were younger. At that point, the boy looked over to his house (which is adjacent to our land). He saw his mother, and she was...to put it bluntly....flipping out. She was using every gesture in the book to tell him that he was to get off the tractor immediately. He didn't have to tell me to stop before I had pushed on the brake. He hopped off and ran away. Again, around our property.
I drove around to John and saw the mother at the corner of our property and the park. She was yelling like no tomorrow at him. I wanted to try and get to the bottom of her anger, so I drove over. I could tell it wasn't going to be a good encounter when she was yelling for me to stop coming toward her. I kept driving until I was right in front of her.
She told me that she had "never seen anything so dangerous in her life", and I was NEVER to do that again.
_________________________
There are moments in life when you realize that life is too short to sweat the small stuff. There is so much sadness in the world, globally, and right in our own back yards. I had spent the past few days, crying and feeling the burdens of life weighing heavy on my shoulders. For me, at least, I was thankful to see a ray of happiness. I was happy to take those boys around the yard, giving them an experience they had been craving for weeks. There was no danger.
Life is hard. Things happen that I wish wouldn't. I wish I could have expressed to that mother how those boys had taken my thoughts from pangs of sadness to a reminder of why we are here. We are here to love, to laugh, to feel happy.
As C.S. Lewis says (and I'm paraphrasing), we wouldn't know the happiness then without the pain now. I personally am thankful that I had that moment with those boys, and I don't think I would have appreciated it as much if I hadn't experienced all the sadness that preceded it. Satan wants us to be unhappy. Heavenly Father wants us to be happy.
I choose happiness.
______________________________
Spring is puppy season for us. We generally have a litter of pups which we sell two months later. We love this season. We love the pups. We love the hard work. We love hearing back from owners.
We have prided ourselves on the fact that we have never lost a pup, nor had any pups with health issues. The vet can hardly believe it, and sometimes I think he actually looks for problems when we bring them in.
Our oldest dog, Roxy, was due any day. She started to go into labor on Wednesday morning. I had to leave for Philadelphia at noon, so Hannie stayed with her the rest of the day. Roxy ended up birthing 13 puppies--more than she's ever had--and we were concerned. 13 puppies is a lot for a mama dog to care for. Making sure that they are all safe and fed is a task.
That night, as John and I tucked the dogs in, John noticed a pup in the paper shreddings. It had been ignored, or perhaps just misplaced, by Roxy. It was dead.
We were so sad for one reason: the loss of life. We love our creatures. We feel sad when one of our pond fish dies, so seeing a lifeless pup? Heartbreaking.
The next day, I noticed a red pup not with the group. When I picked it up, it was cold and hoarse. I rushed it to the vet where they ended up euthanizing it.
Then, looking at the litter again, we noticed that the runt of the litter was showing the same signs as the red pup. Unfortunately, by this time, the girls had named the pups. John left at midnight for a delivery at the hospital, and I tried to fall asleep.
Hannie woke up at 2 a.m. to feed the pup, and found it almost dead. She brought it up to my room. We spent the next hour, crying over it and holding it while it passed away. We tucked it into a little box and thanked Heavenly Father that we had known it for the day it had been alive. Hannie spent the rest of the night with me. We lay in bed, talking. We thought about how much we love our animals, and how thankful we feel that we have had all of them, even the pond fish and the day-old puppies.
____________________________
Yesterday, John attended the funeral of a woman in our church congregation. She was elderly, and had died from uterine cancer. John had been the one to diagnose her cancer, but unbelievably, she had refused treatment. At least, she had refused medical treatment. She spent thousands of her own dollars, traveling down to Mexico to receive holistic treatment for her cancer. She refused to believe that modern medicine could help her. Some of her family supported her in this choice; others thought she was crazy.
It was a sad coincidence that the family wanted a member of the Stake Presidency to speak at the funeral, and John was the only one available. He was concerned about what he would say for several days previous to the event. The family thanked the "witch doctor" who attended the funeral, but said nothing about John (who again diagnosed her originally). I can just see John, sitting there, guileless. He showed no anger that he was not thanked, and he showed no resentment that he was not appreciated. He offered words of comfort, and in the end, only one family member thanked him. It brought me physical pain to think of what he had to endure.
____________________
I offended someone this week. Someone whom I love dearly. I didn't think of their feelings over my own, and I brought pain to their soul.
____________________
What do these stories have to do with perspective? It is because we lived through them that we were able to appreciate one more story all the more.
Every day for the past couple of weeks, two boys show up at our front door. I would guess they are about seven, or eight years old. They are very respectful, and walk all the way around our property to get to our front door. They have one request. Can they look at our tractor? If we aren't using it, and we are near, they are welcome to hop on. There have been times when it has been pouring rain outside, and they still come to our door and ask if they can look at the tractor. I usually tell them "no" because we aren't out with them.
Today, they asked for a ride. Actually, they asked John, because they assume he's the one who can drive it. Imagine their surprise when I drove around the house and found them waiting (after John told me they were there). Kids ride on our tractor all the time. Adults love to drive our tractor around. I had them stand where it's safe and hold on. I put the tractor in low gear, and we were off. We were having some good conversation, when I heard one boy say to the other, "My sister isn't going to believe it when she sees me riding this!" The kids were all smiles, and it reminded me of a time when my kids were younger. At that point, the boy looked over to his house (which is adjacent to our land). He saw his mother, and she was...to put it bluntly....flipping out. She was using every gesture in the book to tell him that he was to get off the tractor immediately. He didn't have to tell me to stop before I had pushed on the brake. He hopped off and ran away. Again, around our property.
I drove around to John and saw the mother at the corner of our property and the park. She was yelling like no tomorrow at him. I wanted to try and get to the bottom of her anger, so I drove over. I could tell it wasn't going to be a good encounter when she was yelling for me to stop coming toward her. I kept driving until I was right in front of her.
She told me that she had "never seen anything so dangerous in her life", and I was NEVER to do that again.
_________________________
There are moments in life when you realize that life is too short to sweat the small stuff. There is so much sadness in the world, globally, and right in our own back yards. I had spent the past few days, crying and feeling the burdens of life weighing heavy on my shoulders. For me, at least, I was thankful to see a ray of happiness. I was happy to take those boys around the yard, giving them an experience they had been craving for weeks. There was no danger.
Life is hard. Things happen that I wish wouldn't. I wish I could have expressed to that mother how those boys had taken my thoughts from pangs of sadness to a reminder of why we are here. We are here to love, to laugh, to feel happy.
As C.S. Lewis says (and I'm paraphrasing), we wouldn't know the happiness then without the pain now. I personally am thankful that I had that moment with those boys, and I don't think I would have appreciated it as much if I hadn't experienced all the sadness that preceded it. Satan wants us to be unhappy. Heavenly Father wants us to be happy.
I choose happiness.
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