Category: Fatherhood

Family quotes that matter to me

The most extraordinary thing in this world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.

G.K. Chesterton

The end of all activity in the Church is to see that a man and a woman with their children are happy at home and sealed together for time and for all eternity.

Boyd K. Packer

Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother. But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to have done…

Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature…spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life.

George Eliot, Middlemarch

Deadline

We are in college and scholarship application season, and it seems to get more intense each time.

I sat through an application seminar last week, even though we have successfully navigated this process several times. “Things are changing,” is what I keep hearing about scholarships and universities.

This week, there is a deadline for a scholarship competition, and we have been through several phases of realization, some of them pretty miserable.

I have loved raising our kids, even this difficult, anxious phase with some of the last lessons before flight. As Mark writes his essays, we revisit the triumphs of growing up and the failures, too. Its a time to look back together before things get really busy, so I won’t wish away these days.

Moab Trip

The Ross family tour bus departed on Memorial Day, just as most people packed up their RV’s to come home. We passed masses of traffic traveling home in the other direction, and discovered that the places we visited near Moab were not crowded. Richard made excellent plans and accommodations for us. He is so good at this.

After such a wet winter, the landscape was more green than we can remember. There were so many wildflowers, that whole fields were dusted in color, mostly orange, but many other colors, too.

Do you spy Paige and Michael, and Daniel and McKenna traveling with us? Lucky us! My brother Joe shared his van with us so we could all ride together.

This disaster is actually a tender mercy.

Richard awoke at 3:30 am on Saturday and had an impression that he should check the furnace room. He found the beginnings of a flood in this basement area, and bleary-eyed, we cleared out the wet boxes and vacuumed up excess water on the floor through the early hours of the morning. We were able to discover the leak was from the water heater. There was minimal damage, and the carpets are fine.

We were disappointed, as we had plans to go to Susanna’s wedding reception on Saturday, which we had to miss. We were also without hot water for a couple of days.

The thing that we will remember is that we were so completely cared for by the Lord.

He inspired Richard to wake up so he could protect our home. The flood began before we were scheduled to be away from the house. Mark was home on Saturday and could help Richard move out the old water heater and bring inside the new one. Richard had tools, knowledge, skill, and some helpful insights from others so he could install the water heater himself, long before any plumber could come.

I don’t know why we were spared the trial of a fully flooded basement, but I know who spared us.

The magic hour

The magic hour for conversations with Mark is between 10 and 11 pm. This has been true for most of our kids, and I read somewhere that teen circadian rhythms shift several hours beyond usual bedtimes. Late nights simply don’t feel late to them.

We try to be available for conversations late at night and early in the morning before school. This is also when we pray together.

I hope the rhythm of prayer will continue for our children long after they grow out of the funny rhythms of their teen years. I can think of no better comfort and help than prayer.

Best wishes to our girl

Paige and Michael drove away this morning to live in a new state with all our best wishes and love. She has lived away from home for nearly 8 years, but seeing her room without furniture feels like a final toll of a bell. Today they face a fresh beginning while perhaps we see more evidence of an ending. It is a good, terrible day.

Good job, all of us.