Love, Joy, Peace

(My Sunday evening scene.)

This month, our Scripture Time scripture has been Galatians 5:22-23:  "But the fruit of the Spirt is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."  Our January efforts to increase our joy were supposed to be focused on doing the things that would help to create an environment where the Spirit can dwell.  The irony of having such a lofty goal is that it always seems to bring out the most adversity, and I spent Friday night bemoaning our results to Scott, as I recapped a month that has seen more than its fair share of fighting and freak-outs and failure to achieve.

(I told them yesterday that February's focus to increase our joy was going to be on creating and compassionate service.  They  were super excited to get a jump start on the creating part.  Hahaha.)

Ethan keeps trying to convince me that February is America's least favorite month, but that can't possibly be true.  January is the worst.  And perhaps it's the cold and the housebound-ed-ness and the too-much-time-together-ness that has contributed to this month being so frustrating, but I can't even tell you how many times I've gotten on the kids' cases this month about not doing chores (or anything, really, to contribute to our family and household) and about the massive amounts of disrespect and disobedience that has been flying rampantly about.  

 (Sophie's artwork.)

 (Jane's and mine -- I drew the picture, she watercolored it in.)

(Ethan was doing his own creating by creating some beautiful background music for us.)

In fact, I was borderline crying while venting to Scott and reflecting on the fact that I didn't feel like ANY of those fruits of the Spirit were present in our house this month.  And if those fruits haven't be present, then -- by implication -- clearly the Spirit has been absent this month as well.  And I really, truly felt that way.  I've spent much of January feeling like I'm totally failing in implementing the Church's new "Come, Follow Me" curriculum in our family, and in addition to that I've felt like my efforts with our family's "Shout For Joy" theme has fallen completely short as well.  

 (They couldn't find paintbrushes so they improvised.  Hahaha.)

 (Grace hopped on board the creativity train as well.)

BUT.  That very night, I had a middle of the night moment, where I felt Heavenly Father's tender mercy reminding me of all the times that we HAVE felt the fruits of the Spirit this month.  When Jane came in our room at 4 in the morning (because she had fallen out of bed) she kindly let me tuck her back into her bed rather than insisting on climbing into ours.  After giving her her inhaler because she was sounding wheezy, I made my way back to bed, but not before stubbing my toe on the way out.  I yelped in brief pain, waking up Sophie who asked in concern if I was okay, and after assuring her I was fine, I stumbled back to my room and tried to fall back asleep.  Before that happened, though, I had memories flash to my mind of all of the love and joy and long-suffering and goodness I had witnessed just in the last few days!

 (Even Alex -- who typically hates all things art -- got in on the action as well.  AND, I think he really enjoyed himself!)

There was the love I felt for Jane as I helped the poor little lamb back to bed.  There was her goodness in going back to HER bed.  There was Sophie's goodness in her concern for me when I stubbed my toe, not to mention the love and comfort she tried to give to Alex when he had his bus stop incident the other day.  There's Ethan's long-suffering with how frustrating it can be to round everyone up at night for Book of Mormon and family prayers, and MY long-suffering as I've tried to stay patient and calm when the kids have had their meltdowns this month.   And there's been love and gentleness from everyone all around towards Maxwell this weekend as he's been recovering from whatever made him so sick.  In short, there have been MORE than enough moments this month to help us feel the Spirit and to experience times of joy.  I'm so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who is patient with me even though I am so frequently impatient with myself.

 (Another Jessica and Jane creation.)

 (I've gotta brush up my art skills for that children's book I plan on illustrating for my 40 Before 40.  Hahahaha.)

(Sophie's finished product blew me away!)

I'm also grateful that January is almost over and my personal favorite month is on the horizon.  :)  Look out February, because I have a feeling it's going to be our most joyful month yet!  Hahaha.

 (Jane.)

(Today, Alex drew a 2nd draft of the same picture, and was SUPER happy with how much better it came out this time around.)