Today as Bentley and I were coming back from Walmart we passed two women walking recreationally. Bentley and I had walked to Walmart with the stroller and were on our way back with two gallons of milk, a dry cookie mix, formula and a box of day old doughnuts that we got for $1.50, how can you go wrong with doughnuts that cheap?
As the women overtook us one of them made the comment "Okay, Doughnuts while walking?" as the other woman laughed.
I had to laugh as well because I had just been about to offer them a doughnut when they passed. I said that they would be doing me a favor because I had just eaten two with Bentley's help.
As I watched the women speedwalk down the sidewalk before us I was struck by this thought:
Sometimes while enduring on the long walk back to our Father's home we give in to our temptations and sometimes eat, say, a doughnut or two before we remember the true purpose of our walk. It's okay. Repent. Toss the doughnuts in the trash and get back on the straight and narrow way. God knew that sometimes we would be distracted by the sprinkles and the gooey chocolatey-ness and that we would need reminders and a little bit of forgiveness.
Like losing weight, however, when you do fall off the wagon, or decide to indulge in a little bit of butter, yeast, glucose and suuuugar, all the things that are bad for you, it's not so easy to just fix your life and be back to where you were before you ate that horrible treat, you have to repent which takes turning away from the sin, mastering your self control and burning off the calories, water weight and even fat you may have gained from it. Or, in a more straight forward way: Repentance isn't easy, it requires hard work, a broken heart and a contrite spirit. On the bright side, once you repent you will feel the Love of the Lord and you will feel good about yourself and your decisions.
Yesterday as I was doing Activity days with the 10 and 11 year old girls we collected donations from Pennies by the Inch! I was so impressed and delighted with the willingness of the girls to serve, in fact, they were practically BEAMING with joy as they went from house to house getting money for children at Primary Children's Hospital whose parents cannot afford their treatment. One of the girls loudly exclaimed "This is Fun!" and when it was time to finish the same girl mourned "But we just got out here," I am so impressed with the beautiful, sweet spirits of the youth of the church. They are so wonderful! And the most beautiful thing about it was that as the girls knocked on doors they were doing service to the elderly people in the neighborhood, they were giving them an opportunity to be charitable, AND brightening their day by visiting them.
Anyway, here's my Bentley update:
Bentley is much more talkative this week, I hung up pictures of the Temple and of Jesus in Bentley's room and he just stared at the picture of the savior. At first he pulled away as if I was going to hand him to the picture and then he touched it. He's so sweet.
His second tooth is coming in rapidly and hopefully he will be happier now!
Against Tyler's advice we switched baby formula on Bentley and he has been such a gassy boy! But, fortunately for us, it doesn't seem to be affecting him other than little toots here and there.
Today Bentley has has two naps. One at 10:30 for 1 hour and another one at 3:30. :) This is part of an operation I am carrying out so that he will sleep longer at night. Let's pray that it works.
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