Gratitude

In case you have never heard the story of the ten lepers from the bible let me give you a cliff notes version. Ahem, there were ten lepers who came to Jesus and asked him to heal them. He said go show yourselves to the priests. As they were following his instructions they were healed. One of the 10 turned back immediately and thanked Jesus. Jesus then asks about what happened to the other 9.

Then the Sunday school class talks about how terrible it is that 9 of them never even turned around to say thank you. What terrible people they must have been not even being thankful. We all need to say thank you is the lesson that we get, right?

As I have listened to, read and thought about this story the lesson that I get is not quite the same.

Let's put our selves in the lepers place. You are suffering from a terrible disease in which your body very literally is falling apart. Perhaps you are nose-less at this point with gaping wounds in your flesh, a complete outcast from society. You hear of a man who can perform miracles. You believe he really can. You come to him with such faith. He has compassion on you and gives you the directions to heal yourself.

Now, when Jesus gives you instructions what do you do? I would like to believe I would follow them. That is exactly what these 10 do. They head on down the road to complete the task they have been assigned.

One looks at himself and realises what is going on and IMMEDIATELY turns around. This is good. We should admire him.

I doubt however that the other 9 are running down the street laughing about what a sucker Jesus is for healing them. Though I can hardly prove it,I sincerely believe that at least several more, if not all would most likely return to him after they had completed their task. After all, it was Christ who sent them on this mission. They are doing exactly what they have been asked to do.

The lesson that I get from this story is that we need to not only feel gratitude we need to express it IMMEDIATELY. Who knows if you will have a chance later.


Please don't condemn the leper who was following directions.

Random Things

Last night when getting ready for bed Naomi put a piece of cloth around her waist and announced "This is what I wear when I fight in Portuguese."

Caleb wants you to understand that he is correct. If he thinks you are not listening or are paying less attention to him than he wants he says " I talking to you!" You'd better listen up.


I might possibly burn that Lego Star Wars Dictionary.

I was informed "People in Texas don't have cars. They all ride horses."

Today

Today:

• I ready my scriptures and wrote in my journal
• Helped my kids read scriptures personally
• We practiced the Articles of Faith
• We practiced writing and identifying letters
• Practiced addition
• Tried to keep the house clean
• Did laundry
• Had a very unsuccessful nap
• Made salt map clay
• Bathed my filthy children
• Did some more cleaning up
• Made dinner

For all these efforts we ended with:

• Playing in the ash in the fireplace while mom cooked dinner
• A filthy house even after all the cleaning we had done
• Filthy children who were put to bed with one slice of bread for dinner
• A lot of crying

Some days I am a very in attentive mother. I admit it. I should play with them more, I should read to them more, I should worry about the house less than I do. Today I put forth great effort to have fun with them, to teach them, to enjoy them. I don't see how this is a very fair trade.