I had a friend whose baby had died. She was on bed rest at the time, pregnant with twins who really, really wanted to come early. Her RS president “comforted” her with stories of the pioneer women who sacrificed so much, blah, blah, blah, so she needed to not feel sorry for herself. Just what the grieving mother of a dead baby needs to hear to make her feel better, don’tcha think?
We mere humans, when we’re trying to figure out what kinds of people we ought to be, when we’re in a difficult position, or grieving over a loss, are not typically brought to our senses by reminders of how much worse others have it. At least, not once we’ve passed the age of ten.
Reminders of all Jesus suffered don’t minimize any suffering we mere mortals might be having. And don’t EVEN think about singing “Praise to the Man” or performing any variants on that activity as a way of pulling me out of my slump. Puh-lease. Joseph brought it on himself.
When my older son was younger, and we were living in Lubbock, we talked to him about college. He really wanted to go to Ohio State ($25K out-of-state tuition…right!) One car trip, DH and I told him what we thought: that he could go away to school if that’s what he wanted to do, and we would support him in that, but we would really like him to stay home and go to Texas Tech, because he’s an asset to our family.
He is an asset. He’s a kind and attentive big brother. He’s bright and a good conversationalist. He’s pretty helpful around the house - just two days ago, he cleaned out the linen closet without being asked, and his room is spotless just ten days after he returned home (it was NOT that clean when he got here).
He’s got some strange foibles. he won’t touch raw meat, even to put it in the oven to bake. The sound of metal-on-metal is like fingernails on a chalkboard to him (thus he won’t put away the silverware when he empties the dishwasher). He has a hypersensitive nose.
But I don’t mind letting him have the car keys, because he’s a good driver, and he’ll go grocery shopping when I ask. He’s grateful for what he has and expresses that.
I wish we still lived in a college town, so school wasn’t 82 miles away. But I’m glad to have him home for the summer.
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