Tender Mercies

Yesterday was such a hard day for me. It shouldn't have been, but it was. Most of the time I feel like I juggle this being a mom of seven role pretty well, but then there are days like yesterday where I feel like a total failure. I should say right off the bat that this is not one of those posts that are meant to elicit a ton of comments saying, "No, Melissa. You are an AMAZING mom!" It will probably seem a lot like that as I write, but I don't need anyone to say that. I'm okay. But yesterday was hard, and every once in a while I have a mini breakdown where I just feel frustrated with myself. That's what happened. But this is a happy story in the end. Trust me.

This is not my chili. But by the end
of the night my crock pot was
full to the brim, just like this bowl.

Yesterday was one of those days where I felt as if I was being pulled all over the place, but never actually arriving where I need to be. It was the annual chili cook-off and trunk or treat party at church, so I spent the afternoon preparing some chili for the event. I'm not ever totally concerned about winning the silly competition. That's always just for fun. But I have noticed for several years that it seems as if my chili is always the one that is least touched of all the choices. Every. Single. Year. I'm starting to get a complex about it. Really ... I am. I don't know why it is. Truthfully, I'm not even sure why I care. But I do. I really do. So every year I try to tweak my recipe a bit. One year people were talking about how much they appreciated fresh tomatoes in the chili, so I added fresh tomatoes to my recipe. One year people were talking about how much they liked the heat from the chilies, so I added a bit more heat. One year the talk was about the "smokiness" of the flavor, so I added more smokiness. But .... NOTHING. My chili seemed to be totally unpopular. I thought that maybe it might be because the presentation lacked something, so this year I made sure that my chili looked super nice with lots of variation of color and texture. It looked delicious. NOTHING. Last night my chili still was the least touched of all chili. Erg! I started to realize how my experience with this chili is the perfect metaphor for how I lived my entire adolescence ... desperately trying to change things about myself in order to get some sort of nebulous approval from the masses. And that's just sad. Really, really sad. But I should clarify. I'm not saying that I'm really devastated about my chili performance. I really am joking ... a little. I think I'm just a tad ridiculous for worrying about it so much. So I'm only kidding about how upset I am every year. I'm a survivor. I'll be back next year with a new tweak to my recipe ... sure to end up with lots and lots of left-overs yet again for us to carry home.

But, anyway, after spending all afternoon slaving over a not-so-hot crock pot I ran to three different schools to pick up Katie, Hyrum, and JoJo. I brought everyone home, and they started getting dressed for the Halloween party. Every year I have grand designs about getting our whole family dressed thematically in some way. I always wanted us to come as the Village People one year so we could do a fancy YMCA performance. Or I wanted Laney and Savannah to come as the Bee Gees so they could do their sweet Stayin' Alive karaoke. It really is so much fun to see them sing this. I've always had a lot of neat ideas, and then they just fall apart. I run out of time, or I run out of creative juices. It never fails. We always find ourselves on the day of our Halloween party scrambling to get costumes together. Luckily Herman has put together a ton of costume parts during his after Halloween sales runs, so we can throw things together pretty easily. Unfortunately, yesterday I felt like I didn't have a second of time to help the kids at all. Everybody was able to grab something. True, Minsy went as a pumpkin again this year since her costume from last year still fit ... even though she really, really wanted to be a cat. And Hyrum ... sweet, sweet Hyrum ... was not able to find anything that fit him very well, but he grabbed a vest, stuck it on and said, "Look, Mom! I'm Han Solo." He is so good to me to be content with such a costume. It all worked out.

But as I was putting together the finishing touch on my soon-to-be-looked-at-but-not-eaten chili I heard the doorbell ring. We forgot to pick up Minsy at the bus stop. She rides a bus to and from her Early Childhood Education class, but because we live on a dead end street that is difficult to drive for the big busses, we have to meet the bus around the corner. If we ever forget the bus aide has to walk her all the way to our house. As Hyrum answered the door I remembered that I was supposed to be at a parent teacher conference with Minsy's teacher an hour earlier. Her teacher had stayed late that day to meet with us, and we totally forgot. I totally forgot.

After feeling frazzled about that I realized that I hadn't taken any time to put together my seminary lesson for this morning, and I wasn't going to have any extra time until late at night. I hate waiting until the last minute to get prepared. I was starting to really get unhinged about things ... but the night was only getting started.

Spencer had his last soccer game of the year yesterday. I wanted to be there to support him, but the rest of the family was excited to go to the ward party, so we needed to make a decision. Originally Herman was going to go to the soccer game while I managed the church party, but then Herman had to meet with a young man to release him from his mission, so he couldn't do either. Luckily Savannah could drive everyone to church. She loaded up the family, grabbed my crock pot of chili, and headed to the church. I told her that I would get there as quick as I could, and then I headed out to the soccer game.

But I was 45 minutes late!!!

Spencer only plays half the game, so I was worried that I would have missed all of his playing time for his very last game. I drove to the soccer field, but they weren't there, and I remembered that they would be at the football field for this game. I had to turn around and head to the other side of town, making me even more late.

Well, as I turned around and headed to this soccer game that I would probably miss I thought about how I hadn't made very good costumes for the kids. I thought about how my chili probably tasted horrible. I thought about how Savannah was having to take care of all the kids for me. I thought about how I had not taken any time to help Herman with his dissertation this week like I promised. I thought about how terrible it was that I missed a parent teacher conference for Minsy when she has so many educational needs that need to be discussed. I thought about how absolutely disgusting the house looked as I left. The kitchen was trashed. The bathrooms were trashed. My room was trashed. And I could go on. It is a disaster zone ... one of those "how can she live this way" sort of disaster zones. I thought about so many things that I was failing at as a wife and a mother. I felt horribly overwhelmed and completely inadequate. I was about to seriously self destruct as I headed to this soccer game. It was not pretty. At one point I just had to say, "I AM SO BAD AT THIS!!!"

But ...

When I got to the football field (side note -- WHS has the most beautiful and amazing sports complex of almost any school in Missouri. I love it!) I found that the game had been delayed because of storms, and Spencer didn't start the game. Instead he was put into the game ... right when I got to the field! I didn't miss him playing at all. Then when it seemed as if I was going to have to miss the entire church activity the storms began again. Spencer's game ended up being called at the half -- He won!. I didn't miss anything, and we were able to run over to the church. I missed the meal, but I was there for the trunk or treat which actually ended up being held inside because of the rain. That was an added bonus since I didn't have to feel sad about not decorating our car like I always wish I could for these events. Savannah had helped everyone wonderfully, and another girl at church had even adopted Minsy for the night so that she was taken care of while Savannah handed out candy for our family (Thanks, Brooke!). Everything worked out.

Spencer is on the far right. It's not a great pic because I was so far away.

That whole evening got me thinking about tender mercies. We have been talking about tender mercies a lot in seminary this year because of Nephi's promise that he would show the tender mercies of the Lord in all things. As a class we take time every Tuesday morning to share any tender mercies in our lives. We have had some great experiences with this, and it has been such a good thing for the youth to be able to see the good things that happen to them in the midst of some bad things they have to go through. Looking for the blessings each day helps us to stay positive and have hope no matter what happens. But even as I expect this from the youth, I have also been trying to notice the tender mercies in my life as well.

Last night as we drove home from the activity I thought about a few tender mercies that I recognized in the midst of my frazzled day. The first thing was Hyrum's costume. He was so sweet to just be happy with his vest and his belief that simply wearing a vest over his regular clothes could transform him into Han Solo. He had no problem showing up at church with that for his costume. What a blessing to have such a patient child! And then to have Spencer's soccer game work out so well for me was another blessing. I was able to support Spencer and his team despite my utter lack of time management skills. What a tender mercy to have Savannah take all of her younger siblings to an incredibly chaotic activity without complaint. She didn't whine because she would be missing out on something she wanted to do. She just volunteered and did it happily. She is a blessing to me.

One other tender mercy also involved costumes, but this one didn't end up making the cut. Still, it was so sweet that I had to share it. Katie is being compared to Laney a lot, especially as she has gotten taller and more mature. They look so similar that I am often mistakenly calling her Laney all the time ... but I'm getting better. I am. Well, yesterday as she was getting ready for school she said that she thought she would just dress up like Laney for Halloween since she already looked so much like her. Herman asked her what she would do for a costume, and Katie said, "I would just wear that skirt that Laney made, put on a white shirt with a cover-up, stick my hair up in a bun, and carry a Book of Mormon around with me everywhere." Too sweet! She put together her costume for me so that I could take a picture.

Looks just like Laney, right?

I thought it was sweet that Katie recognized Laney as such a good girl and wanted to emulate her in some way for Halloween. She ended up actually going as Queen Elizabeth, wearing the excellent gown that has been passed down through all the years for each of the Blau girls to wear at one time or another, but this little shout out to Laney was nice.

But all of this brings me to the master tender mercy that I recognized this morning before I headed off to teach seminary. It requires just a bit of background story in this already lengthy post. Sorry for that. Laney has been attending college at BYU-Idaho this entire semester, and she has been having a great time. That university is a great fit for her. As I've already explained in several posts, it has been difficult for me to have her away at school, but I have figured out how to manage well enough. Well, Laney has had a difficult week or so. It's nothing serious, and she is handling things just fine, but I have really been sad that I could not be right there with her as she worked through things. This is my interpretation of things. Laney might describe it all differently, but it seems as if Laney has been getting a little bit of grief from some of her acquaintances for her obedience to rules. She is being labeled as a Goody Two Shoes, and apparently this is not a good thing in some circles. I perceived that Laney was frustrated that people were not appreciating her for who she really was. They didn't KNOW her. Instead they were labeling her. For me this was especially frustrating because she is at a church school. Wouldn't it make sense that obedience to rules would be appreciated at a church school? It seems like it should. But from my outside perspective it seemed as if Laney's obedience was appreciated and valued more at WHS than it is at BYU-I. Even though the students here did not share Laney's religious beliefs it seemed as if they could appreciate her dedication and then see her true personality in addition to that. At least recently it seems as if that was not the case with some of her acquaintances at BYU-I. But Laney has been keeping a good perspective on this little hiccup during her first semester. She has learned some great lessons and turned this into an opportunity for blessings ultimately. She is doing a lot better than I would have in a similar situation. Still, I hated being so far away as she seemed to be having a bit of home sickness. I wanted to be there to comfort her or at least to be able to have eyes on the situation to see if things were as bad as I was imagining. I felt helpless. Totally helpless.

But it seemed as if things had been getting a bit better for Laney in the last few days. She was able to get together with a few friends from our stake who are out there in the area, and they really know Laney and love her for who she is. On Monday morning after a particularly difficult weekend Laney woke to find that some of her classes were cancelled for the day, giving her a bit of a reprieve. And then yesterday Laney received a bundle of letters from a friend who is a missionary serving in Mexico. She had been writing him since he left last spring, but I think she only got one letter in return, and then she received nothing else from him for months. I guess he had been forgetting to bring his letters to mail to her whenever they would gather them to send as a pouch back to the US, but he kept writing new ones, nevertheless. Finally he was able to remember to bring them, and so she got them all as a package yesterday. Super sweet! I could tell that that had made Laney's day a little bit brighter. Hooray!

Well, this morning as I knelt down to say my prayers before leaving for seminary I was praying for Laney and hoping that things would keep getting better every day, and I had such a distinct thought. I felt like the Lord took a moment to remind me of these local friends who had taken time to hang out with Laney over the weekend. I was reminded of Katie's little costume shout out to Laney's goodness and example. And then I was reminded of that package of letters. I felt that there were others there at BYU-I and elsewhere that had also taken time to message or text or call Laney to say something meaningful to her during these days. I felt a distinct impression that these were not random acts. I felt as if this missionary had not simply forgotten to mail these letters because of gross incompetence. Instead I felt as if he had been meant to wait until this time to mail these letters because it was super important to Laney to get them right now at such a difficult time in the semester. And as I had these thoughts I felt as if the Lord was telling me, "Be at peace. She is not alone. I am taking care of her, and I KNOW who she is." It was such a powerful moment for me and the ultimate example of the Lord's tender mercies in my life. I am so, so thankful for that moment.

So it was a crazy day yesterday, and a lot of things went wrong for me. I made a few mistakes along the way. But sometimes it takes those crazy hard days for me to recognize the great blessings in my life. I have a wonderfully supportive family, a great foundation to keep me from falling too far when I do fail, and a ridiculously happy existence. I can't ask for much more. Thank goodness for the opportunities I have to see so many tender mercies in my life. Life is good! And do you know what? I'm not that bad of a parent. If nothing else, I am providing excellent material for my children to use later in life as they write their best selling memoirs.

Be Not Afraid by Greg Olsen