Infection

Well I'm back. Sorry for the absence.This is a little long but I wanted to try and express something that was hard to keep short.

Last week, there were two nights in a row that I visited the local Instacare with seperate girls. The doctor confirmed in both instances that we have been infected. It was an infection that I wish we could have avoided. I was hopeful that we would not threepeat by making a visit with Ashton. However we learned at his regular checkup Monday that he too is infected. The infection is strep. I'm sure you can relate to wa

nting to avoid it.

But I want to discuss a different type of infection. An infection with much power. It spreads rapidly and once it is felt, its power overtakes you. We are exposed to it before we even know that it hits and repeated exposure increases its hold on us. Once exposed, your life is never the same and the influence it has will not easily be shaken.

Each May we celebrated this "infection." It is the love of a Mother. I have a mother that did all she knew how to show that love to me. I have the privilege of seeing this love manifest in so many dimensions and have gained an even greater understanding of it by watching my sweet wife. I think a great description of this infection and its continual effect is illustrated in this quote. I shared it with my wife as she was writing a guest blog about being

a mother. You can read it there in a beautiful message from her but I wanted to share it again. Anna Quindlen said:

If we stop to think about what we do, really do, we are building for centuries. We are building character, and tradition, and values, which meander like a river into the distance and out of our sight, but on and on and on.

And what is it that sets the first foundation stone for those centuries? It is the love of a mother. The love that is welled up as a baby is formed and to her is personified as she holds a child in her arms where it feels so safe and a warmth that is akin to the heaven it just left.

As we walked through beautiful gardens of tulips at a festival at Thanksgiving Point, I was pondering about this divine love. We often give flowers on special occasions to mothers. Have you ever wondered why? I'm practical. Maybe too practical. Flowers only last a week or two if you are really lucky and then they're gone. Well, pondering about why we give flowers to

women - and in particular to mothers - has new meaning to me now. As I walked among the tulips, I marveled at their beauty and then began to think of what it takes to get that beauty to appear. I won't bore you with the details of botany but think of what life stages there are for a flower. A seed or bulb is planted and nutured in Mother Earth. Germination begins and it

grows in the earth until it is ready to emerge. After it emerges, it has not reached its potential and will not reach its if it is plucked from the earth prematurely. As it continues to grow, it gets taller and a bud appears. We have all seen the beauty of these stages. Y

et the flower has still not reached its full potential. Finally there is a bloom. It is the bloom that we all eagerly await. But the bloom is not the end. When a flower blooms it is able to pollinate and spread its beauty. When it is finally removed from the earth, it is not finished spreading its beauty. If you've got flowers in a vase, you know what I mean.

Anyway, maybe you can see some of the parallels that I did. Very literally the flower is dependent on Mother Earth to obtain its full potential. To reach its full potential, it must spread itself out and pollinate. In reaching its full potential, it will influence many seasons to come.

A flower that hasn't yet reached its full potential left the arms of its mother. But It will return. One of the most difficult things I have faced through our experience is watching, holding, and weeping with Bennett's Mother and my Sweetheart. She does all she can to spread the infection of the love that only a mother can give to her children. She gave it and received it back in abundance from Bennett. But the flower was plucked prematurely. That premature loss had no explanation and the hurt is deep and lingering. Try as I might, I have no way to take away the pain.

Here is a quote that Amanda and I have found a lot of comfort in. We believe that it teaches the truth. It was stated in 1918 by Joseph F. Smith:

In 1854, I met with my aunt [Agnes Smith], the wife of my uncle, Don Carlos Smith, who was the mother of that little girl [Sophronia] that Joseph Smith, the Prophet, was speaking about, when he told the mother that she should have the pleasure, and the satisfaction of rearing that child, after the resurrection, until it reached the full stature of its spirit; and that it would be a far greater joy than she could possibly have in mortality, because she would be free from the sorrow and fear and disabilities of mortal life, and she would know more than she could know in this life.

I met that widow, the mother of that child, and she told me this circumstance and bore testimony to me that this was what the Prophet Joseph Smith said when he was speaking at the funeral of her little daughter.

Amanda and I will have the joy and Bennett the blessing of being infected by his mother's love again. Very literally she will infect with that love again in nuturing Bennett on the path of reaching his full potential. His life has already blessed many and I know it is still blessing many in a work that I can't see but know is very real. With the new instances of infection that I know will occur with him at a day that will come none to soon, I know that Bennett will reach his full potential.

I will never look at flowers the same again.

And - by the way - our children are all recovering with the help of medicine and because a more powerful infection doesn't allow room for the strep.

I think you know what what I'm talking about.

Thanks Amanda for your infectious love. And thanks to all you Mothers. Keep on spreading.