The Initiative Against Drudgery

I am blessed. I did not see this last night when I felt remarkably like a wrung-out, sour-smelling dish rag. I went directly to book group after a horrible day at work, and part of the book discussion centered on blessing our children and grandchildren. Here was my attitude: Really? I'm thinking about how to survive, keep my job, pay the bills and not hate absolutely everyone, including myself, in the process, and you want me to say blessings over my children?

But today has been a nearly perfect day for healing. OK, it started out a little less than perfect when, after dropping my girls off at school, I got a speeding ticket for going 47 in a 35 mph zone (that street really doesn't feel like a 35-mph street). And then the officer had the nerve to make a joke about my glove compartment needing a little spring cleaning. Hasn't experience taught him that people receiving $154 tickets aren't really in the joking mood?

Speeding tickets aside, however, it is a gorgeous spring-like day. Blue skies after weeks of gray and a bright yellow ball shining overhead. I took my walk for the first time in weeks, and Oswald's words were like the balm of Gilead to my weary soul. I received them as a personal gift from God -- via Oswald -- to me:

"When the Lord does a thing through us, He always transfigures it. Our Lord took on Him our human flesh and transfigured it, and it has become for every saint the temple of the Holy Ghost."

Remember the grungy dish rag that was me? He has blessed me and transformed me so that, yes, I might bless my children as well as be blessed by them.

Barbara