Rainy day

It's a rainy day today.  It started last night and continued throughout the morning.  I love it when it rains, and even more after it stops.  The whole world seems brand new, like the earth is washed clean.  The colors are gorgeous, more vibrant and fresh.  It feels like life is about to burst forth and that a new beginning is coming.

When the rain slowed Siwa went out to explore the crystal wonderland.
Here are some close up views through her lens.

 A dessert rose about to blossom.

A new beginning.  An orchid starting all over again.

Why I pray

You don’t need to be an expert on prayer to teach someone else how to pray.  You only need to have prayed yourself, it’s that simple.  It is, afterall, speaking to another person, albeit a grand and glorious one. I find it amazing and amazingly comforting that the most grand and glorious being, the most powerful and knowing being is also our Father and that He cares about the details in our lives.  He wants us to connect with Him.  He wants us to come to Him in prayer and tell Him all about it- our troubles, our hopes, worries, fears, the things we need, the things we want, and the things we’re grateful to Him for.

I pray on my knees, in the morning and at night, but sometimes in the middle of the day when I'm in need of direction or comfort or strength.  Most of the time I pray while not on my knees.  I talk to God all throughout the day.  I send my thoughts out to Him when I'm cutting vegetables, when I'm walking on the beach, when I'm at church and when I'm driving.  I pray just before I'm about to do something really important, like teach my kids, or write for this blog.  I take my daily actions seriously and I've asked God to be a part of them and guide me in them, and He has.

Going through life without prayer is like trying to navigate without a map, not because I'm not smart or good or capable, but because I lack the bigger picture, that knowing of the past, present and future that God possesses.  There are too many variables, too many unknowns involved and without Heavenly Father's insight, I'd still be guessing, always guessing.

We each have our point of exhaustion.  No matter how strong we may feel, we can find ourselves powerless in the face of a storm, and life is full of storms.  They rage around us and turn our lives upside down.  Sometimes they wrench from us things and people we care the most about, and leave us devastated. Sometimes His answers come in the form of the storm subsiding and the sun coming out.  Often they come in the midst of the storm, in the form of reassurance anchoring us down, safety sheltering us through it, peace keeping the fear at bay, and strength, to go on in the face of great pain and loss; so that we come through it stronger and better for having weathered it.  I would rather go through life, with all its storms, with God beside me than by myself, any day.

When I pray I start by addressing Him.  I thank Him for His gifts in my life.  I ask for what I need.  Then I end the prayer.  Because I'm a christian, I close my prayers "in the name of Jesus Christ," but I believe that God's ability to hear His children's prayers transcends all borders of religion or race.  He loves us all, and is waiting with loving and listening ears, and outstretched arms to give us help.  We have only to reach out in prayer and take it.

Gratitude in obscure places

There are so many things I'm grateful for, some obvious, some obscure.  The obscure are those things that happen over the course of the day that are so natural that we often tend to take them for granted.  If we aren't looking out for them, we may miss them entirely.  Some of the obscure and often overlooked blessings I'm grateful for are:

1) My eyesight. I live everyday with color, bright, vivid color.  I know the sun not only by the feel on my face but by its light, illuminating my world.

2) Strength to get up in the morning.  There have been periods of my life when I was bedridden and helpless.  I know the sensation of strength returning to my body and of finally having it restored.  I know the joy of being able to do even the simplest things for myself and those I love.

3)Food and clean water.  I consume it everyday, throughout the day, as a matter of course. It makes my life possible.  I have never known the want of it.

4)Oxygen.  I have seen the struggle for breath in others and then, thanks to medication, lungs relax and the air slowly begin to flow more and more freely, as if life was being given back to them, and it was.  To take deep, free, breaths of air is a gift given to most of us every second of every day.

5)A smile, a kindness.  Some days these occur more often than on others.  Whenever and wherever they happen, they are reminders that there is goodness is this world, and that this life is still worth living.

I thank my Heavenly Father for my sight, strength, the daily necessities of life and this life worth living.

Moss and more moss by Siwa

Here are some closeups from yesterday's hike. One of my favorite parts of hiking is when we take breaks in the riverbeds. I like to wander off a little ways from our group to look for bugs, plants and things. Yesterday I found a click beetle, lots of different mosses, an egg in a bird's nest, striped fungus, layered rocks and so much more.

My first memory of click beetles was my brother bringing me one when we were little. My brother put the beetle on the ground upside-down. The beetle waited a moment before raising its head, then jerking it back down with a sharp clicking noise. The motion had flipped the beetle back onto its legs. That click beetle was small and brown. The one I found yesterday was a lot bigger and more colorful. I had been taking pictures when I heard a buzzing noise and saw the beetle fly onto my shirt. He allowed me to pull him off and take a few pictures.

Fungus growing on a rotting log.

Clidemia, also known as Koster's curse, is an invasive weed that has spread rapidly throughout much of Hawaii's forests.

A river stone with vervain. 

Moss.

More moss, this picture shows a part of the moss that resembles tiny rosebuds.

While we were walking through a grove of mountain apple trees I noticed a tiny bird's nest in one of the trees overhanging the path. It was made of moss, grass and a white glue the birds produce.  It was about the size of half an orange and belonged to a Japanese White Eye. These tiny birds are an olive green color, a little smaller than a sparrow, with a white ring around their eyes. The egg was the size of a grape.

Today's hike

We went on a beautiful hike today.  The day started out with scattered showers but cleared up for most of the hike.  We were under forest cover most of the time and did several dry bed/ shallow river crossings.  We got attacked by mosquitoes at one point, each person having their own personal swarm.  Luckily we left them behind after one of the crossings.  When we got to the endpoint everyone scattered to pick mountain apples and to explore the river.  No one seemed to want to go home and we ended up lazing around the river, the kids building dams in the little pools and the adults talking, for another hour.  It was a peaceful day.  I feel so blessed to live in such beauty.  Here are the pics of the day:

The motherland

I'm feeling the pull of the ancestral roots today. Although I've been living away from Samoa for 27 years, I still occasionally get homesick. I lived in Samoa from the time I was four until I was sixteen. I went away to college then and never lived there again. I have returned for vacations and extended visits, but my permanent address has always been elsewhere from that time on. I love Samoa. You know those scenes in the movies where a person returns home after a long absence and they fall on the ground and kiss it? That's how I feel when I go home. No I don't kiss the ground at the airport, but I might have in the past at a certain favorite beach of mine, when no one was looking. I love Samoa for the land and its beauty. It's the greenest, most lush place I have ever been. And green feeds my soul, the way blue (the ocean) feeds my husband's. I love Samoa for its people- so ready to laugh, so ready to give, so laid back, except when they're mad. I love Samoa most of all for my family. I have two nieces that I have never held in my arms and my father's birthday is coming up. I'll have to content myself with sending a box. That's what Samoans do that live abroad, they send boxes to show their love, and sometimes envelopes. So this post is going out to all the Sams living in homes away from home. Happy as we may be where we are, and as much as we may need to be where we are, we still feel the tug on the heartstrings when the family and the motherland come up. May these pics help, and feed your soul.

These were taken by Siwa last summer. 

How I feel about God

"How do we know that God loves us?"  That was a question asked of us in church this past Sunday.  Its a question that has been repeated in my mind over and over again since, and today I'd like to address it.

First, let me say that I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Through it I have learned that I am a child of a kind and loving Heavenly Father and that His love is manifest in countless ways.  

It is manifest in his mercy.  I have felt His forgiveness many, many times.  It’s incredibly liberating and nothing motivates me to try harder to do better than that.  I have found Him to be constant and reliable.  I know I will always get the truth from Him and that His answers to my prayers will be for my greatest good.  He says “yes” as often as He can and “no” when whatever it is that I’m asking for is not right for me.   I know that I’m safe with Him and I can trust Him.

His patience with me has taught me patience.  When I find myself getting frustrated that things aren’t as I want them, like when people aren’t doing what I think they should or living up to my expectations, I remember how patient and understanding He’s been with me.  It helps me to slow down, take a breath and see things from another’s perspective.

There have been times when I have been really hard on myself and, whether out loud or to myself, have said unkind and untrue things.  In answer to these untruths, that inner, still small voice tells me that I must never demean or belittle myself, that such thinking and speaking is unworthy of me, and beneath me, as a child of a God.  

I think if we could really see how God feels about us- not how we perceive that He feels about us, but truly feel what He feels, we would all like ourselves a whole lot better; or at least not have done the things that make us dislike ourselves in the first place, because we wouldn’t ever want to disappoint such loving and high expectations.  We would realize how realistic those expectations are if we would give ourselves a chance and believe in ourselves, or in some cases, if we could only be patient with ourselves and our circumstances until we do fulfill them.

I’ve been coming to know Him and learning to love Him all these years, and I’m still working on it.  It’s a developing relationship that brings me more joy than anything else.  It’s a relationship brimming with love- love that I feel from God, which in turn, increases mine for Him.  The better I get to know Him, the more I love myself and others, too.

The longer and better I know God, the more I find my shallow perceptions of myself and others shattered.  Through God, I have come to truly love myself, to see the value and incredible potential in others, to love in spite of imperfection, and to hope for the good in others even when all hope seems lost.  That is what I have come to know and expect from my constant, kind, and most loving Father in Heaven.