The "Friend" fiend, and Come What May

First, a completely un-related aside, a warning to my daughter; avoid guys with this vibe like the plague!



I missed Elder Wirthlin's final talk, Come What May, and Love It. Ironically, I was at the emergency room, waiting for someone to stitch the gash in my youngest son's leg. My wife told me about the talk on the phone, and I wondered if now (well, I mean, then I was wondering), if now was really the time to encourage me to try to find the positive side of things...you know, in the middle of the blood, and the gauze, and the anti-biotics and stuff.

Annddd it turns out the answer is YES, that is exactly the time! There is always something to be grateful for. And finding a way to be grateful in a time of adversity, for me, means I can find a way to be happy. Instead of bitter, frustrated, angry. Happy is a good goal.

So it's winter, and lucky us, it snowed! I woke up this morning, and it was snowing! Not sticking to the road, but snowy, blowy, whirly snowing! The pre-dawn pinky orange on the horizon was amazing in the wispy snowy clouds. During the month of December, the Elders Quorum is in charge of clearing the sidewalks. So I left about 25 minutes early for my early meeting, so I could clear the walks.

Annddd about 100 yards shy of the top of that really high hill on Paradise Road...cough, sputter, wheeze, chug...my awesome 1983 classic car ran out of gas.

Out of gas!?! How is this possible? I drive it 3 miles a day, from home to seminary to the train station. Oh wait...I drove it to work a couple of weeks ago. And to harp lessons. Ah, 278 miles. Yeah, I'm out of gas.

Sigh.

So what did I love about that? I had put on a second coat this morning. I was only 1.5, maybe 2 miles from the church. It had stopped snowing. Because I left early, I knew I would still get there about in time for my meeting.

I called a friend that I knew would leaving about then for the meeting with me, and asked him if he had a gas can he could bring. He's the kind of friend who laughs at me when something funnily misfortunate happens, and said of course (snicker) I can bring some gas (giggle).

It is, I think, a good gift. The ability to instantly know exactly what to do next, and be able to just start slogging away at it. And away I slogged.

Good time to have a beard. Like a built-in scarf. The only things that got cold were my ears, my nose, and my bald spot.

I got to my meeting about six minutes late, but one of the other attendees drove out the last 200 yards to meet me. Everyone else was out shoveling the walks, and right as I arrived, my friend (and he didn't say, "HA-ha!" even once) drove me back to retrieve my classic ride.

It was definitely a "Come What May, and Love It" kind of morning.

What silver linings have you found? Do you ever look at a problem long enough, that you realize it's actually a mostly silver cloud, with just this little dark section here in the middle? I think most of our problems are like that. Not really mostly problems at all, but blessings disguised or clouded by irritation.

Two months ago, we got an audit letter from the IRS. That was definitely not a "Come What May and Love It" morning. Well, not at first. I did my slogging thing, dug out the records it asked for, began making a pile of what I would need to bring to the audit. Had I missed something? Were we in trouble?

And I found something that horrified me. Not about the audit year (2006), we were absolutely righteous about that. But in 2007, I participated in another NIH Vaccine Study (H5V1 Bird Flu), and had completely forgotten to claim the income on my taxes for that year. And the day I was doing my slogging? October 15th.

The absolute final deadline for filing a correction to 2007's income taxes. So. Completely unnecessary (and very stressful and time consuming) audit of 2006. But it pointed out to me, on the last day I could fix it without penalties, a stupid mistake I made months ago. We owed another couple of 100 bucks in taxes. I got that check out post-haste, and was grateful.

I am sure most troubles arrive with a not-so-clear indication of how they can also be blessings. But I am also sure that with the right frame of mind and heart, we can see them more clearly. Today, I am thankful for feet to walk, a coat to stay warm, friends to ferry me gas, who pitched in and helped shovel snow.

Love your Life!