Heaven on Earth

As I ponder the good and bad on this earth, this place we call home.  I reflect on the ways I can create or change for the better.  I can't change others actions, tragedy, or comfort those who face the worst our world has to offer.  I feel like I am too far away to make a different.

I have had this feeling before when my mother called and told me how much she loves me, but that life was going to be shorter for her.  She gave me some of her purple, white, and yellow orchids a year before.  I looked at those flowers and saw only the grass weeds that had grown all around.  I could not pull them all out, it was overwhelming me physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  So I called my mother and asked her with her permission at the end of the season could I mow them down.  I was afraid they would not appear again.  I was, in my frustration, destroying the beautiful gift of love she and Heavenly Father had given me.  She said, "It is ok, do what you need to do, they will grow back."  Then she bore her testimony of our  Savoir, Jesus Christ, and how we can feel his love.  Forgiveness is what I heard in her voice, and Mercy from the Lord when the flowers grew back.

We have other plants in our yard that are not as beautiful, they have yellow flowers too, but covered in thorns and hurt my children. The past two years Allen and I have taken several evenings pulling these unwanted weeds out one by one, because we have learned that mowing over them only makes them multiply the following year.  Back to the resent events in our county, in the world, in our lives. Do we just mow over, or ignore the evil around us or do we seek to remove it properly.  I can't personally go and hug all the people who are hurting and protect them from the evil and hurt.  But, symbolically, I resolved in my mind as each weed came out of the ground and thrown away, I was protecting my family from the evils right here in our back yard.  It was hard work. I am sore physically, but truly freed emotionally and spiritually.
I can fight the evil right in my own back yard.
I can bring joy to my family and community.
I can make my part of earth a piece of heaven.

  I know you are all making your homes and communities a part of heaven, too.  Will you join me in being more dedicated in finding ways to add rays of sunshine to the lives around you?  Life is too short to use it on the negative, pull out the bad and nurture the good.  The Savoir's love can be ours always when we focus on serving those around us.  Heavenly Father has giving us this beautiful earth to cultivate and grow.

I love you all!