Racing to the swings

What a bust. I used to LOVE to swing...at recess I would race as fast as I could to try and get a swing so i could spend all 20 minutes just sitting... feeling the wind in my face going higher and higher and just breathing in life. I would make up stories about where I was flying, and fill my heart and mind with inspiration, hope, and imagination. I wasn't scared I was going to fall. I felt the opposite. I felt like I could do anything, go anywhere, and I knew that I was safe even though I was flying through the air at an alarming rate and at what seemed to me to be great heights. I had faith that the swing would catch me on the way down, that the chains were strong. After a good swing I would leave with more faith in myself, the world, and even in God.

Tonight while I was waiting for my youth ministry class to start, I decided to go play on the playground. Where is the first place I go?...the swings..no contest. However, the experience I have on swings now is drastically different from that when I was in grade school. Swings now make me dizzy and sick to my stomach really fast. I don't know what that means, but I do know that swings no longer hold the meaning they once did. As I sat there sitting in the swing I couldn't swing in because it made me feel sick, I started thinking that like with many things, the swings didn't change, I did. My body grew to where it hurt to sit too long in a swing, I didn't get the same thrill pumping my legs as hard as i could to go higher and higher, and my body didn't handle all that motion the same way it used to. I'm okay with that.

What I'm not okay with is getting rid of swinging altogether. I started thinking about what would be equivalent to my "swing" now. When did we stop swinging? Why did we stop swinging? And we wonder why kids are so carefree. What if we took 15 to 20 minutes twice a day to run somewhere so we could just sit? To feel the wind on our face just breathe in life? To fill our hearts and minds with inspiration, hope, and imagination? I'm not talking about watching a show or getting on facebook. I'm talking about going somewhere that we leave everything behind, and just breathe in life for awhile. It's about time we started racing to the swings again.

New goal: Have faith like a child...on a swing.

A voice to remember

I see my grandma from behind as we walk into the room where the church service at Bethany home will take place. Immediately, I recognize the back of her head, as she sits in her wheel chair at the back of the room. I have a flashback of trying to get up early enough in the morning to watch her put up her waist length white hair into a perfect bun. I will never forget the day she asked me to help her put her hair up. We walk up to her, give her a hug, and sit on either side of her. She slips her hand in mine,something deep in my heart just lets go,and I just start crying. I try to regain my composure and focus all my attention on the music.

We are sitting with all the other people at Bethany home listening to the instrumental hymns playing before the Sunday morning church service starts. As I listen, I start hearing this voice...someone humming this faint alto harmony..in perfect tune...confident,soft,and beautiful. It is so faint I can hardly tell where it is coming from.

Just then I slowly turn my head and realize...it's MY ninety-year-old grandmother humming perfect harmony. My heart stopped for a moment, and I leaned over and blurted out "grandma, do you like singing hymns?"(my heart starting to beat faster in anticipation). She paused and thought about it for a moment, and whispered, "I just can't help but sing", as if she were giving an apology.

I almost lost it completely right in the middle of the church service. If you know me, you know that I am exactly the same way. It is nearly impossible to stop me from singing. At that moment so many things became clear to me at the same time that I had never really put together that I felt like I was having an out of body experience. Like I was was watching myself hum the melody along with my grandma's harmony as I tried to hold back the tears.

I have read and read the scriptures that talk about blessings and faith being passed down through generations, but at that moment I felt it. It's like I was holding the hands of all my ancestors before me, singing to my Savior with all faith, passion and joy in the world. I too just can't help but sing.

The video below is later on that day when we sang hymns together. Not only is "The Old Rugged Cross" my Dad's favorite hymn, but right after I took this video, my Grandma said that this was her mother's favorite hymn as well. She said singing it "made her homesick for her momma". My Grandma's mother died when she was five years old. She has been waiting eighty-five years to see her mother again. As my Aunt Joyce said, "that's a long time to do anything." I imagine she is thinking about her mother as she sings in the video. It isn't glamorous, I'm singing too loud so it's hard to hear the others, and the angle isn't great...but regardless of how it looks, Christ was very present in the room that day, and I think we all were changed somehow after our visit with her. I can't really explain it, but then again, with the best things in life, you just can't.