Looking beyond our circumstances...

"When you are physically sick, tired, or in despair, steer your thoughts away from yourself and direct them in gratitude and love toward God." F. Enzio Busche

I've become a little obsessed with creating my own images with quotes, because I don't always find ones I like!

"We can choose to be grateful, no matter what. This type of gratitude transcends whatever is happening around us. It surpasses disappointment, discouragement, and despair. It blooms just as beautifully in the icy landscape of winter as it does in the pleasant warmth of summer.

When we are grateful to God in our circumstances, we can experience gentle peace in the midst of tribulation. In grief, we can still lift up our hearts in praise. In pain, we can glory in Christ’s Atonement. In the cold of bitter sorrow, we can experience the closeness and warmth of heaven’s embrace.

We sometimes think that being grateful is what we do after our problems are solved, but how terribly shortsighted that is. How much of life do we miss by waiting to see the rainbow before thanking God that there is rain?

Being grateful in times of distress does not mean that we are pleased with our circumstances. It does mean that through the eyes of faith we look beyond our present-day challenges."

I'm in pain, but so grateful for the time to heal. For the time to catch up on reading. To read conference talks and quotes from our Prophets and many apostles and be spiritually fed in the comfort of my bed.

 I'm not necessarily pleased to have to have multiple surgeries, but so grateful to have the option, ability, and opportunity to afford to have the surgeries performed. So grateful for the dentist, for his sweet assistants, and all they do to help me.

My smile will not be perfect, but I will be able to smile everyday. With a mouth full of teeth. I have the blessing of feeling comfortable and confident enough to smile without worry.

I'm so grateful to my husband! He is my source of strength, joy, hope, courage, love, confidence, and happiness! He becomes this ultra-husband when I need to lean on him completely. I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful for him.

I'm so grateful to Him for him. ;)

Quote was taken from Dieter F Uchdorf's April 2014 General Conference talk

Dieter F. Uchdorf is Second Councilor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The Story Of My.... teeth.

Taken right after the surgery. I had my phone on camera mode to look at my face, and thought I'd document it since this is my last of a looooong line of dental surgeries- none of which were documented.

Bone graft and gum membrane graft done again, today. This was dental surgery number.... I have no idea. I think close to either #6 or #7..

I'm so over having stitches in my mouth, the taste of blood, the swelling, and the mind-numbing P A I N!! 

It's so intense. I'm so sore. I feel like I'm reliving the accident after every procedure.

I did it to myself, though.

Don't play hide & seek in the rain, in the mud, climb down from the roof of a two story house, onto the wrap around porch, slip in mud, land face first on a wrought iron grate knocking your three front {adult} teeth out and expect to just walk away....

This is a similar build of my great grandmothers house where my accident happened. Her house was built against a mountain, so you could literally walk around the porch to the back, climb up the railing, and onto the side of the mountain, climb up a few feet, turn around and walk on to the roof.

 It. Was. Awesome! 

It was also raining, and I was rushing back down during a game of hide and seek, slipped, fell HARD landing right on my mouth, knocked my three front adult teeth (root and all) and fractured my Maxilla jaw bone.

I was in shock but I needed someone to come so I screamed for help; I had no idea I had knocked my teeth out. I turned around and saw my sister first. The look on her face scared me. She pointed out that I had blood everywhere and started crying. I looked down at my shirt soaked in blood and started getting very dizzy, and that's right around the time the pain started in...

The fire dept. was called and I remember being duck taped down to the gurney and then carried down the flight of stairs leading to the ambulance. 

At the station I was asked a series of (concussion) questions: my name, date, my parents names, president... Then I was taken all the way to the Flagstaff, and then eventually down to the east valley for surgery. 

I was given a temporary "flipper" to wear and kept it for way too long. I wore that flipper for the next fourteen years before finally buckling down and scheduling the grueling, gruesome, grievous, agonizingly painful series of surgeries to not only insert implants into my jaw (using screws... Guess where those go) but also to repair my jaw bone...

That's the story. 

Don't run in the mud. The consequences are painful. And expensive!! 

Fortunately I have a husband who loves me despite my dental needs, and is not only willing to pay the price, but is also willing to play Mr Mom to our three kiddos while I recover from each surgery...

And children who visit me to cheer me up...

Aiden liked this picture because his hand is invisible...

EYE love this kid.