I had been preparing for two weeks for the primary Activity Day's activity that Leif and I are in charge of. The activity fell on the week of Valentine's Day. So, naturally, I chose decorating Valentine heart sugar cookies for the activity. I spent time looking through recipes and gathering ingredients. I even watched YouTube to finally fix my Kitchen Aid Mixer so I could use it to mix up the big batch of cookies.
The day came to make up the batter. As I set everything out to begin, Joshua who's 7 yrs old, came over to watch. Pleasantly distracting me a bit from what I was doing. But I tried hard to focus. And everything seemed to go smoothly. Although, as I finalized mixing all of the dough; the bag of sugar caught my eye. For a split second, I wondered if I had added the sugar. But moving on, I reassured myself that no one could possibly make sugar cookies and forget the SUGAR. After all, the dough was a normal...ish consistency. Without any more thought I put the dough in the fridge to chill.
A few days later, I cut out and baked up the cookies. I thought about how much extra flour I needed to get them to work out. But maybe that was just this recipe. When I tasted a cookie I wasn't too surprised when it tasted a lot like flour. I told myself that I'd just dust off any extra flour as I frosted them for the boys.
The activity went really well. The boys had fun. We all did. The boys piled on more frosting and way too many sprinkles than needed. And of course they had to make an extra cookie or two for themselves. I was happy to see that they liked them. I was glad I made the homemade vanilla buttercream frosting. Leif ate one and seemed to be ok with it. But Joshua and I were still very unimpressed. I told Leif that they tasted like biscuits to me.
In the back of my mind I started to think about the sugar again. The next day we had our family reading time together and I set out the extra big and fluffy cookies for each person in the family. Finally, Leif agreed that these cookies just didn't seem right. Once he told me that he thought it was strange that he didn't love the cookie. Because this seemed to be one that he usually would really enjoy. That settled it. I had made NON-sugar Valentine's cookies. So Gross! And So Embarrassing.. . Also, SO Classic of me, I thought. No matter how hard and how much planning I try to put into these types of things, it always seems that something really important doesn't go right.
As the evening went on I had a pity party conversation with myself in my mind. I reminisced about life a few years ago (and the decade prior to that.) I was really sick and I didn't even come close to attempting to do these types of things. And my boys weren't involved in big things outside of everyday life. Because my health made it impossible.... It was easier back then. Now, I'm well enough to put forth the effort. But it just seems like I'm never enough. It never completely works out how I plan.
This self deflating conversation rolled around for a while. Then out of the blue there came a reminder from the Spirit. A quote that is often repeated in lessons given by the leaders of our church. We are taught that, "The Lord Loves Effort."
"The Lord Loves Effort". What else matters?
Later that evening I finally got myself to put together Joshua's Valentine's gift baggies for his classmates. And this year I actually remembered to order something ahead of time. Instead of forgetting until the end when I can only find "My Little Pony" cards on the shelf. But once again, here we sat at the table with a mistake I needed to fix. But couldn't. After we were finished, Joshua started pulling bags aside and telling himself who he would give it to. But, there were two problems with that. First, he can't read at all, let alone people's Names. Second, I had just had him fill the "To" line on the card with little stickers instead of names.🤦♀️ There was no going back.
My mind started imagining how things would go the next day at school. The teacher would finally tell all of the kids that they can pull out their Valentine's bags. She'd tell them that they have 15 minutes until the bell rings; so move along quickly to give out the gifts. Three minutes before the bell rings, she'll notice that Joshua is in front of a classmate's bag. He's pulling out one baggie at a time looking for the "Perfect Sticker" for that particular friend. She calls over to him and tells him it's time to finish up. Looking up, he's suddenly flustered and confused why everyone else is finished.
It's because they all had time to make and mark this decision ahead of time.
As this all plays out in my mind my heart breaks at this imagined scenario. It gets worse when later that night he tells me that he's nervous and asks if I'm coming to class with him tomorrow. 💔
I ask myself again how I always seem to mess things up some how.
Parenthood just feels like a race of thinking ahead. Trying to do what needs to be done to avoid potential disaster. Only to find out you've actually created a different disaster and just leaving things alone would have been better. That night, as I finally climbed into bed, I am taken back to the reminder from earlier; "The Lord Loves Effort" What else matters?
As parents, we're charged with the monumental task of raising these babies into adults. We pray that hopefully by then they are reaching toward the direction of their divinely given potential. At times, it feels incredibly heavy. But, in reality, I think that's because we are in a constant battle against the distractions of the worldly expectations of what the "right" way of doing things are supposed to look like. But really, does that even matter? Isn't the way supposed to be easier than that? More basic? Less chaos? Who are we trying to follow, anyway? Aren't we trying to follow HIM? His way?
His way is the easier way, in the end. You know why? It's because He will love and praise every effort we have given. He will love every Non-Sugar cookie we have made.
Always Remember: "The Lord Loves Effort!" What else matters?
Sleep peacefully tonight. Allowing this to encircle your Mother or Father Heart. The Lord loves YOUR effort. Nothing else matters.
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