watermelon in winter

When you think about what "eternity" means, and what it means to have an eternal family (one that NEVER ends), it's kind of mind-boggling.  The greatest blessing, to me, about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, is the knowledge we have of eternal families, and the authority we have to perform those sacred ordinances in bind families together forever.  This doesn't mean all just being together...it means maintaining the same family relationships we have here, eternally.  Mom and Pops will always be my parents.  James, Steven, and Michael will always be my brothers.  When I get married (and sealed in a temple), my husband will always be my husband, and our kids will always be our kids.  And so on.  It extends backwards to Adam, and forwards to the end of "time."  It is a wonderful, amazing, HUGE blessing, and is the purpose of life.  It's the purpose of everything we do.  God created the earth so we could come here, gain a body and exper...

Sometimes it seems like all we do is invisible, right? We put ourselves out there, but we are invisible.  Those we want to see us, don't. We do all we can to make someone happy, but we can't all the time. We change who we are (for the better), and yet no one seems to recognize this. We have great ideas, but our closest friends don't see them as "great". We look for ways to surprise people, but they don't want the surprise. We smile even when it hurts, yet others don't smile back. We fight back the tears to appear strong, so no one sees how weak we really are. We are the shoulder for everyone else to cry on, but everyone disappears when we need a shoulder. We give advice, but no one wants it. Then when we don't give advice, people ask why we have nothing to say. We are quiet so as not to argue, but they don't see it as peaceful, they see it as passive. We know we are right sometimes, but to someone, we are always wrong. But these are ...