Fa la la la la blah blah blah blah...

I get the blahs every year about this time. I don't think it's necessarily seasonal - as in shorter days - but maybe it is. I'm just not a big Christmas fan. I love what this holiday represents, the birth of our Savior, but I think it's been twisted and stretched into something that actually makes having a Christ-like attitude harder.
Plus after talking about the road trip to take David out to Provo in January, we decided that it wasn't a prudent choice. The cost of the trip would financially strap us, and that money could be better used for the mission fund. I had really been looking forward to visiting with friends and family along the rout from Indiana to Utah, and I was pretty miffed that I won't be going out. So I have been spending the past the past two days like a petulant child pouting around the house, criticising light placement on our tree, losing what little patience I have at a drop of a hat, and taking the dog on long walks and running away.
This morning during scripture study I looked up the word 'Zion', that's what our Sunday School lesson will be about. During some research I stumbled onto a talk by Carlfred Broderick I needed to read. This is the end of a story (and his talk - thus the double testimony!) about a woman who lost a child (yeah...makes my little hissy fits really silly!):

Earlier she had cried out to God, "I asked for a fish, and I got a serpent. I asked for a loaf, and I got a rock. Is that what the scriptures promise?"
But after it was all over, at her little son's graveside, she was able to say, "I am content that God be God. I will not try to instruct Him on His duties or on His obligations toward me or toward any of His children. I know He lives and loves us, that He is God. He's not unmindful of us. We do not suffer out of His view. He does not inflict pain upon us, but He sustains us in our pain. I am His daughter; my son is also His son; we belong to Him, and we are safe with Him. I used to think we were safe from grief and pain here because of our faith. I know now that is not true, but we are safe in His love. We are protected in the most ultimate sense of all—we have a safe home forever. That is my witness."
And that is my witness to you, that God lives, and He does not live less though you have injustice and adversity and pain and unkindness and violence and betrayal. God is in His heaven. We chose to come to an unjust world and suffer. But God is God, and He loves us. His son died for us. There is for each of us, because of who we are and who He is and who we are together, hope. There is hope. The uses of adversity are whatever use we put them to—for you and for me, for the parents of the little boy, for the lady with Haverman's disease, and for the incest victims, for my dad, for all of us—the uses of adversity are the uses we put them to. May they hone us and purify us and teach us and not destroy us, because of who we are and who God is and what our relationship to Him is, is my fervent prayer.

As Women of Faith: Talks Selected from the BYU Women's Conferences [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1989], 189.)
I would urge you to read it in its entirety if you have the time and can find it- I can email you a copy if you ask me to:-)!