It's All Good

**Giveaway** 

Win a Life is Good tote bag!
 

Share this post.

Comment with your share (where) and contact information.

Expires 7/17/14

Good luck!

I don't know if it's age or just the turmoil our country is going through here in the U.S. of A., but this year's 4th of July Independence Day struck a nerve. It turned out to be a timely week as what's left of our little family nest traveled to Washington D.C. to visit some monuments and Smithsonian museums. We were home by the 4th and spent the evening at a potluck with our fun and loving neighbors, finishing off fireworks. It was another special memory to add to our family tradition bank as years continue to pass and life changes.

It seems like all I heard when I was a teenager was how dangerous and decayed the world had become, but it never made too much sense then. Maybe it was because I was lucky, had a good family, and didn't make too many stupid choices. I look around me now and wonder how my newly married son will handle raising kids in this hot mess of society. I worry about my sons who are trying to find careers and decent, moral young women to marry. Last, my youngest child is preparing to enter high school and the new, controversial Common Core agenda. Maybe my parents and other adult leaders weren't so crazy after all. Things seem terrible sometimes, as if everything they worried about catapulted itself into my adulthood. It's enough to make one wonder if there's anything good left in the world.

This past U.S. holiday brought it all home for me. I was reminded in Washington how beautiful our

Arlington Cemetery

country is and what an amazing gift our forefathers left us. In Arlington Cemetery, my young son and I talked about how strongly the Holy Spirit could be felt as we passed hundreds upon hundreds of tombstones of fathers and sons and mothers and daughters who died defending our way of life. We bought cheap frozen pops from a street vendor even though we'd just eaten, because of his commitment to make a living in the terrible July heat. When we returned home, we picked blueberries in our backyard and made a pie to share with our friends and neighbors. After the festivities, people hung around to clean up the street and driveways so there wouldn't be a mess the next day.

It wasn't anything monumental, but a small series of touching moments that etched themselves in my heart. Yes, there are problems in our homeland. Life is unfair, and times are hard. People make bad choices, and sometimes there's no where to turn but to heaven. Despite all this, I still believe in the dreams our immigrant ancestors brought with them from around the world. We are still free. We are still blessed. We can still change the world for the better. It's all good.

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”

Anne Frank; The Diary of a Young Girl

"Ordinary people who faithfully, diligently, and consistently do simple things that are right before God will bring forth extraordinary results."

—Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Stay balanced~
Danielle Thorne