Tag Archives: death

No Problem Too Big Or Small To Matter

Over the weekend I saw a post my daughter had written on social media about an experience our family had over the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a little thing that happened, but as I read her post I realized that the impact of that little thing is so much larger and ought to get shared, […]

Including Lost Loved Ones In Your Holiday Celebration

Losing a loved one hurts a lot. It’s a pain that never really goes away, it just becomes a little more bearable as time goes on. And while I am grateful that my religious beliefs are that we will see our loved ones again someday in the eternities, there is still the hurts of missing […]

The Legacy We Leave Behind

Last weekend marked the ten year anniversary of the unexpected passing of on of my best friends, Steve Gasser.  Ten years…I can hardly believe that its been ten years since I last got to see his smile and last heard his voice on the other end of the phone saying “Wazzzzzuuuuuppppp!”  I’d first met Steve […]

While You Are Growing Up, They Are Growing Old

Today I was really bummed out because it was my Mother’s 78th birthday and we couldn’t be with her even though she lives only fifteen minutes away.  With the quarantine we could only stand on her front porch singing Happy Birthday to her through the glass and then leave a cake an balloons on her […]

Focus On What You Can Control

“One of the happiest moments ever, is when you find the courage to let go of what you can’t change.” There are a million aspects to life that are out of our control. And focusing on things you can’t control is absolutely pointless…no matter how much you focus on them you can’t control them so […]

Never Take Loved Ones Or Hugs For Granted

A news story talked of individuals found to be sick with Coronavirus and how they have to be immediately quarantined away from their families. When they have to be hospitalized they do so without their families by their side. And those die do so without having gotten a chance to hug their loved ones goodbye. […]

Bad Things Happen To Good People

“That moment when you pour a bowl of cereal and realize there’s no milk so you sit there wondering why bad things happen to good people.” (tee hee) It’s so easy in life to think that because you are trying to live your life right and do good things that therefore nothing bad should happen […]

Conversations It Would Be Irresponsible Not To Have

One of the most difficult conversations to hold with people is the one where you ask them to walk you through their desires in the event of their passing away. It’s especially difficult to have that conversation with your aging parents at a time you know they are already feeling concerns about the dangers of […]

Defining Success

How do I define a successful day?  For me, a successful day is one I can come home from knowing that I did my very best, I gave it my all, I made good choices that upheld my integrity and that I treated others with kindness and respect.  That is a successful day.  Every other […]

How Will You Measure Your Life

Clayton M. Christensen, renowned Harvard Business Professor, strategy consultant, best-selling author, mentor, church leader, husband, father, and grandfather, passed away just over a week ago at the age of 67. He was an amazing man who taught a powerful lesson on how we ought to measure our lives – both through his words and through […]

Hard Times Lead Us To Question

When good people pass away it can cause those left behind to start questioning things – Why did this good person with so much to live for have to be taken too soon?  Why would a loving God take them from us when they are so needed by so many here?  What good purpose does […]

Beautiful People Don’t Just Happen

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not […]

He Did What We Could Not Do For Ourselves

“Years ago there was a little one-room schoolhouse in the mountains of Virginia where the boys were so rough that no teacher had been able to handle them. “A young, inexperienced teacher applied, and the old director scanned him and asked: ‘Young fellow, do you know that you are asking for an awful beating? Every […]

Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

I’ve spent my day sick and unable to get anything done, which is a real bummer considering I just got back from being gone ten days and then immediately went up to Logan to speak at the University so today was supposed to be my first day of catch up, but that’s clearly going to […]

Life Flashing Before Your Eyes

It was nine days ago and my husband and I had just arrived down to our houseboat on Lake Powell to prepare things for the group of families we would be hosting for the upcoming week.  I began unloading groceries as my husband climbed down into the hull of the boat to check our tanks […]

The Best Way To Pay Tribute To Those We’ve Lost

“Every one of us has wept at a death, grieved through a funeral, or stood in pain at a graveside. I am surely one who has. We should all praise God for the assured resurrection that makes our mortal separations temporary and gives us the hope and strength to carry on.”   – Dallin H. Oaks […]

The Worst Part About Growing Up

“The worst part about growing up is seeing your parents growing old.” – unknown My husband’s parents live up in Idaho and as soon as the cold weather comes each year they love to take a road trip to go somewhere down south its nice and warm. On their way down south they always stop […]

The Only Way To Take Sorrow Out Of Death Is To Take Love Out Of Life

“The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.”  -Russell M. Nelson Eight years ago this week I received a phone call telling me that one of my very best friends in life, Steve Gasser, had passed away unexpectedly.  I remember the pain in my chest and that […]

When We’ll Know That We Knew What Love Was

My daughter Ashley wrote a great guest blog for me last week about how her definition of love is growing as she comes to understand more about what love and marriage are all about. Reading her post I couldn’t help but thing about how my own definition of love has grown tremendously over the years […]

Pain Is Weakness Leaving The Body

Yesterday, July 24th , we celebrated Pioneer Day (which is a state holiday in Utah). For those of you not familiar with Pioneer Day it commemorates the evens of July 24, 1847 when Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley after making the nearly 1,300 mile trek […]

What Will Matter

Sometimes you read something that says what you are thinking more perfectly than you could say it yourself  – that’s how I felt when I read this poem by Michael Josephson, whom I had never heard of until someone showed me this poem , but I  like the message of his poem so much I’m […]

Take A Walk Down Happy Memory Lane

“Don’t wait until your life is almost over to realize how great it has been!” Today I had to pull a bunch of old photos from years past together for a project and as I was sorting through years and years worth of photos I couldn’t help but be pulled into a walk down memory […]

“We have not yet the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us…”

Do you ever have times where you feel you have already been through so many hard trials in your life, and you’ve already overcome so many hard things, and worked to improve yourself in so many ways that surely you deserve to have a reprieve from life’s difficulties because you feel you’ve fought through hard […]

You’re only asking “Why?” because you don’t know the amazing things that lay ahead for you

“Your journey has molded you for the greater good. It was exactly what it needed to be. Don`t think you’ve lost time. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now. And now is right on time.” – Asha Tyson I have never believed in coincidence.  Maybe I have […]

Take A Personal Inventory of How You Are Spending Your Time

Time is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. I suppose that’s been driven by my going through several life changing events recently, like the death of a relative, and my children getting in a serious car accident, and a parent who has been extremely ill, and several other things of that nature that […]

Everything Can Change In A Single Second

Saturday morning I awoke to a phone call alerting me that my son Dalton and his pregnant wife Alexis had been in a car accident on the freeway. Getting that phone call was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I rushed to the Hospital Emergency Room where I spent the rest of […]

A Lifetime In A Day

“A funeral is not a day in a lifetime, it’s a lifetime in a day.” One thing in life is certain, and that is that each of us will eventually pass on from this life. When that day comes for each of us, the best we can hope for is to have words spoken about […]

What one successful entrepreneur said was the most important advice he could give me as I began my entrepreneurial journey

Yesterday afternoon someone I love dearly passed away.  He was Marion D. Woods to others, but he was Uncle Buzz to me and Buzz Woods to his good friends. He had been fighting cancer but unfortunately his body wasn’t able to fight it any longer and he passed away surrounded by his wife and children. […]

What you leave behind

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” – Pericles What a powerful reminder that quote is! When I read it I thought how it could be referring to trophies and worldly accomplishments we earn in this life like awards and titles […]

Recognize Your Own Song And Sing It Well

In the book ‘Wisdom of the Heart’ Alan Cohen tells the following story: When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child. They recognize that every soul has […]