"COME ON, LIFE, MAKE MY DAY...GIVE ME LEMONS, AND I'LL MAKE LEMONADE"

The title of this post should be familiar to you.
What?  It's not?
You mean you haven't heard of Cedar Dushane?
Here she is in concert:

Ok, I'll stop teasing you.
Cedar is actually my sister, and she is opening for Taylor Swift here.



I totally just lied again.
Ok, here is the for serious truth:  Cedar is my sister and is a talented singer/songwriter.  Actually, I have two sisters who are talented singer/songwriters.  Mainly because of their talent, when we were younger, our family had a country bluegrass band called Sassyfras.

I'm really serious.  Look, here we are:

I'm the one in the back, trying to look like I know what I'm doing.

Here is another one:

We were going for the white trash look.  Can you tell?
Don't make fun of me because I feel at home here.

(You don't pronounce the 'y' on Sassyfras, ok?  I mean, you just say it like sassafras, not sassYfras.  And it was clever because the sassafras tree has three different-shaped leaves...and there were three of us girls...and three different kinds of leaves...and three of us...get it?)

Both Cedar and Hannah (my other talented sister) sing, play instruments, and write music.  (The first picture above was Cedar singing her song "Country Boy" which she performed at BYU's Guitars Unplugged--she was one of 16 bands--out of like 200--chosen to perform.)

The whole reason I bring all this up is because I want to share something with you.  It's a song I have been thinking a lot about lately.  It's kinda sad, but it's kinda happy.
Cedar wrote it, and it's called "I Love the Rain."
Here is a live recording of it (I hope you like yodeling):

Did you notice how she forgot the words to her own song half way through?
And could you just hear her smile through it and start where she remembered the words again?
(She was performing it at the end of a songwriting class at BYU.)
It's, like, exactly what the song is about.

Here are the lyrics, in case you didn't catch them:

It was cloudy outside and the forecast cold,

Phone wasn't ringing, nobody home

So I decided it was the perfect chance

To turn up the music, get on a table and dance.

CHORUS

Come on Life, make my day,

Give me lemons, and I'll make lemonade,

Come on storm, pour on down,

I'll go barefoot, and dance around

Oh, oh what's pain?

Oh, I love the rain.

When it rained outside, there were holes in my roof

Puddles in my kitchen and the carpet soaked through

So I decided before I make things right,

I'll invite some friends over for an indoor water fight

CHORUS

So after the rain we jumped in puddles

And we found...

The sun came out, it seemed brighter than ever

It had to be gone, to feel that much better

CHORUS

The moral of the story is that rotten things happen, and things don't go our way, and so the best dang thing to do is laugh and keep moving forward.

I've been thinking about that because, lately, we have had a little lemon in our own life.
For almost a year now, we have been wanting to give Hope some siblings.

Well, it hasn't happened.

I speak cautiously today, because I know there are hearts that ache because they have had no children, whether they have lived to adulthood or not.

But Sunday, I heard something that was meant for me.  We were in Idaho for the weekend (Tyler's brother got married) and at Church on Sunday, a sweet couple from Japan spoke.  They were the kind of people you would love to adopt as your grandparents.

Sister Chang spoke about her son who no longer wanted to participate in family scripture study.  It broke her heart.  She asked the Lord what she should do about it and after many prayers, she got her answer.

(Now you have to imagine this tiny, sweet Japanese woman, with a thick accent telling this story...it was so endearing and I felt the Spirit so strong.)

The Lord said, "Wait."
She said, "I don't like your answer, Lord."
He said, "Wait."
When she drove home and walked in the door, the first thing she saw was her son playing video games.
She started, "You...!" and was about to yell at him because she was so disappointed that he was playing video games and not reading his scriptures in preparation for family scripture study that night.
But the Lord stopped her, she said, because she heard her answer again:  "Wait."
"What were you going to say, Mom?" her son asked.
"Nothing, son," she said.
The next morning as the son was leaving for school he asked again, "What were you going to say, Mom?"
She said, "Nothing."
But he wouldn't let it drop.
Finally, she said, "I prayed to know what to do about you and the Lord said, 'Wait.'"
Her son said, "That's a cool answer!" and went to school.
The next time they had family scripture study, the son joined them.

I'm probably missing some of the details, but I couldn't help feeling, every time Sister Chang said the word "Wait" that the Lord was talking to me, too.

It reminded me of what Elder Robert D. Hales said once:

"As we ask [Why such terrible tribulation? To what end? What purpose?], we realize that the purpose of our life on earth is to grow, develop, and be strengthened through our own experiences. How do we do this? The scriptures give us an answer in one simple phrase: we “wait upon the Lord.” Tests and trials are given to all of us. These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His Son. He already knows, and we have the opportunity to learn, that no matter how difficult our circumstances, “all these things shall [be for our] experience, and … [our] good.”

What, then, does it mean to wait upon the Lord? In the scriptures, the word wait means to hope, to anticipate, and to trust. To hope and trust in the Lord requires faith, patience, humility, meekness, long-suffering, keeping the commandments, and enduring to the end."

I really like anything that has to do with hope.

And I believe there are many, many things I can do while I am waiting.

Like learning to take pictures of pretty things.
And writing a children's book.
And working out to lose the few pounds I want so that I can feel a little better about myself.
And riding our bikes from Nauvoo, IL to Salt Lake City, UT on a three month touring trip with Tyler (still working to convince Tyler on that one).
Or any other of the 50 million things I could do before the Lord blesses us with more children (many of which might be less likely to happen once kiddies are running around).

And so when life gives you lemons, smile and say, "That's just what I needed to make Lemonade!"
And as you are drinking your refreshing, sweet, delicious, soul-bending lemonade memorize this psalm for after the lemonade is gone and before you make your next cup:

"Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord."

(Psalms 27:14)

Love, C