Evidence

First of all, I have to say that our primary program in church was a good one.  The practice Saturday was sort of a disaster (my mom said that's how it's supposed to be) and I was nervous about it.  Adam said that I was dealing with gold.  No matter what the kids did, everyone was going to love it.  He was right.

Several weeks ago I was wearing my new-ish boots to church.  During primary, I spent time on the floor with one of the three-year-olds.  Sometimes when you need to communicate with a three-year-old, you have to spend time on the floor.  In the process, I scuffed my boots.

It reminded me of this by Marjorie Hinckley:

I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.

It's nice sometimes to have reminders of a life lived.  I have wrinkles from laughing and crying and worrying and enjoying some sunshine.  I have clothes with snags from blackberry bushes and smears from paint.  I have a lot of stuff ruined by my three children.

We're living life here.  If you don't believe me, just look at our stained carpet. (Speaking of which...why do some things get better with age?  They get a patina that makes them more lovely.  Why isn't carpet one of those things?)