I Dare You To Eat It

THANKS to everyone who has helped me share this website! A nifty tracking system reports each and every time someone recommends www.idareyoutoeatit.com on their blog or adds it to their list of favorites. The word is spreading. Y’all have tons of friends. Thank you for pointing them in my directions. “Unique visits” are coming in from everywhere! (Bet I’m making a list and checking it twice.)

To show my deepest appreciation, I want to GIVE you my #1 very favorite food storage recipe, of all time. (and the crowd goes wild) I just need about two days to get the picture figured out. Lame-o.

I also want to take some time and space, especially right now, to express my thanks for something that’s been on my mind for the past couple of weeks. I’m grateful for the parable of the fig tree (Matthew 23:32-33) and the perspective it gives to my life. Even though I had read this section of the Bible, I didn’t really notice the power of the message until seven years ago when President Gordon B. Hinckley referred to it during the Sunday morning session of General Conference, back in October of 2001. Remember? This was his talk, The Times in Which We Live, and we were still within the very first month of the horrible aftermath that followed September 11th.

It seemed like everyone was ready to listen back then. We desperately wanted direction. I know I was listening with a unique intensity. Our family had recently moved from New York where my husband had worked, only six months earlier, in one of the buildings right next to the Trade Towers. I’ll never forget the thoughts and feelings I experienced as the national news reported that the building Mike had previously worked in every day, was expected to fall down.

The part of the talk that struck me most was when President Hinckley said, “I cannot dismiss from my mind the grim warnings of the Lord as set forth in the 24th chapter of Matthew.” I grabbed my scriptures. I had to see what the prophet of God could not dismiss from his mind, at this most critical time in our country’s history.

What I found immediately connected, and beyond the grim warnings of wars, famines, and earthquakes, was the beautiful lesson the Savior taught regarding the Second Coming. He taught his disciples about perspective and the promise found in the leaves of a fig tree.

Last Sunday, I taught the Joseph Smith lesson #21, The Second Coming and the Millennium, in Relief Society. Right there in the middle of the lesson I found again, beautiful counsel on perspective. With everything that is going on in the world today, the prophet Joseph Smith’s teachings couldn’t be more timely.

“We see that perilous times have truly come, and the things which we have so long expected have at last begun to usher in; but when you see the fig tree begin to put forth its leaves, you may know that the summer is nigh at hand. There will be a short work on the earth. It has now commenced. I suppose there will soon be perplexity all over the earth. Do not let our hearts faint when these things come upon us, for they must come, or the word cannot be fulfilled.” 

I am so thankful to be reminded that troubled times signal the return of the Savior. I’m thankful to have been given the perspective and promise that what we see today is not all that we get. Just as the fig tree puts forth its leaves, something much bigger is on the way. I want to keep my head up, get prepared both spiritually and temporally, and trust in better times.