Last night I had a dream. It was yet another dream of terrorism in America.
I never know when I have these sorts of dreams if they are true dreams or not. I wonder if they could just be the power of suggestion from reading about potential terror, or if they are just residual things I am working through after watching a couple of 9-11 movies. I watched The Path to 9-11 and over the weekend I watched Flight 93 for the first time. Both movies were very emotional for me to watch. I started to cry whenever I saw mothers with babies and realized those Fathers weren’t coming home.
Paul travels every once in a while, and while I have never been afraid of him traveling before, watching the movie this weekend really did force me to consider the idea that it could have been me telling my kids that Dad was not coming home after 9-11.
The sorts of dreams I have had in the past were always of my children crying because they were hungry and in the dream I was frantically searching for food to feed them. My most vivid dreams came during my pregnancies. Dreams of birth, death, fear, working through whatever issues we were having in our marriage, etc.etc…
I always knew I had dreamed a true dream if it came true. But this has only happened a handful of times, and most of those dreams I had in a near waking state. I would usually have them right before I fell asleep, and they generally were either warning dreams or dreams that let me know certain things about my children ie…what gender they would be, or flashes about the type of life they would live or the sort of books they wanted me to read while I was pregnant or the type of food I should eat that would serve them best while in the womb.
Last night I had another vivid dream. I’m thinking that it was the power of suggestion because I read a WND article that talked about New York and Washington DC being hit by bombs. In the dream I was living in an apartment that was several stories high. My children were all at home, but Paul was not in the dream. We were laughing and having a good day. We went outside to play and at one point I turned around and looked and saw these two huge plumes of smoke. They were not mushroom clouds, but the smoke was black and very dense. I knew that I was looking at New York and Washington DC going up in smoke and I yelled to the children to run inside.
The rest of the dream was me looking for water. Trying to find clean water. Everyone was looking for water, and every time we thought we had found it, we were frustrated and overwhelmed because it was not to be found.
That was pretty much the end of the dream.
Today at church a lady in our ward brought some information about these water bottles that you could purchase which would cleanse over 200 gallons of water and were very portable.
Connection? Probably not. I don’t spend alot of time analyzing my dreams, and even when they do come true, it’s not like I freak out and am all amazed or anything. My response generally is more of the “well, isn’t that cool?” reaction than anything else.
Do I think I dreamed a true dream? I don’t know. That is always one of those things where I just say to myself….whatever.

Why share this in the preparedness catagory? I guess the message I would like to convey to anyone reading this is that over the years I have had many dreams around the preparedness and terrorism topics. My dreams have motivated me almost as much as my scripture reading to put in a supply of water, food, and emergency kits and keep plugging away at these efforts.
I think it would be a mistake to ignore dreams, but I also believe some caution should be in play when considering the realities of the dreams.
Is it wise and prudent to prepare for terrorism and any natural disaster in our modern american society? Sure. It doesn’t mean you are a dupe or ignorant or a fear monger.
Can you take preparedness efforts too far? Yes, I believe you can become so consumed with what is going to happen in the “future” that you forget to live in the moment.
For us, adopting this lifestyle has meant carving out a few days a year where we focus on food storage and provident living. We re-do the kits once a year, we change the water in the water barrels, we update the info in our important documents container, and we purchase, can or bottle some food.
The message may be conveyed that because I am often cooking and blogging about natural foods and preparedness that I am always focused on these topics and have no time for anyone or anything else in my life.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I spend the vast majority of my free time reading, practicing music, and writing in my journal. Not this online journal, but a private journal that I also use for scrapbooking photos of my kids.
Sometimes I will do a rough draft in my journal of a blog entry I have been mulling over for a time, but mostly I write to share my thoughts and feelings with anyone who may chance upon my journal in the future. Perhaps a great grandchild who is curious to know how grandma Jenny lived her life, or a student interested in researching about life in the beginning of the new millennium.
I enjoy cooking and sharing what I know about preparedness but I love lots of things, people and topics. Even though I dont’ write about everything I am interested in on this blog, please don’t think that all I care about is survival.
Ultimately, the issue of wether we “survive” or not is not all that important.
I have a friend who told me about a dream another women had when she was trying to heal from an assault. In the dream the woman saw herself behind bars. She was standing and it looked as if she was in prison. Then slowly she started to change the view of what she was seeing, it was as if a video camera was gradually backing away from her in prison and as she watched, she realized that the bars were simply something she was holding in her hand. Being in prison was all an illusion.
The fact is: Some bigoted people exist on this planet who hate America and Americans so much that they spend most of their waking hours thinking about ways to kill us.
My response to that is…..So What? Who cares if some pathetic people in our world have joined the ranks of those crusaders and criminals who over the ages have attempted to wipe out whole nations simply because of ethnicity, religion, skin color, or location.
Sure, it is something to be concerned about, and it is a little scary. But does it mean we have to change even one thing about our lives? Or put ourselves in prison? Emotional prison? Spiritual Prison? Bottled up and paralyzed, depressed and overwhelmed by these realities?
Nope.
What we need to do and what I have chosen to do is to live a joyful purposeful life. To cut all people out of my life who cause emotional drainage. To surround myself with those who also have accepted the realities of our world, and choose to live happy despite the fear.
I was talking to a woman at the park who was going on and on about Global Warming. She was really questioning her choice to bring two children into the world knowing that they would have to deal with it. I sensed some real fear pulsing from her. I shared with her my view that things have never been so great in our world, especially for women, and that we are blessed and lucky to have the opportunities for growth, knowledge, increase of talents, and education. Opportunities that our ancestors could only dream about. She was really surprised to hear what I said.
I felt grateful to have the chance to testify to her my belief that God is real (she told me she was an atheist), and I have spent the past few days thinking about our conversation. I think the reason we Mormons LOVE and reverence our Prophet is simply because he is such an optimistic, hilarious person. I love to hear him speak and I feel so grateful that he is the Man on the earth who is God’s spokesperson. I believe Heavenly Father has a great sense of humor, and I believe President Hinckley is the perfect choice for this hour of fear in our world.
I can’t wait to listen to General Conference this weekend and bask in the love, the optimism, the glow of the faith of the LDS people. It is in the music, the words, the feelings, and the peace conveyed by those who lead Heavenly Fathers Kingdom on the earth. I would challenge anyone reading this to give Conference a try. If you would like to have your battery recharged, if you would like to hear the messages that God is inspiring good honest men and women to share with the world, tune in on saturday and sunday and be surprised at the level of goodness and spirit that is available to anyone who honestly has a desire to open up their heart to the love of the Savior.
Satan and satanic people have no sense of humor. No charity, no love, no hope, no faith. It is just one hopeless frantic existence for those who carefully ignore the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I don’t judge these people. I understand that we all have experiences in life that cause us to lose the faith we were born with. I realize that many have experienced trauma and have had beliefs and ideas shoved into their unsuspecting brains that robbed them of faith and hope.
However, just because some in our world have lost the faith and choose to live hopeless and devoid of life force does not mean that I or anyone like me must march lockstep with those who are in bondage to fear. Choosing life does not make me naive, or a simpleton, or mean that I am living in a dream world unaccepting of the harsh realities all around.

I went to the Womens Conference last night at the stake center. I laughed so hard when the prophet dissed wheat and beans. If you have the time, go ahead and listen to the whole conference, it is so good!
I must confess when President Hinckley told the story of the young single mother of seven who in a moment of weakness and overwhelm asked if she could come home, (just for a night, and then she promised to come back the next day) I started to cry. I have prayed that prayer several times in my life. Begging Heavenly Father if I could come home to be with him. Please, please, please….let me come home!~ In the story Pres. H. said that the spirit whispered to this mother, “no, you cannot come to me at this time, if you were to come home, you would not want to go back, but I can come to you and help you and lift your burdens”.
The thing is, while I have had many dreams about preparedness and have felt some fear. I have also had many dreams and promptings about music, happy living, playing at the park with my children, watching my kids participate in sports, and worshipping God unmolested by anyone in our society.
Do these dreams fit together?
I believe they do. I believe that we can all find the balance between feeling motivated enough to prepare and live providently that we actually do something proactive to help ourselves and others. And I also believe strongly that we were sent to this planet to live joyful, purposeful lives, filled with happiness and contentment.
So, where is the balance?
I guess each person needs to find the balance that feels right to them. For me, after a month or so of very hard work teaching classes, bottling food, going to the cannery, and organizing our 72 hour kit for the umpteenth time, I am ready to relax a little on these efforts, quietly do my calling, and just focus on the things that bring joy, peace, happiness, and love into my heart.
Is that bad? Doesn’t Heavenly Father WANT us to be focused 24/7 on preparedness and reading our scriptures and praying and being in tune to protect ourselves??? No, I don’t think he does. In the end it doesn’t really matter if we are here on the earth or up in Heaven with him. How we happen to die is also NOT important. What is crucial is to learn to live after the manner of Happiness. To breathe, to enjoy the sunshine, to revel in the fall colors, a baby laughing, a toddler mastering yet another skill, a 10 year old memorizing a scripture, or a 12 year old passing the sacrament for the first time.
He wants us to live the abundant life. However that manifests in our hearts and our day to day lives is pretty much up to us. Jesus atoned for us to give us Freedom. How we choose to use that Freedom is the test of life.

I choose life! I choose babies! I choose gardens, flowers, herbs, and oils! I choose music! I choose rainbows and sunsets and mountains and a little puppy who makes me laugh because he is so excited to go outside he can hardly contain the pleasure of me giving him a few minutes of my life.

I choose a little three year old boy who has a hundred questions a day. Every day, “Mom, can I ask you a question?” Yes, it is true, sometimes it is annoying as all get out. Some days my patience is not what it should be, and I tell him to go watch something on Noggin, but when he snuggles in at the end of the day for nursey, prayers, and a lullaby, he and I both know all is right with the world.
I need to go to bed, but I wanted to share these thoughts while I was still thinking them, and while I had a chance to type.
Love,
Jenny