Controlling the Weather

Yesterday throughout the day I came up with three ideas to blog about. But by the time work got over, I had forgotten all of them. So now I'm merely going to ramble. Again.

The snow we got to day was quite unexpected. And even after it did start snowing, I didn't think it would snow this much. We were in the church building when we saw it. So I decided, since we had somewhat warm weather for a while and now it was cold again, we would have a second Christmas. I shared this idea with my friends and we voted on it. It was unanimous. In twelve days, it's Christmas again. 'Tis the season. :)

The strange thing is, I'm not upset about the snow even though I was excited that it was starting to get warm. It's just one of those things. You can't change it. Complaining won't do anything but make it more miserable. As JRR Tolkien stated in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, "It is not our part to master all the tides of the world... What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

It is foolish to think that we can control the weather. Just as it is foolish to think that we can control the past. Once it's happened, we can't change it. We can only move on. Elder Neal A. Maxwell pointed out that we must move forward with hope, "not looking back, and refusing to let yesterday hold tomorrow hostage."

Some things we can change. Some we cannot. Instead of being so frustrated with the things we can't change, like the weather and the past, we need to focus on the things we can change, like our future and ourselves if needs be. And not just focus on it, but also act on it. Looking and focusing on a jigsaw puzzle doesn't get it finished; you have to put the pieces into place once you've found them.

That was a little more spiritual than I was planning on getting, but it gave me something to talk about. And don't mind the snow too much. After all, it's bringing us a second Christmas. :)