October | 2017 | Ashton's Legacy

October 7, 2017

I really don’t have time to write. I don’t. It’s late. I should be in bed already. Our days are long here. But I have had something on my mind. It won’t leave me. I haven’t felt this for some time. I know that when I feel like this… I need to write. It’s been awhile since I’ve written this way on the blog. I feel driven to get this down.

I watched Elder Hales’ funeral on Friday. Elder Russell M. Nelson quoted something by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I must have not not been paying attention because I only caught the last few words which were,”learn to labor and to wait.” The word “wait” caught my attention. I wanted to know what else was connected to those words, so I looked it up online. It’s a poem entitled “A Psalm of Life.” Here are the last few lines:

Waiting…….it’s been on my mind lately.

I have this relationship with the veil that occupies my mind sometimes. Sometimes when I have a quiet minute. It happens at times as I’m laying down to go to sleep, when I’ve had a particularly close conversation with my Father in Heaven and I feel the veil a little thinner than usual. The waiting doesn’t seem so difficult when I have felt that closeness to my Heavenly Home….and have felt closer to that sacred barrier between Ashton and me.

In January of 2015, a friend sent me a song. It’s a Christmas choral arrangement, “We Wait.”, by Ruth Elaine Schram. I couldn’t remember the name of it earlier today, so I emailed my friend asking about the song. Tonight, as it was time to get ready for bed, I felt like I hadn’t finished something. There was something more to do. I couldn’t figure out what it was. I checked my email and my friend had sent me the link to the sheet music. I read the words and then listened to the sample arrangement. (That thing I needed to do was write about my discovery.)

It came to me then, that what I’m really waiting for…. is Christ. I can’t see Ashton until Christ comes again. Jesus Christ has to come again first.

I’m waiting for Christ!

I’m waiting for “his promise of peace, his promise of love,” as it says in the song.

I have many friends now who have lost a child or a family member. We are all waiting until we can see these people we love again. I can testify that we will see them again. It will take some waiting. But there is much good we can be doing while we patiently wait and look forward to the coming of Christ. I also need to remember all that Christ is and offers… His peace, His love & His light… is available to me now. I don’t have to wait for that.

Maybe I’m really writing about patience.

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf has said: “I have learned that patience is far more than simply waiting for something to happen—patience requires actively working toward worthwhile goals and not getting discouraged.”

Speaking of waiting….. the wait is over for us in one other really sweet aspect!!!!

Ashton Rey Mayberry was born to Jordan and Rubi Mayberry on September 20, 2017

He weighed 8 lbs, 12 oz. – 20 1/2 inches long

WE ARE IN LOVE WITH HIS NAME!!!