Magnetic Chaos

In my childhood home, this...

was not allowed. Mom thought it made the kitchen look like white trash people resided therein.

On the rare occasion that anything was on the fridge, it was one current piece of artwork lovingly created by one of her children and afixed perfectly straight with little rolls of Scotch tape placed on the backside of the picture. That was it. There were never magnets or calendars or coupons or any of the various magnetized ads you get in the mail. I never remember playing with magnet letters or numbers on the fridge as a wee child. Nope. Nada. (Funny thing... when my sister began having her children, Mom wanted to get her magnetic letters and numbers for her grandson to play with. Mom, eventually, opted against the purchase saying, "She is just so picky and doesn't let them do things like that," as though she could not ever fathom how that came to be.)

My father does not hold the same repulsion toward fridge magnets. I know this about my father because Mom went to visit him just before their divorce 18-19 years ago at his little apartment and there upon the fridge front were a few magnets he had actually purchased for his place. Mom made a comment about thinking he didn't like that and his response was, "I have always liked magnets on my fridge. It was you that didn't like it."

Me? I could care less either way. Actually, a few years ago I purchased those magnetic words that you can be creative with on your fridge. I'm a word girl so that was a big turn on for me. My daughter got butterflies. We had a blast for about two days and then it got boring and, eventually, most of the magnets ended up under the fridge. I usually have a positive saying plastered - not very straightly and adorned with cute magnets on the corners - to my fridge. My favorite is:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ Marianne Williamson

And, when I get my own place, there will probably be things on my fridge again, although not as much as my father and his wife.

Soooo... back to that fridge... Dad and his wife like magnets on their fridge. They always have had a plethora of them. When they moved to Idaho, she made one in Relief Society that is a little potato. That particular one has always slid down the fridge front if you look at it wrong, being too heavy for the tiny magnet on the back. It has always annoyed me. This morning, as I was sliding that damn potato back into its space, a bright yellow square caught my eye. Now I am fairly certain that square has been there for about a decade and I imagine I have read it over and over. This morning, however, it bothered me. Something about it really, really bothered me...

It is a quote from the LDS Scriptures, Doctrine and Covenants and it reads: D & C 72:4 "For she who is faithful and wise in time is accounted worthy to inherit the mansions prepared for her of my Father."