Why Coveting is a Killer
It is always enlightening—and surprising-- to notice what combinations of warnings are mentioned together in scripture.
By Susan Law Corpany
When Life Delivers
The magic moments we plan or hope for don’t always turn out, but once in awhile—life delivers. Laugh and be warmed with this one.
By Susan Law Corpany
Little Things Make a Big Difference
Since she read The Tipping Point, Susan has wanted to start a few trends of her own.
By Susan Law Corpany
More Ways than One to Turn the Hearts…
This week I have been doing some family history work. Perhaps what comes to mind when I say that are genealogical charts with names of deceased ancestors. I will be the first to admit that isn’t my strong suit.
By Susan Law Corpany
Love is not a Zero-Sum Game
A zero-sum game is one in which the total of all gains and losses is zero. To add something you must give up something. Love doesn't work that way.
By Susan Law Corpany
A Few Words from an Anti-Planner
There are two types of people in the world—wingers and planners—and unfortunately for me, the world caters to planners.
By Susan Law Corpany
Lessons of Childhood: Boundaries, BooBoos and Bad Guys
Many of life’s little lessons are learned when you are young.
By Susan Law Corpany
When Time Stops
Saying all the wrong things when you meant to say the right ones.
By Susan Law Corpany
Reviewing and Renewing Our Pledge
As we approach the date of our nation’s birthday, I wanted to write something meaningful, but sometimes one simply has to admit that someone else’s words say it better.
By Susan Law Corpany
Criticism or Critique?
Writers sometimes pay a fee to have their work criticized, “lucky” for most of us in our lives that service can be had for free.
By Susan Law Corpany
Seeking Shepherds
How can you tell if you are a shepherd or a hireling? Here's a handy list.
By Susan Law Corpany
The Great I Am Knows Who I Am
I get little reminders now and then that God is aware of me, in a way personal enough that I cannot discount it or explain it away, as we are sometimes prone to do.
By Susan Law Corpany
The World Needs More Jacobs
I picture Jacob as the kind of man who would not condone or ignore any practice that was hurtful to women and children.
By Susan Law Corpany
Who Moi? Have Shortcomings?
Most people see both sides of an argument—their own side and the side that is wrong.
By Susan Law Corpany
Horace J., You Made My Day
It was Mark Twain who said, “I can live a year on a good compliment.”
By Susan Law Corpany
The Best Defense is not always a Good Offense
Among the things we need to remember when we are offended is that the offender works alone. Even when it might appear that several people are conspiring together, it is likely because they are being inspired by the wrong spirit.
By Susan Law Corpany
Great Things Happen When You Listen to Promptings
“I've learned to listen even when the prompting doesn't seem to make sense.”
By Susan Law Corpany
For the Ninety and Nine
Sometimes the ninety and nine need a little boost .
By Susan Law Corpany
Can We Give More?
One of my favorite dating compatibility-assessment questions was “What book are you reading right now?” On one date, the fellow told me he was reading “Think and Grow Rich.” I laughed and told him I was reading “Everything But Money” by Sam Levenson.
By Susan Law Corpany
Brand New Year, Same Old Goals
(or “Ten Habits of a Highly Defective Person”)
It's surprising how many of your New Year's goals can be summed up in one word: floss.
By Susan Law Corpany
Feed My Sheep
One of my goals for the New Year is to be more kind to my fellow man. The starving sheep are out there. Some may need to be picked up and hand fed.
By Susan Law Corpany
Getting the Gimmies
It is the time of year to teach your children to avoid the dread disease called the gimmies.
By Susan Law Corpany
Some People are Just Like That
Some people are so negative, they would find something wrong with the accommodations at the Taj Mahal.
By Susan Law Corpany
Integrity: An Essential Virtue
I wish that all I had to report on were my successes at being honest and having integrity. This is an area where there is room for improvement for all of us.
By Susan Law Corpany
Having Enough
“On my fridge I have a magnet that says, ‘The most important things in life aren't things.'”
By Susan Law Corpany
What a Beautiful World!
I know that I am not the only one who gets caught up in the tasks of daily life and forgets to enjoy the beauty around me, but thankfully sometimes people come for a visit now and then to remind me.
By Susan Law Corpany
Back to the Drawing Board
A Novel Idea
When you're writing a novel, sometimes the characters hijack the story and go where they want.
By Susan Law Corpany
Give More than Lip Service
The bereavement fare cost $400 more than the deal I found online. The idea of a special fare sounded good, but it was of no value.
By Susan Law Corpany
A Fan Letter to My Fans
Amazing relationships spring into life on the Internet.
By Susan Law Corpany
Running the River of Life
Life's lessons abound when tubing the Provo River and discovering it isn't as easy as it looks from the shore.
By Susan Law Corpany
Life Lessons from the Game of Scrabble: Tools of the Adversary
My series about life lessons learned from the game of Scrabble would not be complete without a section on how to recognize the tactics of the adversary.
By Susan Law Corpany
More Gospel Parallels from the Game of Scrabble
Looking to a higher power can assure victory even if you have no chance of prevailing on your own.
By Susan Law Corpany
Life Lessons from the Game of Scrabble: Uses of Adversity
Life lessons abound in the game of Scrabble. One of them shows us that the harder the game, the better we perform.
By Susan Law Corpany
Mapquest My Life, Please
How often do we flounder when we i gnore heavenly guidance and rely on our own intellect and instincts?
By Susan Law Corpany
Does God Micro-Manage our Lives?
When things go wrong in our lives, or even when things go right, exactly how much of it is God's doing?
By Susan Law Corpany
Advice We Wish We Hadn't Listened To
There are a lot of things good old Mom taught us that we wish we hadn't listened to. Here are some of our readers' favorites.
By Susan Law Corpany
Defining Marriage
No matter how you slice it, “separated” reads “still married.”
By Susan
Law Corpany
Whom
the Lord Loveth, He Chasteneth
Once I spanked my three-year-old son for running
into the street without looking and nearly getting hit by a car.
After the spanking, he turned a tear-streaked face to me and asked,
“Why would you spank a kid for not getting hit by a car?”
By Susan
Law Corpany
Personal
Records Management — What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
A forgotten computer at the airport illustrates
how even small details are important when getting your affairs in
order.
By Susan
Law Corpany
And
Should We Die
It is not surprising that most people
have some strong preferences for their funeral service. The problem
is that most of us also have a strong preference for not talking
about such things.
By Susan Law Corpany
Ode
to a Four-Footed Friend
A former human litter-box makes peace
with the family's feline companion.
By Susan Law Corpany
What
Would You Be Taking to Your Grave?
The joke used to be about Great Aunt
Martha dying, never having given anyone the secret of her flaky
pie crust. What information are you going to take with you to the
grave?
By Susan Law Corpany
Accounts
and Accounting
Forget the shoeboxes. In these days
of paperless credit card bills and online billpaying, you need to
have essential information in a central location where people can
access it if something happens to you.
By Susan Law Corpany
Personal
Records Management, Part One — Essential Information
Do you know exactly what documents
are in your wallet that would have to be replaced if the wallet
were lost or stolen? A simple test could surprise you.
By Susan Law Corpany
Preparing
for the Worst
You may think you are insulated from
disaster because you are young or because you keep the commandments.
Think again. Disasters happen to many people, and you haven't already
thought about the unthinkable, you may not know what to do when
the time comes.
By Susan Law Corpany
More
Insights from Israel
For some events in Christ’s
life, more than one site claims to be authentic. Imagine if that
were the case in Salt Lake City.
By
Susan Law Corpany
Pink
Stuff at Last
Being a grandmother
is like watching the labor pains on the monitor after you have had
the epidural. The pain exists but you are removed from it a step.
You will join in with the prayers and the worry, but you won’t
be the one on the job when a sixth-grader remembers her science
fair project is due the next morning.
By Susan Law Corpany
Finding
Ways and Reasons to Give Thanks
Take a moment and think back. When was the
last time you wrote or received a bona-fide thank-you note? Sorry,
e-mails, no matter how heartfelt, even with emoticons, just aren’t
the same.
By Susan Law Corpany
A
Singing Spring
It is usually
through our trials that our faith grows stronger. Sometimes we have
to venture downward, holding fast to a handrail, in what feels like
darkness, to find evidence of the living waters.
By Susan Law Corpany
Mike's
Place: An Oasis of Peace, A Monument to Resilience
Can a bar be a holy place? This spot
in Jerusalem is a small triumph against terrorism.
By Susan Law Corpany
Hand-Me-Down
Values
Technology is a fact of life, and it blesses
our lives in countless ways, but like anything else, Satan stands
ready to use it for his purposes. Because technology is moving so
fast, we must guard against greediness and a need to upgrade just
because there is something newer and better out there.
By Susan Law Corpany
Melanie
or Scarlett?
Gone with the Wind brought two fictional
characters so vividly to life, that the question still lingers:
"Who would you rather be, a Melanie or Scarlett?"
By Susan Law Corpany
Great Game!
Do we keep our children from doing their best when we give them false praise and encouragement for half-hearted efforts?
By Susan Law Corpany
Taking
Stock
Until I took inventory of my 72-hour
kit, I felt morally superior to the hordes of people snatching flashlights
off the shelves at Wal-Mart and grabbing the last cases of bottled
water from Safeway. I was prepared, or at least I had the illusion
that I was prepared.
By Susan Law Corpany
Materialism
— an Equal Opportunity Affliction
Newlyweds
commonly find themselves wanting everything their parents have,
only they want it immediately. This is often a time when credit
card debt is accumulated in a desire to have the things they want
and have them now. We may not realize the attitudes we have passed
along to our children until we see them in action.
By Susan Law Corpany
Personal
Responsbility
Whether
it is a young woman whose bearing of children has preceded her desire
to take adequate care of them, a man who is stubbornly certain his
self-employment is going to start paying the bills any day, or even
children who do not do their chores, a failure to do one's part
puts unfair strain on other family members and often brings marriages
and families to a breaking point.
By Susan Law Corpany
A
Good Heart
There are football coaches who coach
football, and football coaches who make a difference in the lives
of the players. Here is a story about one of the latter.
By Susan Law Corpany
Tender
Mercies of the Lord: Mercy Come to Life
Now that I have passed the half-century
mark, I realize that life is an endless succession of faith-testing
and faith-building experiences, somewhat randomly distributed, while
at the same time under heaven's watch.
By Susan Law Corpany
More
Gratitude Give Me
Don't we all like to be appreciated
and thanked? How often we could fill the cup of another, without
any cost to ourselves, by just remembering to express our thanks
a little more often, a little more sincerely, and a little more
eloquently. Sure, virtue is its own reward, but gratitude can put
the cherry on top.
By Susan Law Corpany
Collections
that Last
If you open yourself up to others,
good things can happen to you.
By Susan Law Corpany
For
the Mother of My Children
It is difficult to be the spouse who
follows in the footsteps of a partner who died. I took to introducing
myself to new friends as "Susan, the Sequel." One inquisitive
fellow asked if he was true that the sequel is never as good as
the original. I told him that I thought Toy Story II was
pretty good.
By Susan Law Corpany
Err
on the Side of Charity
We can make what
passes as a "charitable donation" without being possessed
of the virtue of charity. What is harder is to do that act of charity
without any hope of praise or reward.
By Susan Law Corpany
Gifts
from the Sea
Although the buffetings of life may
have polished us like grains of sand, each of us still has the ability
to be a beacon light to others.
By Susan Law Corpany
One
Question is Not Enough
It's not just the action that's important.
The attitude behind the action is what makes the difference.
By Susan Law Corpany
Love
— the Universal Language
The Spanish phrasebooks had been left
on a bed in Hawaii. How were they going to communicate with the
other set of grandparents once they reached Mexico?
By Susan Law Corpany
Steering
Out of a Skid
Logic would indicate that unkindness
ought to be returned with unkindness. If another person around us
is being selfish, we decide we had best mark out our own territory
and get what we can get while the getting is good.
By Susan Law Corpany
Masterpiece
The fragility of a human relationship
is like blown glass.
By Susan Law Corpany
Rising
to the Occasion
I considered myself too perk-impaired
to be Primary president, but I accepted the calling. I have a mental
picture of the perfect Primary president. She is young, animated,
has the patience of a saint, and is full of energy. I did not fit
the mold.
By Susan Law Corpany
Is the
Glass Half Full or Half Empty?
Is life a bubble bath,
or can you only see the ring around the tub of life? If you need
an attitude adjustment, or know someone who does, this is an article
you will want to read.
By Susan Law Corpany
In His
Mother’s Arms
A mother tried to convince her son that the
nativity scene was not a toy, until he did something that opened
her eyes.
By Susan Law Corpany
What
Loneliness Feels Like
Whenever I watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas,
I always tear up at the scene where he tries to lure the carolers
inside with hot chocolate, because I know how it feels to be that
lonely.
By Susan Law Corpany
Safety
First
Here is food for thought for your emergency
kit. You don't have to live in Hawaii to be in line for some sort
of natural disaster, and there's only one sure way to be safe.
By Susan Law Corpany
Sometimes
the Seagulls Don’t Come
What do you do when your crops are
not saved?
By Susan Law Corpany
Upcoming
Reunion
After faithfully
following the diet for a few weeks, I proudly announced to my teen-age
son, "I have lost one-fourth inch off my ankles." He put
his hand on my shoulder and said, "Mom, you do remember that
this is the part they put in the ground when you die."
By Susan Law Corpany
Give the
Gift of Forgetting
It might be time to trade in the "three
R's" for a new three-step program in dealing with others.
By Susan Law Corpany
More
Than We Can Handle
What do you do when the cumulative effect
of your trials seems too much for you, either in the short term
or the long run?
By Susan Law Corpany
Remembering
September 11
As we commemorate the five-year anniversary
of the worst terror attack on our soil, much is being said and done
in remembrance of those who
died — those
who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and those who
knowingly put their lives on the line to save as many as they could.
Here is one perspective on the events of that day.
By Susan Law Corpany
Counsel
for the Defense
His body was lying in a souped-up casket designed
to resemble a dragster car, but Harry Kerr's spirit was ready to
help at the moment his presence was needed.
By Susan Law Corpany
Trump
That!
Sometimes we aren't aware of anyone's pain
but our own. It becomes a real challenge to listen to someone else's
troubles without saying, "I've suffered more."
By Susan Law Corpany
No
Snowflake in an Avalanche Ever Feels Responsible
Don't be so quick to assume you are innocent
when things don't go smoothly. You may be part of the problem.
By Susan Law Corpany
Thanks,
Mr. Terry
What good could it possibly do to know all
the verses of the National Anthem? A teenager who had to learn all
the verses to "The Star-Spangled Banner" is rewarded decades
later with fireworks of her own.
By Susan Law Corpany
Of
Men and Mountains
A mountain of a man can hide behind a Georgia
drawl and a mouth full of shaky grammar.
By Susan Law Corpany
Seeing
One Another Through
Sometimes the great tragedies of your life
give you the compassion to help others who later experience their
own sorrows.
By Susan Law Corpany
Dawn Was
Here
There, I knew, was the
story that summed up my friend Dawn. She had enjoyed the flowers,
but when necessary she also cleared her table and made room for
the tumbleweeds of life.
By Susan Law Corpany |
