Miracles are Still Happening

Yesterday I was reminded of an experience I had a few months ago and felt that I needed to share it with more people than I had when it had originally happened.  So, one Sunday morning as I was getting ready for church I felt this almost sudden sickness in my stomach.  As I sat in the bathroom the pain became more and more intense and I recognized what was happening, I must have had an ovarian cyst burst.  If you have ever had one of those burst I think it is way worse than childbirth.  They are excruciating.  The last two I've had I've ended up in the hospital getting fluid because I was so sick and dehydrated.  So, I just sat there praying that the pain would go away and wishing that my husband was home.  My husband was already at church for his morning meetings and I really didn't think I would make it to church without him coming home and giving me a Priesthood Blessing.

If you don't know what a Priesthood Blessing is it's an authority and responsibility given to man in the church I go to, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to act in the name of God.  My husband or another worthy Priesthood holder would lay his hands on my head and give me a blessing from God to heal, comfort, and guide me.  They are amazing and I always feel such strength when I receive them.  I sent my husband a message telling him that I think death had swarmed over me and I really needed him to come home and give me a blessing.  I hoped in the shower waiting for his meeting to get done and told the kids to play for a little bit until I felt better. 

I continued to pray in the shower for Eric to hurry and get done and get home.  I wanted to feel better because I had a great lesson planned for my Sunday School Class that day.  I teach the young men and women in our ward, which is based on geographical boundaries, that are 15-18 years old.  I had lots of thoughts and impressions that week that I felt would help them.  As I kept thinking and praying huddled in the fetal position in the shower I had this thought clear as day come to my mind, "Why don't you ask Me to be healed?"  I thought that's true why hadn't I thought of that and so I did.  I said, "Heavenly Father, Would Thou please heal me from this pain I'm in? I would really like to go to church today. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."  The pain lessened significantly at the end of my prayer.  Within 5 minutes I could actually stand.  I got out of the shower and within 15 minutes I felt perfectly fine just like I had before any of this had happened that morning.  I kept telling Heavenly Father, "Thank you for the miracle you sent me this morning.  Thank you.  Thank you."  I finished getting ready and went to church.

When I got to church I told Eric Heavenly Father had given me a miracle and healed me.  I kept telling people all day about how amazing our Heavenly Father is.  He loves us so much and wants to help us.  We just need to ask Him for the help and then do what He asks us to do, which brings me back to why I was reminded of this experience.  I'm 9 weeks pregnant and have been pretty sick the last couple weeks.  Yesterday I was praying for Heavenly Father to make me feel better, when I was reminded that He could heal me and I've experienced that before.  So, of course I immediately prayed and asked for Him to heal me from the sickness and the nausea so I could take care of my kids and home.  I felt Him tell me that if I shared this experience of His power to heal us, if we will just ask Him, then He would heal me.  So, I said okay I will share it and I felt pretty good all day yesterday.  Then the night rolled around and I started feeling sick.  I wondered why am I feeling sick and why didn't He heal me like He told me He would.  As I read from my scriptures I came across a scripture that talked about the importance of writing down the things we are taught by God.  I knew in that moment why He hadn't completely healed me.  I hadn't done my part that I told Him I would.  I hadn't shared the experience He had given me to show others that He is real.  He is aware and He wants to help us because He loves us.

So, today this experience is being shared and I am already feeling much better.  I'm learning that when I do what Heavenly Father tells me I should do He does His part and helps us.  Sometimes He doesn't need us to do anything besides ask and other times He needs us to do a little bit more.  When we do though He always comes through.  I love my Heavenly Father and He loves each of us so much.  I know my healing miracle I received didn't come without the love of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice either.  He makes us whole and complete when we turn to Him.  If you need a miracle in your life or some extra help.  Say a prayer.  Seek for Him because HE is always there and willing to lift you!  Hopefully this helps you as much as it has helped me in strengthening my faith in the power of our Heavenly Father and the Savior, Jesus Christ.  Miracles still are happening!

Taking Time for You

For the last couple weeks, I have walked through my kitchen, cooked and cleaned in my kitchen and only gotten stuck a few times to the floor.  Yes, my floor has been gross and dirty.  I wouldn’t notice it every time I walked on it, just certain times when I would step in something sticky.  I would think to myself I really need to clean my floor, but I don’t have time right now.  I’ll do it later or I’ll clean it tomorrow.  I just knew how dirty it was and was sure it was going to take forever to get it clean.  Now this has been going on for weeks and finally I decided enough is enough, I am cleaning this floor today.

So, I got my water and vinegar mixture ready to clean my floors and I got on my hands and knees.  As I started scrubbing in the far corner it wasn’t too bad, then I got to the areas that have the most traffic like underneath the kitchen chairs and table.  Wow, it was bad.  I had to wash my rag out every two boards.  Each new spot I cleaned made this idea I was having in my mind become clearer and clearer until I realized that Heavenly Father wanted me to learn something from what some would call a mundane task around the home.  As this thought was coming to my mind I become really excited about cleaning my floor and getting it as clean as possible as quickly as I could.

The idea was this, that we are like a floor.  We start out clean and over time we make mistakes, we have challenges, emotions get trapped down inside of us and all of this “personal baggage” piles on.  Our floors get dirty, a spill is made here and there and sometimes you are in the middle of something else and you forget it happened, so you don’t clean it up.  Many times in our own lives things happen that we don’t fully process.  I think when my Dad died I didn’t fully process what was happening to me emotionally or what I was burying down inside of me.  Now a few years later I can look back and see the different areas of my life that were what you could call “sticky” or showing signs that I needed to pay attention and clean some stuff out of me.

When I finally finished cleaning the floor I kept thinking about how much easier that would have been if I would have taken care of the spills when they happened or even did a regular weekly maintenance of wiping my kitchen floor down.  Then the epiphany came.  What if we did that for ourselves?  What if we took better care of ourselves emotionally when things happened?   I began to think of ways that I could maintain a healthier emotional state by getting out the stuck emotions if I had the right tools and by paying attention to my personal warning signs that I needed to work on me.

I know sometimes the thought of working on ourselves and changing can be overwhelming and also a bit scary.  I know before I use to think what if I do this and it doesn’t work.  What if I don’t have enough time to spend to really fix the problem.  Don’t let little fears get in the way of working on cleaning up you.  I have been trying to clean me up just like I did my floor for a long time.  Sometimes I’m not as diligent about it, then I have a power purge day where I have to take a couple hours to clean my floor or some intense couple days trying to figure out why I stopped making the progress I want to.  These are hard and what would be way more effective would be if the cleaning up and clearing out was done day by day and not every couple months.  

I think Heavenly Father is amazing and that it’s awesome that He will teach us simple lessons while we are doing tasks that we routinely do, just like He taught me while I was cleaning my kitchen floor and it was very simple.  He showed me very clearly the importance of taking time daily to pay attention to the simple things happening in my life and how are they affecting me.  If I’m feeling agitated then work on it.  Journal about it and figure it out.  If I’m feeling stuck then write a letter to God and let Him speak back to me.  If I feel sad I try to figure out the source by praying and writing out what’s going on.  As I do this my emotional state is healthier and happier.  I’m not full of the gunk because I’ve been working on clearing it out, cleaning it up, and trying to understand better what I’m going through.  Keeping ourselves “clean” takes a consistent effort and when we do it we are happy and so are the people around us because they don’t get stuck in our personal gunk or the spot on the floor!    

To Honor

Lately I’ve been thinking about the role of a mother and father in the home.  When God commanded us to honor our father and mother, what did that really mean?  I wasn’t sure what it meant to honor, so as I looked in the dictionary it talked about having reverence or respect for someone, even giving them some authority in your life.  Almost instantly the thought came to my mind that there were definitely things I respected in my father and mother.  I respected and honored the faith of my father.  He would do whatever God told him to do and it didn’t matter how hard it was going to be.  He just said okay if that’s what you want me to do, I’ll do it.  I respected my mother for always standing by my Dad’s side and believing in him, whatever the goal or dream was he was pursuing.  She had a lot of faith that God was directing them together as a couple.  I truly honored them for those attributes. 

I then thought of Jesus Christ and what it means to honor him.  I respect and reverence Him for the attributes He possess.  He was selfless, willing, compassionate, merciful, submissive, aware of others, loving and the list goes on.  I place Him as an authority in my life because of the life He led.  He is someone that is worth honoring and giving reverence towards because of who He was.  

As I have pondered upon these thoughts of honoring and reverencing my father and mother and the Savior I realized something very important.  There were other things I didn’t respect about my parents, which doesn’t mean they were bad.  I just needed something different in my life.  I may have needed to see love in a different way or to have felt compassion in a more personal manner.  I know though that my parents were trying their best and doing what God told them to do.  It didn’t mean they were going to be perfect. It just meant they were truly trying and I have an opportunity to learn from them. 

As a mother with small children I get the opportunity every day to work on those attributes that help my children find in me the things they can respect.  Just like I found those in my parents and Jesus Christ.  I realized what I honored about my parents was the positive attributes they were demonstrating in their daily actions and attributes they were trying to develop.  Being a parent isn’t easy, but it is possible to teach our children to honor their father and mother.  We look at the attributes that we honor and respect then try to emulate them in our own lives. 

This week as I’ve been pondering on this thought, I’ve written down attributes that I admire and took a minute to look inward to see where I can improve.  I’ve asked myself how I can acquire that attribute and give my children something to honor in me.  I have had distinct impression on what I can do better to not only help me, but my children as well.  Learning to honor our father and mother will go a long ways in helping our society develop attributes that help and contribute instead of taking away and diminishing the amazing blessings we are given. 

So, today or in the next few days.  Take a few minutes and ask yourself some personal questions.  See how you can improve and be grateful for the areas where you are doing a good job.  Each of you are worth the time it takes to improve and change whether you are a parent now, your children are already gone or you aren’t yet married.  Strive to be the best you and develop those attributes within you that are worth being honored for. You are amazing and worth it!