Ask, And It Shall Be Given You

In the KJV, Matthew 7:7-8 says, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."

This whole morning I've been asking things of God. Please bless this food that it will nourish my body. Please bless my husband with safety while he is working. Please bless me with patience (as my son is practically yelling in my ear) throughout the day. And so on as the normal morning routine goes. Then I remembered that today President Nelson was going to speak and I really wanted to hear what the new Prophet had to say. I tuned in as my son was finishing his breakfast and listened to Elder Christofferson relate to us who the new First and Second Counselor to President Nelson would be. My prayers and love go out to President Dallin H. Oaks and President Henry B. Eyring. The joy of the Lord was on all of their faces. Their countinances were bright and full of love.

As they spoke, I listened to President Eyring say that he knew that the men round him were called of God. In a quick, half-thought out idea of a prayer I asked if they were called of our Father. As Eyring continued to speak, I gained that confirmation. These are men of the Lord who are directed to lead the Christ's Church on the Earth today. These men are prophets, seers, and revelators for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Days Saints. They will lead and guide the church as the Lord sees fit. The Lord will not let them do anything that is contrary to His Will; if they were to try, they would be removed before they had the chance. Though I know that they wouldn't even try, because they love the Lord. You can see it in their eyes. Unlike many other leaders around the world in different capacities who have ulterior motives and are constantly trying to get gain, these men want all people to know the love and light of Christ.

Over the past few years since President Nelson became President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, I feel we've gotten to know him more. He's spoken more often, or so it appears to me, in Conferences and his addresses have hit me more at my core than in previous years. (This might be do to some lack with I have, which very well might be, at which point I apologize.) But even before he became President of the Quorum of the Twelve, he always seemed so happy, so positive, and loving whenever he spoke or was out amongst people. His smile is contagious.

I believe there are big things that will be happening in the coming years. Some strenuous many positive, but all, hopefully, moving us forward to Christ.

Not only was this a spiritual morning listening to the new First Presidency and praying for spiritual confirmation there, but vigorous, frightened prayers were said for a good twenty minutes. My experience might sound silly, but that I guess is what makes this experience even more of a miracle to me.

I have had the same computer for nearly eight years. It was my first big buy after my first car and has lasted well past that car. My computer had a name, it was silly and now I don't even remember what it was, and it graduated college with me. I origionally bought it for two reasons, school papers/other writings and games. I wanted a big screen with a ten key. It is simple and honestly hasn't changed much over the years. No stickers are on it's screen, my nails have scratched the paint on most of my keys, a few of those self same keys have fallen off a time or two but have been masterfully put back on by myself, and where my hands rest next to the mouse pad are small pock marks where the fancy swooping design has worn away. It has been well loved. I even got thinking about it and if there were a fire in my house, after making sure my family was safe I'd have to make sure my computer was safe also.

So as you can understand, I have quite an attachment to it and the things in it's programing. I have my writing here (and backed up in other places--ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR FILES!!!), I have my games that practically don't work on any other system, and I have pictures from the last seven and a half years. So many adventures and moments that happen that I can remember with fondness about. It would cost me hundreds of dollars to get all of the pictures I've taken printed and many hours sleeving them in photo albums.

This morning after hearing President Nelson and his counselors talk, I was trying to get my son ready for school and he tipped my drink over knocking it into my computer and scriptures which I'd been reading. Neither were drenched, thank goodness. I picked up my scriptures and quickly wiped it off before seeing that my computer had droplets on it too. My computer started freaking out. Instead of the desktop picture I have of my husband and I on our wedding day, white, green, red, and black lines creeped across my screen until it automatically shut down. I, of course, flipped a lid and sent my son out of the room to get his socks and shoes on like I'd been telling him to do for the last two minutes. I grabbed my can of pressurized air (to rid the keyboard of dust) and sprayed where I thought would help the most, all the while still standing in a giant puddle of pink soda on the floor. I moved my computer away from the popping puddle of soda on the table and sopped up the mess with a towel. My phone run its alarm to remind me that my son needed to get to class and I left the mess on the floor  as I walked out the door.

Walking out to the car was the most solemn I've seen my son. He definitely realized that he'd done something wrong that not only a half heart "I'm sorry" would fix things. I was still irritated and told him I was mad which made the ten minute car ride to school very quiet.

All the while I prayed that my computer would be alright. Not only would we not have the money to replace it, but what of the photos? I have my most cherished ones printed already, but what of the other good times? Please don't let them be lost. Please fix my computer.

We just turned down the road to my son's school when he said he was sorry again. By then I had calmed down enough to tell him I was sorry too for being so angry. I told him I knew it was an accident and that I knew he didn't mean to spill the drink. Hopefully it'll be okay if it takes a break.

"We're both sorry," he said.

"Yeah, dude. We're both sorry."

I got him out of the car and gave him a big hug. He still looked distressed even when one of his friends started calling for him as we crossed the parking lot. As little boys do, when he started to play with his friend he got happier forgetting about being sad for a moment until we got inside and things slowed down again and he remembered he was sad. I again gave him a big hug and told him I loved him, kissing him on the forehead before I left. I will do something very nice for him when he gets home, don't worry.

When I got him, after more prayers that was mainly repeating the word "please," I started up my computer again it worked perfectly fine--as this is what I'm typing on. Prayers of gratitude spilled from my lips as everything started up normally. I cleaned up the floor, which was still popping with pink soda and finished my scripture reading.

The moral I guess, is that I know that prayer works. Fervent, heartfelt prayer to know if President Nelson is a Prophet or for a miracle to revive my computer, big things and little things will be answered by the Lord. If you earnestly ask, you will be given an answer; if you seek for a blessing, a miracle, you will find it; and if you knock on the Lord's door He will open it and more miracles, blessing, and answers will fall on you that "there shall not be enough room to receive it" (KJV Malichi 3:10).

"Behold my beloved brethren, remember the words of your God; pray unto him continually by day, and give thanks unto his holy name by night. Let your hearts rejoice" (2 Nephi 9:52).

The Lord is listening and watching out for us. He loves us and gives us Prophets to help guide us. He also gives us our own revelation if we ask and listen for it. Let your hearts rejoice and remember to be thankful for the many blessings He gives us every day.

God bless you President Nelson, President Oaks, and President Eyring. I love you and sustain you.






Picture from:  https://www.lds.org/church/news/new-first-presidency-speaks-to-members-worldwide?cid=HP_TU_16-1-2018_dPAD_fMNWS_xLIDyL1-A_&lang=eng

Perfection: The Murderer

Perfection is a murderer.

I saw a Christmas Card from a friend which says: "All we want for Christmas is you to think we're perfect." Why the heck would you want that? Why would you even say that? Isn't there enough keeping up with the Jones' going around anyway and all it leads to, really, is exhaustion and bruises on your self image. This really bothered me, and bothers me still. On a Christmas card? Really?

The idea of being "perfect" kills people.

There is only one person who has or will be perfect and we are not Him. We can be "perfect" in Him and it is the only way we can return back to God, but Christ's "perfect" is different than what the world sees as "perfect."

The world's perfect is false. There is no true foundation for it. What does that even mean? "Perfect."  Depending on who you talk to there will always be someone else's ideas on perfect. Are you the perfect 1950's housewife? Are you the perfect Muslim woman, Mormon woman, perfect student, perfect house keeper, cook, baby sitter, the perfect working mom...? Are you the highest person in the company? Are you making gazillions of dollars because you are the man no company can live without? Do you have a beard? Are you clean shaven? Are you feeling enough? Are you tough enough? What the heck!?

I was actually just watching "Mona Lisa Smile" and they actually exploring the 1950's housewife and stigmas of girls while they were actually going through college. They were being taught poise, how to sit and stand, and home ec classes so instead of going off to be a lawyer instantly getting married and having babies.

(Disclaimer: I believe families are the most important thing there is. I would love to have a large family with many kids and I enjoy being a stay-at-home mom. I went to school and graduated college and use my degree in a non-work environment and I enjoy it. I love my son, I love my husband, I love being able to be myself and being okay with that.)

 Am I a 1950's house wife, not in the least. Seeing that experience from a friend who is a generation older than I am and was abusively raised to be the type of wife where every single spot in your house must be polished, dishes in the sink don't exist, dinner on exactly when then husband gets home,  where you iron your husband's shirt--because apparently he can't do it himself--, etc. And seeing how she has no life after her kids left because she was so enthralled in her children's life that she couldn't find time to be/find out who she was on her own. It is heartbreaking. That ideal, that image that women especially are always put up against, weather intentional or not.

Men are as well. All men, it seems, are supposed to be in a white-collar job, "bringing home the bacon." Where it is unsightly to have a janitorial job or work with your hands. You aren't as awesome as those in business suits. (Completely false statement!!) Men are still pressured to be successful and make a billion dollars a year otherwise they are seen as worthless. They aren't "perfect."

Ugh, I hate it.

I don't want to be seen as "perfect". It is overrated.

Sure it's good if dinner turns out well and to have a tidy enough house at the end of the day. My house is lived in, not some museum. My house is warm with love, most of the time. Are there ants currently on my floor because I can't freaking get them to go away? Yes. Is my apartment small? Yes. Are there times when there is only $5 in the bank for nearly a week until payday? Yes. Are there times when we only survive because of tithing? Absolutely! It is the only way we've survived for most of my life. 

God has taken care of us because we try our best. To be honest we could be better. But we are working on it. Striving to be better than we are now is not the same as striving to be perfect. God knows our potential. He knows what we can do when we are at our best, but he also knows what we can do now and will work with us. He will work through us.

I want you all, the whole world to know, you are loved. I don't know you, but I love you. I want you to do better than you were yesterday. Not perfect. Better, until you can reach your best. Don't let the idea of "perfection" murder your self-esteem, because you are beautiful. Keep working. Be diligent. Everyone can work to be better. You can be better.

The Curl

When I was about eight, I made a horrible dissension: I should get a perm. My father permed his hair so then it would be really curly and stick close to his head. And I wanted my hair like that, thinking I'd look like Shirley Temple or that tall, pretty girl with her naturally curly hair that looked amazing. I, being a girl who preferred to play outside and not get my hair brushed because we had a death brush that stabbed into my head like nails to my scalp, thought it would be low maintenance because my fathers was low maintenance. I was completely and utterly wrong.

My hair previously had a pretty wave to it; I did have bad 1980's bangs that on school picture days with more hairspray in it than it would have for the rest of the year. But perm on top of 80's bangs was a bad thing for a low maintenance girl. For the next year, my hair was frizzy. Poofed out by the death brush and tied into pony tails.

After my hair grew out and was cut back (which we even took pictures of at the salon, it was a momentous occasion), my hair was never the same. I slowly became a brunette instead of the dish-water blond I had been. Instead of the light wave I'd had that would work in curlers, it was still curly--though not as bad as the perm. I'd learned how to straighten it with the blow dryer and iron. I finally started figuring out that doing your hair, more than just a brush through it, in the morning was important for my self-esteem and that there were other things I could do with it on my own other than a ponytail at the nap of my neck.

In high school as I became aware of the hair products I could use, I would mousse my locks so then it would stay curly--though it was so stiff with the mousse and hairspray that it looked like I'd just stepped out of the shower even though it was dinner time and I'd just gotten home from school. My giant head band with long fabric tassels with my waterlogged hair was what I did my 10th grade year. Senior year I discovered hair dye. Stick straight hair with bleach blond high lights was everything even through the first few years of college.

All in all, I tried to keep my hair as maintenance free as I could while also giving me that bit of a self-esteem boost that girls crave for. If a girl has a bad hair day because it doesn't lay right, everything else seems to go wrong.

But now it seems my hair is still recovering. When I got pregnant, my hair was luscious, thick, and amazing! I could try anything and it worked. Hormones and pre-natal vitamins were the best. But then my son stole my curls, stole the thickness, and body that it once had. My body, as everyone's does, changed dramatically as well. It seemed to like keeping the fifty pounds I'd gained while my son was growing in me, so it stuck around. Right after he was born my hair was nearly stick straight and flat as could be. My mousse didn't work. Pony tails made my face look huge. And only rarely did I find that I actually liked my hair.

Everything always seemed to go wrong with it every time I had something important to go to, which wasn't necessarily often with a newborn/toddler/young child. I went to work, to school, and was home with family with hair: "done," make up: simple though sometimes with too colorful eye shadow, and often mismatched socks (though that was intentional).

--

Quick side note: I remember one day in my fiction writing class and listening to the only high-maintenance girl in the class was complaining. I'm so glad I missed out on the roommate drama in college. Her super busy life with roommates and the drama that ensued from them, made her enable to finish all of her make up. The only thing she was able to put on was her foundation, eye liner, and mascara before she left the apartment for classes at eight. I turned to my friend who sat next to me, a mom, worker, and student like myself, and we both rolled our eyes. That is all I ever put on, I was thinking to myself. I could tell my friend did as well. We were lucky to be able to have the time to put foundation on. Some days it was eyeliner (if we were lucky), mascara, and a brush through into some kind of pony tail. Her's was the hair that was always braided in some intricate knot or with just the right amount of body to it. She looked great, even though she was rather annoying whenever she spoke which was normally a self-centered conversation.

She spent a lot of time completely on herself, on her hair, on her endless workout routines, and the boy and girl drama the surrounded her, that I don't think anyone really liked her in class; I know I didn't care for her.

--

As my son has grown and now that I'm not in school anymore and work is only occasionally, I've let my hair do its own thing. I hop out of the shower and don't instantly go for my hair dryer and straightener. I, more often than not, skip the make up in general. Partially because of time and partially because my son doesn't care. He seems me as his loving mom. I dress up for my husband and for myself on occasion whenever we go out. He loves me with or without it on, with or without my hair done a certain way. It's interesting though, as I've cut his hair and his curls have faded slightly, I've gotten mine back. They're returning with time.

It's nice though, to have my hair work with me. It's not something I need now. My hair is becoming curly again like it was back in high school, slowly. The other day, I let my hair air dry and the parts the framed my face curled nicely without me having to touch it too much (the rest of my hair was flat or frizzy, but baby-steps; it'll get there). It'll be in its pony tail one day, curly the next, straight from the iron two weeks from now. Many ladies have one hair-do and one only, but what is the fun of that? Some days there seems to be almost no choice, while others you have the most choices in the world and pray that your hair works out the way I envisioned it.

Closet Memories

Recently, I was spring cleaning the closet in my bedroom. Filtering through clothes that hadn't been worn within the last year, shoes that had become too beaten up, papers that had been stashed away. I finally gave up on those pants that were from my high school years that, at the rate I'm going, I will never fit into again. All of the items I went through had fond memories attached to them. But I got rid of three garbage bags full of artifacts that had were really only memories.

My sister came over to see if there was anything she wanted before I took them to a thrift store. She happily snatched my high school jacket that had made me look like a punk/emo kid because it was "in" and she'd wanted it for years. When I told my husband I'd given it to her, he got sad because he like it on me. Apparently I look too much like a "mom" non with "mom jeans" and the "mom hair cut" (my quotes not his), and I don't look like the cute little I was six years ago. And you know, it's okay. No, I don't appreciate the pouch of baby fat that still clings to my stomach, the fact that glasses are much cheaper than contacts, or that I can't get my hair highlighted really more than once every two years--going darker is much easier and going all blonde would look awful. But it's okay. Honestly, I'm alright.

My birthday is coming up next month and I'm actually starting to feel like "Mom" and it's not a bad thing. I'm not the little girl I used to be. Adults talk with me like an adult! I'm not some punk teenager who knows nothing about anything. I've done my taxes. I'm not afraid to call someone in the government or around my community--though dealing with bureaucracy is annoying.I've kept another human being alive for four years! That's something right?

I've done things relatively recently that I would have never been able to do when those jeans had fit. My hair may not be as blond, but I did finally get my curl back from after being pregnant (my son stole all of it for two years). I graduated college and have been published. I've had more thoughts for more poems and novels than I ever have, and their only growing.

But getting rid of the old clothes and airing out the moth memories to make way for the new adventures wasn't the only thing that was enlightening. I found old stories that I'd written way back in the sixth grade when I started writing what is now known as "Angela's Story." (It now looks nothing like what it did back then.) I found "Rebecca's Letters" that and clips of "Cassy's Story" when she was "little" in my mind. The nostalgia was intoxicating and I couldn't help but laugh and remember those good times. These stories, making them, reading my friends', and having pirates get drunk off of fermented Root Beer, These were the things I want to remember. Not my jean size. Not the aches of high school or of the hurt of friends. These stories and the happy stories behind them  are what really matters. They are what I kept. You never throw any of your writing away, no matter how horrible and bad it is, keep it because you will see how you've grown, how your penmanship has changed.

Whatever journal or blog or cuneiform script you have, you're writing holds so many more memories than most of the things hidden in your closet. And these are more often the dearer ones too.

Beautiful Changes for the Better

My best friend recently posted up a conversation she had with her high school self. It was beautiful and thought provoking. I ended up posting something on her page that was probably long-winded and made little sense, but it was thought provoking.

High school is a picnic for no one. Everyone gets beaten up, chased, crushed, broken, or hurt. If the "high school" experience is anything like mine and my friends' then life became the motto "fake it 'til you make it."

My group of friends suffered through a bus crash and the death of a teacher at the beginning of the year. That left the rest of the year to not mourn, crumble, feel guilty, and fake through it. Yes, yes, the school gave them grief counselors, but I don't think any of my friends actually went to see any of them unless they were told to do so that one time. What high school student wants to talk about feelings other than how cute that boy/girl is? Answer: maybe .001%.

We were all hiding behind masks of desperation for normality. Some might be faking it still. If we faked it well enough we could convince ourselves that we were "fine" just like everyone wanted us to be. All the while inside we wanted to throw up, cut, scream, sleep, and wither away under a rock where no one would find us suffering.

This photo is one I took at the Springville Art Museum at the end of my senior year (that is why the quality is horrendous). It was made by a student in our county who easily portrayed what was going on. Sadly, now I don't know who created it, but it is beautiful.

As I came to realize just how broken my friends had become (they had taken the brunt of damage of senior year while I tried to run back and forth from the front lines to the medic tent--or so I thought), I started to hate the facade. The fakeness of people and how the displayed themselves. Why couldn't they show the one face that they really were? At the time I didn't realize how childish that was. I hadn't realized the scope of the break that had happened in my friends and I also didn't realize how very complicated a person without that type of break can be. Everything had made sense in my innocent little brain so the complications didn't compute.

A few weeks after the art exhibit where I saw the painting above, we went up Provo Canyon just past Sundance where we had our "Senior Sluff Day" (sluff meaning "to cut class," but this was all official and sanctioned by the school so it was really more of a Senior Field Trip). The place where my friends and I hung out most at this giant park that had food, trampolines, giant fields to play sports, etc. was the little, western village. It was large enough for tall boys to barely stand up in. We could climb on top of the sheriff's station, play in the little stagecoach, sway in an ol' timey looking swing, or sit on old chairs and talk. I had gotten my camera a few months before then and had taken too many pictures. So many of them were staged. At one point my friends stood on top of a building and I had them pose, click, pose, click, pose, click, pose... Toward the end of the day, one of my friends, realizing I wasn't in any pictures, slightly on purpose, made me give up my camera so then she could take a picture of me. Like all the rest of them, I posed in my little rocking chair trying to look thoughtful staring off into space at the splintered, yellow door of the replica building we were closest too. So much about this day was brutally false. And we all did our best to ignore the shiny, plastic faces we were all putting on. The smiles, the laughs, the constant talking (though I would hope that some of my favorite times were real to those around me as well) were to hide the panicked, deer-eyed emotions we felt inside.

I honestly thought I could fix everyone. That my presence could mend their hurts from the crash, from the history of violences a friend had gone through, from the ache of breakups, from everything. For a while I thought I could be the mother and fix everyone's booboos with a hug and a kiss (much like I do with my 4-year-old now) then I could send them on their way to play. We could hang out and have everything be like it was the summer before everything got so messed up with boys and bus crashes. The butterfly band-aids I tried to place weren't on skinned knees or a blister. They had tried to cover up severed arteries and third degree burns.

The little I tried to do I hope was helpful instead of causing more of an infection. To one of my friends, because of emotion and compressed anger, I killed our relationship with a dull knife. In what she had thought would have been a moment to band together, it died slowly over the years as we tried to get it back together. But anger infection set in and it festered to other relationships as well.

I am so imperfect, especially when it comes to other people. Complications set in whenever someone else is involved. But as time has passed I've grown and learned that not all complications are bad. Hard, yes. Bad, not all the time.

My friend's posts, mentioned earlier, drew an emphasis of hope. Things got better after high school. The arteries have been cauterized, often by someone outside our original group of friends. Change happens and it is good.

For myself, I've realized that I was hurting too, though at the time I had fooled myself. Not only at the end of school when romances exploded, but at the beginning when I was scrambling to pick up broken friends. I didn't know what to do so I faked it until I made it out of high school and that first term of college. That was a brutal year. We were thrown into situations that we couldn't have expected and changed to survive it. Now that time has passed the fire has died down, though can still flare up, we change to find who this new person is that we've become.

I very much like the movie Inside Out (Pixar, 2015) for many reasons. But at the end (SPOILER ALERT!!!) Riley has lost all of her islands of personality. One by one she loses them and stops being herself. Once Joy and Sadness get back to Headquarters, Riley doesn't get her islands back. She forms a new one taking in that experience and growing from it. Riley isn't quite the goofball she was before and has taken on a little more of a serious tone where she doesn't want her parents showing up to every game. She changed as major events happened and has found a way to be okay with them. As can we.

Over the years new things have happened. I am a wife and a real mom where I can give hugs and kiss booboos and have my son be okay. I have been published twice. I have read more books in the past year and a half than I ever thought I would. I've finished a novella and am working on the second draft. I've realized I get seasonal depression and how important it is to be social. I've gained more friends in my community and church than I thought I would five years ago (mom's stick together like that if you try). I've learned that it's okay to leave the dishes for tomorrow if I have to. Naps are amazing things. I've learned when I get angry I don't scream, but do little things that drive my husband nuts. I've learned that parents need time outs too, again I'll say naps are amazing. I've learned how friends are important and that the people in your group often changes and that old friends can be acquaintances and it's okay.

The most important thing that has changed, but has always actually been a constant, is my love of Jesus Christ. My testimony of Him has become much stronger since becoming married and teaching my son. I've gained more faith because of circumstances and blessings than I had thought I needed. We all need more faith. So many people are scared of what the future holds in politics, world affairs, calamities, and natural disasters. But what we need to remember is that "Faith and fear cannot coexist at the same time" (Elder Neal L. Anderson, "You Know Enough," Oct 2008). Jesus Christ said, "Be not afraid, only believe" (KJV, Mark 5: 36). If we are doing what is right and have faith in Christ, God will always be there to protect us and get us to where we need to be. Many of us have very important things we need to do, many don't realize it, but Father will get us to where we are needed often in miraculous ways.

"Be not afraid, only believe" because Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have our backs through whatever beautiful or agonizing changes we will be going through. Whatever trials we will face, They will be there to help us be better and lift us up.







Inside Out Image: http://screenrant.com/inside-out-movie-reviews-2015/
Christ Photo (Provo Tabernacle Fire 2010): http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=13725181 
Other photos are my own. 

In Real Life These Are Their "Last Calls"

I started reading a graphic novel called In Real Life (by Cory Doctorow) about a girl, Anda, who, through the course of the story, realizes that the people on the other side of the screen of her computer game are real people. The boy she tries to help ends up getting fired from his job because of how she tried to help in a very naive way. She did little research into the circumstances Raymond was in, but not enough. Anda jumps to the concussion that a strike is what is needed, but, as I said, it made things worse.

She tries, but is unable to do anything physically for this boy in China.

As I was posting the review for it on Caitlyn's Modest Reviews I was also listening to my Facebook feed and some of the horrible things that are happening in the middle east. The one that struck me in connection to In Real Life were the "Last Calls" of the citizens in Aleppo. As bombs are flying overhead, as they walk around their burning and crumbling city, they are making what could possibly be their final call out to the people they love and care about. They don't know if they are going to live ten more minutes to send another tweet to say they are alive. They may not be alive.

I've looked up a few of these videos that people have posted to the internet and they make me cry. My heart breaks for them and there is seriously very little I can actually do. I am not a politician. I am not a military general. I'm not a government official. My voice is small amide the chaos around me.

But the world tremors with cries for help.

What am I supposed to do? Really do?

I sit here in my warm home with my child and husband asleep upstairs in their rooms. I sit next to a Christmas Tree that have a few present for my friends and family, whom I know are safe and sound a few cities away. I sit here and write a blog post about the latest book I finished and my thoughts on it. I listen to Facebook and the humm of my fridge which may not be full but it has food in it.

What can I do? Realistically, what can I do?

I know I can't jump on a plane; I'm no nurse; I seriously have very little money. If I were going to do anything, I wouldn't be able to do anything by myself.

As I've sat here and thought, there are somethings I am able to do. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has the best welfare system that I know. They money and food goes to the places that need it, not to some fake leader's pockets. We have missionaries helping in refugee camps and aide stations around the world. For those who are LDS and wish to help, add some more money to your tithing and give to the Welfare Services.

While tithing envelopes may not be able to help the people in Aleppo today, my prayers can. You're prayers can. Pray for them. Give them strength to gather their families to run. Discernment about which alley to take to avoid bombs. Peace when they see loved ones fall. To be taken quickly, if it is their time to meet God.

I know prayers are answered, because even the littlest prayers are answered for me. So why wouldn't the big ones?

Father loves all of His children and He wants them safe. However, He can't force other's actions. Agency is our gift, bought by the blood of Christ. Father can't stop all of our trials; they why we are here on this earth.

The Spirit of Peace isn't here on the earth anymore, anyone who says otherwise is being deceived. Peace, in our heart, in our mind, in the world around us, is something we need to pray for in order to get it. There is too much chaos for it to stay.

Pray for strength. Our Father in Heaven will always grant us strength when we ask for it. Always.

Prayer cannot make anything worse because Father listens to us and He wants to help us. What is amazing is that He knows the best way to help us. Sometimes that mercy is extended in the form of death. But death is not something to despair over. This is not the end. Father has a plan for each of us and often it is more grand than we realize.

Oh, if the whole world would kneel down and fervently, meaningfully, purposefully pray, how drastically different would it be?





Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh7jOP0RBqI
Prayer Photo: http://www.worldnetworkofprayer.com/

We're all Smiles!

I found this on my Facebook Newsfeed this afternoon. It made me smile so much.

(Pun only slightly intended.)