When We Call God Answers

When some people think about God they envision a being far removed looking over the earth as some great thing that he's proud of yet far removed from. Others may see him as the Greeks did, a master at a chess board and we are merely pawns.  When I think of God I think of Him as a gentle, strong, kind father; someone who is interested in our individual welfare but leaves us to make the final decision as to where our life will go. He sees our strengths and our weaknesses and has in mind a plan that will play to our strengths and help us overcome our weaknesses but we choose to seek this plan or to go our own way.

There is power in seeking God's will for our lives. The first experience I had with this was in choosing where to go to college. I had decided I wanted to attend a college in a big city, a business college that had a two year program. I started the application process but couldn't shake the feeling it just wasn't quite right. I looked into other options until I found another junior college that felt right. At first I was a little upset that I wasn't getting what I wanted but felt strongly that was what God wanted for me. After a difficult first semester I had a better second semester and it was announced the college was transitioning to a four year university. I was able to complete a four year degree without relocating.

I find it fascinating that God wants to speak to us. With the understanding that He is first and foremost a loving Father it should not come as a surprise that He would desire to counsel with us but I am consistently amazed at the ways He reaches out to me. They are ever present but it is only when I am watchful that I recognize they are there. A favorite scripture of mine states, "all things denote thee is a God." When I look at the marvel of the human body, at the intricacy of how we are formed from two cells and those cells contain all the information to form an entire body forming into muscles, bone, connective tissues, organs each made to perform a specific function and that our bodies are capable of healing and growing and learning I am in awe. I think of the solar system how planets rotate around the sun arranged in majestic order and our earth being positioned just right to make conditions perfect for us to survive, I marvel. Beyond the functionality of this planet we call home I see the flowers, the ocean waves, the tall trees and the beauty of the sunrise and feel the care with which  this beauty was created for us. Why wouldn't a father want a beautiful place for His children to live, it just makes sense to me.

I know some find this concept far fetched and I can understand with the suffering many face on this earth why the concept of an all-powerful being having created all this is hard to believe but I feel it in my heart so strongly that I know it to be true.  I have faced suffering and I have felt strength beyond my own, I have felt the power of prayers said in my behalf and I have seen miracles happen within me as I have done things I know were beyond my capacity to do on my own. Some of the most amazing experiences I have had were going I to a situation not knowing what to do or say and having just the right thing come out when I open my mouth and many times being given words that teach me.  I have seen so much evidence of God's existence and His love.

What I have come to understand is that God is there through the good, the bad and the downright difficult in our lives. He is aware of us and wants to help us if we will genuinely and consistently seek His guidance and help. He is invested in our success but is limited in His ability to help us by eternal laws which give us our freedom to choose and also require us to follow the light inside us that helps us feel the difference between good and bad. When we seek good things we increase our ability to receive guidance from God and when do not we impede our ability to receive inspiration and blessings.

One of the beautiful things about the being a God is that He sent us to earth for a reason. It is this feeling that pushes me forward through tough times, that encourages me to reach out to just one more person and to fall to my knees and plead to Him when I no longer have the strength to stand. When we call, He ALWAYS answers. That is crazy amazing.

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Bit By Bit

About three months ago I ran across some sheet music to a song my husband loved. A friend had encouraged me to use music to help in my grieving process so I was digging through some old stuff. I felt strongly that I needed to sing this specific song at church so I started practicing. I've only sung a solo for a good size group two other times in my life and it was terrifying both times. The feeling persisted and I worked on the song and contacted the person who organizes that stuff and two weeks later I was up on the stand wondering how in the world I was going to get through it. I was very emotional for the start and felt a little sad that my voice and my courage faltered. My accompanist was amazing and helped me along so much.

After it was over I wanted to quickly leave and avoid people’s comments, I felt would be awkward but felt strongly I needed to practice being a gracious receiver so I stayed until the end of the meeting. I was surprised at how many people said "you did so well, I know that was hard so I was praying for you." I thought I had been impressed to sing because someone needed the message of the song but after pondering it for a couple days I came to understand that my initial impression was only part of the reason. As with many things, when God directs us to do something it accomplishes many things.

There were people who needed the message of the song. There were people who needed to see my example of persisting when you are given a seemingly impossible task. But the greatest beneficiary of my work, in the end, was me. I realized that Heavenly Father used this experience as an opportunity for me to show my ward family that even though it has been almost five months since Matt's passing it is still very fresh and I am hurting and need their prayers. I was amazed at the power I have felt from their prayers this week and amazed that something I put so much heart and effort into without really understanding why became a huge blessing to me. The most amazing thing is that I had a question that Heavenly Father gave me an answer bit by bit as I was ready to receive it.

Many times the answers don't come all at once. The scriptures use the phrase line upon line. We receive each piece of the puzzle as we're ready and seek it. As we continue to ask and seek the pieces begin to form a picture and we see how it all fits together. I'm so grateful for this process. I'm so grateful for a Heavenly Father who wants to teach me and does when I open my mind to learn.

Doing The Impossible

Over the past two weeks I’ve recognized a pattern of being asked to do some seemingly impossible task and it miraculously happening. Last Tuesday I was praying and asked what I was to do that day, (this is something I was challenged to do by a friend and I’ve been amazed what I have been guided to do). The answer was go to the temple. Then I thought, okay, so how is this going to happen. I made a phone call and within 20 minutes someone was at my house watching my two-year-old so I could drive to Bellevue to spend time at the temple. I had no idea how much I needed the peace and quiet I found there but God did and He made a way for me to be able to go.

Sometime later in the week I was asked if I could sing in church next Sunday. Singing in church terrifies me but I felt strongly that I need to do it and had submitted a song the week before. I admitted I had no accompanist but would work on it. I prayed again asking how this was going to happen and was given a name. We rehearsed on Sunday after church while other friends watched my monkeys and it's going to work out fine.

Two days ago when I prayed I was told that the dog needs to travel with us for Christmas and I thought, that's CRAZY! We've had full care of the dog for a week and didn't have a crate and I’m still learning to trust and train the dog. Long story short, we now have two crates that were given to us along with two bags of dog food and flee medicine. And my sister and parents said they’d be happy to help us with the dog over the holiday break when we come.  How does this stuff even happen?  Amazing!

The last impossible task I was given was teaching an art class on clay to 20 third graders. I spent the day before listening to tutorials on working clay because I knew NOTHING. There were also quite a few frantic texts to my artist friend trying to figure out if I bought the right stuff. Just to keep things interesting, my six-year-old woke up with a fever and a friend who was sick herself ended up hanging out with him so I could go teach. The class was today.  It was super messy but the kids had a blast. And there was a guest teacher so the actual teacher didn’t see how messy it was so she may allow us to do it again.

One of my favorite Book of Mormon prophets is Nephi. He taught us that when God has a work for us He prepares the path for us to accomplish it. “…for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save He shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.” (1 Nephi 3:7) I've really experienced the truthfulness of this principle these past two weeks. When He asks us to do something He prepares a way for it to happen.  I KNOW this is true.  I have seen it MANY times in my life.

Just as Peter walked on water when Christ called to Him, we can truly do things that seem impossible. You may think you're not capable of such things but remember Peter was just a fisherman but God had bigger plans for him. What does He have planned for you?

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