Mess and Miracles

  Standing in my kitchen two years ago making rolls for my young family during General Conference weekend I knew that if anyone needed a miracle it was me. Jesus Christ remained the only person who I thought could fix the mess that I found myself in. Home life was hard, my marriage was hard, and the peaceful family life that I had experienced growing up in my youth seemed at times a far distant cry from the regular interactions that existed in my little family. As I moved between watching General Conference in the living room to listening to it from the kitchen, my mind drifted to the current state of affairs in my family. My husband and I were on our third marriage counselor in four years, and between just having moved in after remodeling our home top to bottom, to the both of us working full-time, me going to school full time to finish my Master’s degree, and having a toddler and a 5-year-old to contend with on top of that, life seemed to be unraveling. Too much yelling and not...

If you are like me, it feels a little icky to teach your kids about Santa only to then know one day they will "find out" and realize you've been stringing them along.  Because my oldest went through a lot with the divorce, I wanted to make sure the "Santa conversation " not only helped him still feel the magic of Christmas, but that it didn't erode the trust that I had built with him after navigating some tumultuous years. I have kept my ears to the ground for awhile about this subject, so when my son came to me this year asking, I felt ready. He came home one day from school, and in his rather matter of fact way announced that he knew that the Santa's at the Santa shacks and at the malls were just men dressed up. But with a desire to know the truth in his eyes, looked at me and said, now tell me, is there a real Santa at the North Pole? I told him that he was correct, that the Santa's dressed up weren't real, but that the question of real Santa ...

   It was my little girl's 3rd Birthday on Sunday and wanting to still social distance, I decided to put on a Puppy Parade!  The logistics were simple. And I saw this done on a social media page in my old neighborhood. All you do is invite your community to walk their dog past your house on the predetermined day. I had this sign on my front lawn for a few days leading up to the event, I asked my church community to post the information on the weekly announcement email that goes out, and I posted the information on my local community's social media site.  The day arrived. I rented a snow cone machine (because who doesn't love FREE snow cones on a hot summer night) and I had dog treats for the puppies that would come!  As you can tell, the three year old is not excited for this thing to start at all! And the puppies came!  Big Dogs Black dogs Fluffy and White dogs! Oh my. (Doesn't this photo look like that is what she is saying?)       ...

Neal A Maxwell, a former apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, recounted a time when during World War II his unit came under heavy gunfire, but for some reason, after what he calls "a selfish prayer" the shelling stopped and his life was preserved. About the experience of God intervening on his behalf he said, "I had been blessed, and I knew that God knew that I knew’ (“ Becoming a Disciple ,”  Ensign,  June 1996, 19). While I am not on Okinawa I wanted to share an experience where I clearly knew and I knew that God knew I knew he had intervened in my family's behalf. The weeks following my son's emergency surgery in which seven screws were inserted inserted along with a metal plate, were arduous. You can read more about that experience here . A few weeks following we were meeting with the orthopedic surgeon who performed the surgery and discussing rehabilitation so that the kid could walk again. The doctor noting his age, was ...

I admit I have on a few occasions succumbed to the car selfie. But more often than not what usually is happening in the car is that I am listening to songs by Calee Reed. She is a Christian artist, and because of how frequently I am listening to her stuff in the car, my son will more often than not ask why we are listening to "church music" when it isn't Sunday. One of the songs that I constantly am circling back to is her song "The Waiting Place" on her album by the same name. (Look at that promotion flex! J/K she doesn't even know I exist). The song talks about those phases in life where we are just waiting. Now more than globally we are feeling "the wait" as we collectively hold our breathe and hope this pandemic will pass. As a single mom I feel like I am waiting for a lot of things. I am waiting for this "being the only adult in the room" thing to get easier. I am waiting for the sensation to pass that I am drowning. And ...

For those of you who are reading, this is BIG Miracle #3. To read about Miracle #1 click here and Miracle #2 click here . This is my neighbor's house catching on fire story. It was late. My kids were in bed, and I was sitting at my kitchen counter with a kettle on to boil making me some tea. (If you read my last post, you would assume that that is how I spend most evenings...when in actuality I hate most tea... and instead drink this night time cold care tea to help me sleep, and am usually in my bed reading to decompress). But I digress. So there I was at my kitchen counter, when I smell something funny. It was a burnt toast smell, so I checked my kettle and it was fine, and no weird smells were coming from my tenant's apartment, so I opened the door, and a wave of campfire smoke smell hit me like a ton of bricks! (That is a simile folks for all of you with 9th and 10th grade English folks in the house!) I ran around to the side of my house and saw the smoke and fla...