Embrace

I had a very emotional weekend. Emotional in a good way that is... I think... time will tell I guess.

I have been thinking a lot about the video I posted about on my last post. If you haven't watched it yet, please do. There is a picture included in that video of Christ and John the Baptist in the River Jordan. John the Baptist has just baptized the Savior and they are embracing. The thing that moves me to tears every time is the look on both of their faces. Huge grins. Although it is only a painting, you can feel how tightly they are holding onto each other. You can feel the electricity of their joy. And you know without words why they are happy. They are beginning the Fathers work. There just aren't words that can describe such a moment. That is why I love that painting so much. All of the emotions I feel about our Fathers plan and the Saviors atonement all wrapped up in an embrace of two "brothers".

I am not sure if there is doctrine to support that such an embrace took place, but I imagine it did. And the truly inspirational part of such an embrace of love and joy is that The Savior knew that this was the first step toward what would be a difficult journey. He knew how this path would end here on this earth. But He also knew how this path would end in the Eternal scheme of things. He knew that though it would lead to His eventual torure and death... it would ultimately lead to life eternal, not just for Him but for His brothers and sisters. He knew that He was beginning the process of erasing hopelessness and doom from the life of mankind. He knew that He was starting down a path that would show each of us the way Home. He loved His eternal family enough that He rejoiced when He come out of the waters of baptism and started us all on our way back to Him. I feel like we were all there, rejoicing right along with Him. Embracing each other and grinning.

How I love our Savior. I know because I am only a mortal, my ability to love is extremely limited and pales in comparison to what He must feel for us. I get a little taste of it when I look at my children. They give me a tiny taste of what it is like to love another more than myself. Even when they are naughty. Even when they "don't like me" for a moment. Even when they go back to Heaven before I get a chance to say hello. Every day I feel like the veil is pulled back a tiny bit more and I am able to grasp a little more of the eternal expanse that is our Saviors love for us. Then life gets crazy, my kids get LOUD, I get loud and I fall back a step again and have to reclaim that last few inches of my peak into His love.

I do want anyone that happens to come across this to know that I know that our Redeemer lives. I know it. I know it without a shadow of a doubt. And I know it because I have asked God, and He has told me. He has told me that all of it is true. That the Bible is His instructions to us, as is The Book of Mormon. We have prophets that lead us today. I have many friends of many different faiths and I love you all. I believe that there is truth in every religion. But I know that I have found the fullness of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. It's all there. You don't have to sift through anything and find what you like and determine if the truth outweighs the theory. I cannot say that I understand it all. There would be no point to me being here if I knew everything. But, I feel it in my heart that this is where I will find everything the Lord wants me to know and this church is my pathway to returning to Him. You don't have to believe it. You don't have to "subscribe" to it. It's definitely a personal answer for each of us to receive. But I can tell you that if you ask Him... He will tell you too.

So knowing all this, can we too smile and embrace in joy while facing some of our worst fears? It's not always easy, but I believe it is possible when we look to our Saviors example and focus on the Eternal scheme of things, instead of the short term pain, fear and sorrow.

What do you think?

Miricles

Did anyone hear about this story?

I don't listen to talk radio very often... actually I dont listen to much radio at all these days since we invested in our killer mini van that has a tv and dvd player in it (yup...I sure do sport a mini van... I get more and more stereotypical every time I write don't I?) . Since then I spend my trips to my exciting destinations such as Walmart either talking to myself or singing along to the Leap Frog Letter Factory (highly reccommend it btw! the movie not talking to yourself...) BUT my husband listens to it [talk radio] every once in a while. Monday morning I was driving him to the airport and we were listening to KSL talk radio. They posed an interesting question that really got me thinking:

"Do you believe in miricles?"

Hmmm... well yes, I've always been taught to believe in miricles. I've gone to church all my life. I've been taught about all the amazing miricles our Savior performed when he walked the earth. I've been taught about the miricles prophets throught the Old Testament and the apostles performed. I've been taught that the Savior lives on today. That His gospel has been restored to this earth. That a prophet of God has once again been called to lead His church. I've also been taught that because of that miricles continue today.

I've been taught all those things. But do I BELIEVE them?

Some would ask how I could possibly believe in them. I didn't get my miricle I asked for almost 6 months ago.

As Brett and I drove to the hospital on February 8 to be induced to deliver the earthly remains of our daughter we talked about how suprisingly at peace we felt about everything that was happening. Just an hour before I had seen the ultrasound devoid of a heart beat. The dr. had showed me the umbilical chord that had no movement of blood going through it. I could feel my body starting to cramp up, rejecting what it knew was not right.

I knew I could not feel my daughter moving.

And yet, as we drove to the hospital, as I waited for 7 hours for her to arrive, even as I could feel her coming... I prayed. I knew what reality was and really I felt at peace with it, but I still had this little ray of hope that somehow, some way I would get a miricle. That Savannah would pop out and scare the poop out of us with a rip roaring cry. "Psych! Here I am." It doesn't make sense, I know that, I KNEW that. But I still prayed that somehow the dr. was wrong and that everything was okay. And that I'd get to take her home with me, and we'd laugh about the silly drs mistake as we told stories about her at her wedding dinner. If Jesus Christ could raise Lazarus from the dead, surely he could give me one little miricle right?

But we didn't get our miricle.

Or did we?

When the Lord says that he wants us to become as a child (Mosiah 3:19) I guess he didn't mean be whiny when we don't get our way.

I've witnessed plenty of miricles in my day. I've seen my dad happen to get checked out on a whim just in time to find 6 blocked arteries and survive a 6 bipass heart surgery. I've seen my father in law feel the need to get checked out by the dr. just in time to save his life from a very serious pulmonary embolism. When Miss Thang was born the nurse told Brett that he couldn't tell him how many still births he'd seen resulting from the kind of tight knot that she had in her chord.

Based on science alone each of the above mentioned people should be dead, and Savannah should be alive. Why do you think that is? My opinion: miricles DO still exist. But they are according to the will and plan on our Father in Heaven that bases those plans around our reaching our ultimate goal of happiness. I believe that we all are individually known to the Lord... although no matter how hard I try I cannot even begin to comprehend it. I also believe that we each have our own roles in the eternal scheme that He has cooked up. The Lord wants to give us what will make us happy, he wants to give us our miricles. But because He wants us to have the ultimate happiness possible He gives us our miricles when they will lead us in that direction.

But I think that that, in and of itself is the biggest miricle of all.

There are a lot of unhappy people in this world resulting from not understanding that.

But what do you think? Do you believe in miricles? Or are there only chances of fate as we plug along on the 3rd rock from the sun?