Sunday Thoughts

Goodness, 4 days without a post, you know when that happens I'm either super sick, super busy or super mad about something blogging related (fortunately this is rare). This time I've just been super busy. I'm happy to report that I'm in good spirits, just needing a few more hours of coherence in my day before I stumble into bed and fall dead asleep (no more sleeping woes with my new schedule).

I must report on today's fantastic Sacrament Meeting. We had the Special Needs Mutual kids put on the program and I was crying before it even started! As soon as I saw all those special souls sitting up on the stand and then read on the program that they'd be singing "Nephi's Courage" and "In This Very Room" I was a mess. I started to panic about my tissue supply even though I'd reloaded before church (an inspired act).

Andrew is no longer a part of this Special Needs group since moving South to the group home, but he went to their weekly activities for years. Because of him I have an incredibly soft place in my heart for Special Needs' kids. If I even see someone with Down's Syndrome while I'm out in public (especially a little kid) I am in tears and have to resist the urge to run up and hug them.

Anyway, the program today was set up so that each of the Special Needs' kids had their "buddy" (a local youth called for 9 months to help them--Michelle's son Max is doing this in his area) next to them on the stand. Some of the Special Needs' kids spoke and some of their buddies spoke, the entire group performed "Nephi's Courage" and one of the mother's of a Down's daughter spoke (and unraveled me further).

• The hardest part of having a Special Needs' Child is dealing with the lack of love and acceptance of others.
• Special Needs' Mutual is a huge blessing for her daughter.
• Remember that we are preparing for eternity. The disability is temporary, the spirit is not disabled.
• Her daughter's Patriarchal blessing said "she was sent here with no malice in her heart to show us how to love."
• What is normal? What mold are we trying to fit in anyway?
• Don't try so hard to fit in, you were born to stand out.
• We don't know what these children did in the pre-existence to allow them to be protected in these bodies while on Earth.

They closed the program by singing "In This Very Room". That song undoes me on a normal day, so to have these God-like people singing it made me sob so hard that I shifted into the ugly cry and had to talk myself down before losing it completely. (It wasn't pretty.) The spirit was so incredibly strong in there and all around you could see red eyes and tears and hear a chorus of sniffling.

In This Very Room  

Words and Music by Ron Harris

In this very room there's quite enough love for one like me,
And in this very room there's quite enough joy for one like me,
And there's quite enough hope and quite enough power to chase away any gloom,
For Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in this very room.

And in this very room there's quite enough love for all of us,
And in this very room there's quite enough joy for all of us,
And there's quite enough hope and quite enough power to chase away any gloom,
For Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in this very room.

In this very room there's quite enough love for all the world,
And in this very room there's quite enough joy for all the world,
And there's quite enough hope and quite enough power to chase away any gloom,
For Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in this very room.

**Thoughts??**

Comment Window Tidbit: I'm holding steady with no Sunday nap, but that doesn't mean I'm don't want one.

Sunday Thoughts

As I mentioned in my hilariously embarrassing post from yesterday, it was our annual Stake Women's Conference. I have gone to this for the last few years and posted about it all those times.

There were several good speakers, but the main speaker was Emily Freeman (an author and "famous" church speaker--Michelle recently posted notes from her) and she was fabulous. One of the great benefits of having a seasoned speaker is that they have confidence and are able to speak without apology and without bringing attention to themselves the way many insecure speakers do with self-deprecation and apologies for their weaknesses. I understand why people feel this way, but I feel like if you've been asked to speak somewhere it is for a reason and you should own that and take on the confidence the Lord has entrusted you with so that rather than drawing attention to yourself you can deliver your message. Enough said.


Anyway, she was clearly inspired and delivered a beautiful message about remembering the Savior through Commitment, Sanctification and Consecration. I took so many notes that I'm not sure how to post them, so I'm going to try to relate a story she told that had me doing the ugly cry.

She told us how 6 years ago for Christmas, she and her husband decided they were going to take their children to the store so each of them could choose a picture of the Savior to have framed in their bedroom. She said their kids took this very seriously and that it took a couple weeks for them all to find the picture that meant the most to them. She said her son, who was 13 at the time, really wanted a picture of Peter trying to walk on water toward the Savior, but that they couldn't find it. Eventually she found that picture in a book and cut it out and framed it for her son. Then each of the children wrote "I am a disciple of Christ" under the picture in the frame (I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this idea).



Fast forward 6 years later and her son is the only missionary in the MTC preparing to serve in Croatia. The time came for him to fly there all by himself and as he did she was worried that he would get lost or have trouble along the way. He had to change planes in Paris and somehow got stuck in the wrong section of the airport for 45 minutes and almost missed his flight. (This had me in tears thinking of Landon in 6 years, what is in store for him?) Fortunately, he got on the right plane and flew to Croatia where his Mission President met him at the airport...phew!

Later in a Zone Conference the Mission President was relating the story of going to pick her son up at the airport and likened him to Peter walking on water toward the Savior because of his great faith! Isn't that a beautiful story?

She also talked about how many of our stories/trials are in process so we don't know how they're going to end but that it's all part of our journey here on Earth and that by remembering the Savior always and exercising faith we will eventually see what we are supposed to learn from those experiences.

**Thoughts??**

Comment Window Tidbit: I got ANOTHER calling today! Now I'm on the Relief Society Activity Committee too.