“This pregnancy is not about you. It’s the Lord who needs this child to be on earth NOW. Maybe the now-time for his mission will be shortly after his arrival, but maybe it will be 19 years down the line when the Lord needs your son to be in the right place at the right time to do something that only he can do in the place the Lord has appointed!”
Little did I know then that I would have 8+ children of my own and that conversation would repeat many times in my heart as a sweet reminder of Whose these spirits are.
* * *
Throughout my life I have wondered “Why am I where I am right now?”
Today that question floated through my mind as we listened to a young man in our ward who will leave Wednesday for the MTC on a full-time mission. I supposed that thought passed my mind as I realized that today marks year one of being in our “new” ward. And in these past twelve months my boys have been able to witness five missionaries leaving for full-time missions and one who returned home.
So this morning I thought that maybe I am where I am right now because my boys need to see and feel the power of worthy young men prepared and leaving on full-time missions for the Lord!
* * *
When I went to church today I had just place a
brand-spanking new eraser into my mechanical pencil.
Which only needed to be replaced 6 months ago. . .But since 95% of my pencil is used for scripture marking,
the eraser does go a long ways.
But I was still so elated to take to Church a new eraser attached to
my old, mechanical pencil!
Well, I let me seven year old use the pencil during
Sacrament Meeting. And every now and then I glanced down to see him drawing quite the intricate picture with mountains that were shadowed and trees with many leaves and a sun with very thick rays.
Near the end of the meeting I peered over his shoulder
to see what had become of his picture and saw that he now had a clean, white
sheet of paper.
Except, upon second glance, it wasn’t a new piece of paper. . .
No, it was his mountain/tree/sun with many rays picture that
now had been meticulously erased WITH MY NEW ERASER. . . which, no longer looked new at all!
My eyes began to bulge and I was just beginning to feel some intense surges of
provocation when there was a thought placed ever so tenderly and softly in my mind that said
something like this, “Ahem, isn’t that what an eraser is for? That is why I came to earth. I came to die for you you so that you could become as clean as that paper. My Atonement is your eraser. It is I who makes you clean."
And humility filled me as all the pencils that we have in our home flashed before my eyes and I realized that none of them have any eraser left on them!
Because in our house the eraser is the part of the pencil
that goes first. And usually, when I find pencils without erasers, I throw
away those darn pencils away because what good are they without erasers, anyway??
But today I figured it out. Without Jesus Christ I would have been thrown out a long, long time ago.
Christ is my Eraser.
I've decided you are my most profound friend. Do you ever have ANY ordinary thoughts? I love reading your insights. And I love you! ♥
ReplyDeleteI'm to that point. Trying to understand why am where I am right now. Why we spent the past half of the year doing what we did and ending where we have, not seeing the results you thought would come. I hope I can see it soon.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post on Isaiah. I don't know why I've had such a hard time with Paul. That especially bugs because I've never heard others talking about how Paul is hard to understand. I'm a little backwards. :) I will try to keep going, though.
Daral! thank you!! I have been trying to figure out why right now we are moving so far away from everything we have known for so long... far away from Temple square (a FHE favorite), the strong gospel culture, feeling as though I am pulling our kids away from great friends, selling our house, parting with many worldily things (mostly because I don't want to haul them across the country!). My heart breaks. However, I gained great insight reading your blog today. The Lord is simple, loving, and moves us where we need to be for Him and us! you are truly an inspired person and I am so glad to call you my friend!
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty amazing to see how our Heavenly Father is involved so intimately in our lives. How I rely on the knowledge and hope that He knows and sees it all, and loves us infinitely.
ReplyDeletePretty funny, but last week I was going through our plethora of office supplies and had so many pencils that I deemed the ones without erasers as getting the boot. I've also had several opportunities as of late to use Mr. Clean's magic eraser on our walls thanks to my two-year old's expanding art career. Pure Brilliance, I tell you. My life seems to be all about erasing and trying to be a little more thoughtful with the writing I do. Thanks once again for the thought-provoking blog.