law school, covenants, headaches, and healings

so i started a part-time law program in august of this year. at certain moments i feel devan and i must have been crazy when we made the decision to have me start. but then i remember the path that brought us here and i cannot deny God's hand in the whole thing. that's yet another entry that is forthcoming. notice a pattern yet? :)

when i began the semester i made a covenant with God. i promised to use my study time wisely, to make and keep to a schedule, to be present when i was with my children, and to be present when i was at school. i also promised to keep going with seminary and to still make myself available to him for service to others. i promised i would exercise twice a week.

for His part of the covenant, i asked him to make the time i had to study enough time to make the grades i needed to make in order to keep my scholarship. i asked Him to help me see (literally -- my eyes are a mess these days) and to help me have enough energy to keep up with the study schedule i had laid out (i average about five hours a night).

sounds like a reasonable covenant, doesn't it? i prayed, repented, and fasted. i don't usually receive some huge answer to my prayers immediately. but no worries, i just act like He hears me and accepts my offer and start working. i always just assume he'll talk to me when he wants to and when he knows i'm ready. he always does. sometimes i get the message to keep going and sometimes i get the message to make small changes to what i'm doing in order to make the covenant fully acceptable to Him. and then i work, pray, repent when i am weak on my part, and work more.

i learned about covenant making with God like this on my mission. this is how we 'bring to pass much good' -- we make and keep covenants with God and thereby open the windows of Heaven. when we covenant with God and we keep our covenants we literally bind him -- he HAS to keep his part of the covenant -- and he wants to, of course. it's a wonderful way to grow in faith, see miracles happen, know God better, and actually make things happen! i love it!

an example: about two or three weeks into the semester -- it was a tuesday and i had torts -- i got sick with a migraine. this was crazy b/c i hadn't had a migraine in two years. talk about bad luck. it happened about half way through the day. i had gone outside to get warm (our house is so stinking cold!) by sitting in the sun on the driveway. i sat in a chair facing the sun with my eyes closed. apparently for too long and the direct sun in my face triggered the migraine. i laid down for awhile but to no avail. i knew it wasn't going to be as bad as they typically are, but still i was feeling sick and my head was pounding.

so i said a prayer and told HF that i couldn't get on the BART (train) like this b/c i had no idea if i was going to throw up or not. i told him that i had been doing my part and i needed him to step in and heal me so i could go to class b/c i couldn't miss class -- it would just set me back too far. as soon as the prayer was over i was expecting to have this miraculous moment where the headache would just leave me. instead, i immediately ran to the bathroom and threw up. a lot.

hmm... i started feeling kinda annoyed with God. why wasn't he just going to heal me? i knew he could if he wanted to? why couldn't i figure out how to use my faith to be healed instantly? i've struggled with this my entire adult life. what was i doing wrong? what don't i get about faith making miracles happen?

i called devan to get his opinion. he said that for him miracles usually happen while he's busy trying to work out the situation on his own -- exercising his faith through action. made sense, but i still didn't get it really. plus, i didn't think i COULD go to class in the condition i was in. but i decided that maybe he was right and i would just go and do and ask God to help me make it through.

i met dev at the BART station. i felt terrible. my head was pounding. my stomach was very queezy. i rode the train, made it to class and had this thought: my teacher is going to cold call me tonight. of all the nights, it's going to be tonight. sure enough, i was the first one called on. in my head the conversation went like this: really? REALLY HF? i believe. help thou my unbelief. help me, help me, help me please. and then i felt God say: Olivia, relax. get going. i'm right here.

seriously. that's a quote. this is how God and i talk to each other.

and so i began to brief the case for the class. i spent about fifteen minutes talking with my teacher back and forth during this briefing process. i could tell as the exchange was taking place that something was changing. i could feel myself feeling better. at one point, i even thought to myself that i was witnessing a miracle in progress. i was feeling it happen to me. by the time the fifteen minute brief was over and i had a minute to sit quiet i realized the headache was completely gone. what's more, i actually felt good. much better. it was incredible. i was having this incredible experience in my body and mind while all around me students were discussing law. it was all i could do not to exclaim something (oh my gosh! no way! did you feel that?) out loud to my neighbor.

and then this thought entered my mind: olivia, THIS is how faith works. how miracles happen. you work and i work and the miracle happens. but you have to be doing all you can do and i'll pick up the rest.

reminds me of elder bednar's talk about nephi getting those cords off his wrists that his brothers had used to tie him up. i guess in my mind nephi had prayed to break the cords and then poof! they broke off. elder bednar pointed out that nephi didn't pray to have the cords broken for him, rather to have the strength to break the cords himself. elder bednar said he imagined that nephi then worked and worked to get those cords loose and then they did loosen. God granted him the extra strength he needs when he needed it -- which was probably after he had expended all his own energy. this gave me new insight into how faith really works and how it really produces miracles.

this is how it happened for me as well. i had to pray and then work to my maximum capacity. then God helped me have the strength to keep going. and i was able to go further and do more than i have ever done before with a migraine. sheesh, i drove, i walked, i talked. i can't do any of these things normally when i have a migraine. and then in the doing -- having already received Christ's enabling power (the Atonement) -- i was healed as well. literally healed.

wow. when the Spirit is working in your life and you are feeling its power you can be assured that God approves of what you are doing and the direction you are taking. that experience was an affirmation that God had accepted my covenant and was recognizing my efforts and keeping his part.

our God is a god of miracles. and a God of patience and love.

i saw God in torts class that day.

mana from heaven

lots has happened since last time i wrote. much that needs to be recorded. and will be. in december when i have a break from school. but something just happened that absolutely stopped me in my tracks and needs to be recorded on earth and in heaven. i need to stop and acknowledge God and heaven.

a few weeks ago our friend, bud nebeker, lost his job. again. second time in a year. his wife, jen, is a great friend of mine. devan and i love bud and jen dearly. they are good people. they are worker bees as my mom would say. jen is holding up well, but mentioned the other day in passing that they are surviving on a $50 a week food budget. $50. in san francisco in 2012. we can hardly get by on $150. now, they have two kids, but still. it was an indication to me that they are struggling quite severely.

a few days later as i was in safeway i felt an impression strongly to buy them a gift card and send it to them. i bought it and put it in an envelope. and then i hesitated to send it because we are not in the position to be giving away money ourselves. we are fine, but with me in school our budget is down to the penney -- and frankly, we've been robbing peter to pay paul for the last month just to make it all work out in the end. but i thought on how merciful God has always, always been with our family when it comes to money. and the truth is in my heart i want to give all that i can to others. i give our money away every chance i get so i don't ever covet it so much that i become unwilling to share it. and the other truth is that we have been given more than we need. where two can eat, four can eat as well. i know that the more we give, the more we receive. so i sent it thinking that it was the right thing to do and that we'd figure out how to make up the difference, even if it was with student loan money. and out of my brain it went.

in fact, i had no intention of telling devan that i did it. i still haven't. and i didn't put our name on the envelope. it wasn't money from us, it was from God. and i didn't want to claim it as mine. my plan was to forget it and never mention it again. and then today, right this minute, i'm doing our bills and calculating ahead for the rest of the year and lo and behold i realize that there is an extra pay day in november that we weren't counting on. now this occurred because devan's company moved their pay day from tuesdays to fridays thereby giving us an additional month with three paydays. unbelievable. as it dawned on me the thought came into my head that God, indeed, knows us and has our needs covered. i tell you i want to shout it from the rooftops about just how good God is and how mindful He is of us. how He blesses us for our willingness to let go of our fear, our worry, our money and just share with others. HE IS AMAZING!!!

and since i don't want to ruin this most amazing gift of seeing His hand once again in our lives so clearly and so obviously i thought i'd write this down here instead of blabbing about it from the pulpit. sacred things remain sacred when we treat them as such. this is a sacred gift... the money for certain, but more importantly the witness of God's hand moving on our behalf.

it makes me want to give away more money just to watch another miracle happen again.

exercise your faith beyond what you feel you can really do. that is when you begin to see the true amazingness of God. that is how you literally unlock the powers of heaven in behalf of your family, your children, your neighbors, yourself even. going beyond what i feel comfortable doing is where i have found the true joy in life and where i have cemented myself to God and Him to me.

if God had shown up on my door step today i couldn't say that i would have seen him any more than i did when i looked at the calendar and felt His Spirit witness in my heart that we were the recipients of His great mercy.

i did see God today.

lights out!

so like i mentioned we've been without power or air conditioning for the last 48 hours. today was fast sunday. we all fasted that those who were working on restoring power would be safe and effective in doing their job. and that we'd get power back as soon as possible.

we patiently made our way through today, the second day, and were climbing into our hot beds in our underwear when the lights went back on and the air started up again. we cheered!

then cole suggested we say a prayer of thanks, which we did. my mom cried for relief. i love that God does hear and answer prayers. he does it through so many other people so much of the time. and in my life, i've noticed he answers after he's given me enough time to settle into the difficulty and decide to have good attitude about it. reminds me of abraham a little. your heart has to be commited to submitting to the will of the Lord before he can remove obstacles that were placed there in the first place to see where your heart is.

we saw God today because the lights went on!

the glass half full guy

so we just survived 48 hours of no electricity during a visit to GMMJB's and Poppop's. might not sound too bad, but keep in mind that we also broke a high temp record the first day -- 104. that's crazy cause it was 100% humidity that broke into a crazy storm, which is what caused the massive power outage. no air conditioning for two days. need i say more? no, i don't.

during this time one person stood out so magnificiently that i feel to mention it. that would be cole. he was amazingly calm and cooperative when so many, many others weren't. including some adults i know. but we'll skip over that part.

but this amazingness on his part has been going on for a few weeks now and started with a cool moment i wish to record. one day cole came to me and asked me what the expression, "the glass half full" meant. i explained it to him and we discussed how it related to a person's outlook and even character. he thanked me and went on his way.

about two weeks later i was complementing him on what an awesome job he had done cooperating and having a really positive attitude while on our Yosemite camping trip. i thanked him for all his flexibility and happiness and he responded by telling me it was becuase he had decided to work on being a "half glass full kinda guy."

isn't this kid awesome? he is. i'm so grateful for cole in my life. he has brought such a great measure of joy to me already and he's only 8. i can't imagine what joy he'll bring as the years roll on.

here's to my half glass full kid who has filled my glass to overflowing with joy.

i saw God today because of cole.

friends forever

it cannot be overstated how important and necessary good friends are in this life. by good friends i mean people that love you for who you are, appreciate how far you've come, and have hope for your ability to become even more. and don't hate you or criticize you for when you fail to be all that you can be in any given moment. they just keep on keeping on with you. in a loving way.

i've been fortunate enough to have a number of great friends in my life. more than most people find in their lifetime, that is for sure. i'm not sure why that is, but i feel incredibly grateful for my girls. that's what i call that small group of amazingly wonderful and loyal friends. my girls.

today i got a text message from melissa at just the right time. not about anything important, but it left me feeling loved. at just the moment i needed a little extra love. a reminder that no matter what other people think of me, she loves me and knows i'm a good person. she always leaves me uplifted. isn't that amazing?

friends that uplift like this are indespensable and invaluable. search for them. and when you find one be loyal and do all you can to keep them close.

i saw the face of God in melissa's face today. certainly not the first time that's happened. and certainly not the last time it'll happen either.

june's visit

i mentioned in the previous post that i would one day share my experience with meeting june. i think i'll do that now. it's been on my mind to write down for more than a year now and as it was one of the most sacred experiences i've ever had in my life and a tender mercy i hold very close to my heart, i think it is about time that i should. but let me preface it by saying this first: this sacred experience is not to be shared publicly and should not be shared frivolously with others. the entire reason i haven't written this experience down yet is because it is so sacred to me. it was the first time i received such a gift of my Heavenly Father and i don't want to do anything that would send a message to Him that I am not responsible with the revelation He gives me, especially revelation of this kind. So please pray and ponder before sharing this outside our family and share only if  you are prompted by the Spirit to do so.

when i first had isaac i was so worn out. moving from three to four kids was incredibly challenging for me. it seemed like a lot of people to manage. it was a lot of people to manage. the first few months of isaac's life devan was traveling to san francisco every week and was only home on the weekends so i think that's part of what made it feels so hard. then, of course, we moved in six days doing it all by ourselves. at any rate, i was tired and was convinced that i was not going to have any more children. i was saying this to everyone that asked, even though i knew in my heart that i would have one more child. years before (another cool experience i'll have to share at some point) God and i had discussed a number for my sake as i was struggling to be pregnant with avery and didn't think i could keep going without knowing when the end would be -- and God was kind enough to give me the target number, which was five. i know this may seem silly to some, but to me it was a tender mercy. Proof that God is willing to work with us where we are, in ways in which we need. This is especially true when we are at our weakest. He just wants us close to Him. He is willing to do just about whatever we feel we need as long as it still lies within the bounds that He has set. remember that.

 so in the spring of 2009 or perhaps 2010 -- you see? this is why we write things down as they happen, not years later. in the spring i was finally getting adjusted to living here in california. our family life had found yet another new normal with four kids and such and things were beginning to smooth out again. the laundry was getting folded so to speak.

so in the early spring sometime i was in the temple participating in an endowment session. i don't recall why, but i was by myself that particular time. i remember even the room and the chair in which i sat because it was the small endowment room in the Oakland Temple and it was the first and last time (at least to this point) that i ever attended a session in that room. it was small and very private feeling. a very intimate setting.

when the session  began my mind was thinking about all sorts of things and nothing in particular. at some point early in the session i began to think about having another child. i pondered over whether or not we wanted to have another child, whether or not we could fit another child into our small home and small budget. these things had never as yet come into my mind with the other pregnancies. we had never allowed lack of money, home, or anything to keep us from having a child when we felt prompted by the Spirit to do so. we always exercised faith that God would come to our aid. and, of course, He always did.

but with this pregnancy things were slightly different. i had had a strong feeling that this time it was my choice. that God was giving me an opportunity to use my agency. completely. and therefore, take responsibility for my choice completely as well. this is a scary idea if you really think about it. as long as you can point to God and say, "He told me to do it." with some sort of prompting experience than you always have a cop out of sorts. you always have someone to point if things get hard or if something appears to go wrong. i say appears because, of course, God doesn't prompt us to do things and then send us down wrong paths. but sometimes we fear to make choices because of potential outcomes that we don't want or don't like. or are afraid of. so at any rate, i was trying to be very thorough in my decision making, thinking of things that i didn't normally take into consideration, etc.

so as i was thinking in terms of whether or not devan and i would want to have another child, a very distinct thought came into my mind. it was this: "what if she wants to come to your family?" the thought was so distinct and clearly not my own. i believe it was the voice of the Spirit. never in my life had i heard that voice so clearly before. the voice of a person talking to me. and i was slightly confused by the message and frankly the intrusion into my own thoughts so as i was thinking about what had just happened and what it might mean another thought came to my mind. again, very distinct and clear. it was this: "you have only thought about whether you want to invite another spirit into your home. but what if there is a spirit that sees your family and wants to come and be apart of your family?" at that exact moment i felt june. i don't know how to describe the experience, but i felt and knew that she was there in front of me. i didn't know her name was june of course. but i knew it was this spirit that was yearning to be in our family. i could literally feel her presence just as you would be able to feel someone's presence if you closed your eyes and they walked up to you. i knew in my mind and my body and in my heart that she was being allowed to visit me and impress upon me her desire to be in our family. she wanted me to know she was real and she was waiting to come to us. had she been physically standing in front of me i would have had no more of a sure knowledge that she was there. i felt her. she was there with me.

after a few moments i felt her leave. but the feeling of having experienced a piece of the spirit world was lingering deep in my heart and in my body. i lack words to express the incredible peace and enlightenment i felt at this revelation. i know there were other people all around me sitting in chairs and yet i felt as if i had been all alone with her and the Spirit. it was incredibly intimate and personal.

 it was yet another witness that God lives and this work is true. but for me, it was more than a moment of faith building. it was a moment of knowledge building. like joseph smith said, 'i knew that i had seen (in my case, felt) a vision. i knew it and i knew that God knew it. and i could not deny it. neither dared i do it."

as a side note: when june came to me i could sense that she was a grown woman. young, but grown. the connection we made to each other was as a woman to a woman, not a mother to a baby. because of this experience i now believe in my own heart that our spirits are mature -- not children -- at least before this earth life.

i went home from the temple that morning with a sure knowledge that we would have another child and that i knew her personally.  i had not decided to have a child because God told me to. i decided to have a child because she asked me if i would be willing to bring her here. and who am i to keep a spirit from progressing? who am i to put myself before another? why wouldn't i be willing to make a sacrifice for another? i knew i could do it. it would be painfully hard (little did i know how hard), but with God's help and devan's help i could do it.

i told devan about this experience not too long after it occurred. we began trying to get pregnant not long after that. it took months to get pregnant this time, which was frustrating because i wanted to get the hard pregnancy over with, but eventually it happened.

when we went for the ultrasound at 20 weeks to determine if the baby was a boy or girl i was nervous. i knew in my heart it was a girl because of my experience in the temple. but part of me was afraid that it might be a boy and then i would feel compelled to have yet another child to bring that girl here. in my heart i was begging Heavenly Father not to play that joke on me :). cause i wouldn't be laughing. devan came with me that morning. as it was the last time we'd be having an ultrasound, we thought it would be fun to make it a full circle and have him come as he did the first time with chas. when the technician told us it was a girl i cried. cried and cried. the lady probably thought i was crying cause i was hoping for a boy or something silly like that. but i was crying out of relief and out of pure joy. my humanness always leaves a spot for doubt in my heart and second guessing. this ultrasound was like a witness to my experience in the temple. silly as it sounds, it felt like a confirmation that we were on the right track and i had not imagined any of what had happened.

when i finally gave birth to june and i got to hold her quietly for the first time and could feel her spirit, i knew it was that same spirit that had visited me in the temple. i could feel the same personage i felt before. she felt familiar. another witness. the law of witnesses that the Lord has established. played out in real time in my very own life.

that day in the temple? in the ultrasound room? in the delivery room? i saw God those days.

praise God for His tender mercies and great gifts of revelation.

sisters sealed

i just wanted to mention here just how much avery and june love each other. when we decided to have a fifth child it was for a few key reasons. one of those reasons was in hopes of getting avery a sister to grow up with; to share with; to laugh with; to do hair with; to commiserate about brothers and parents with. you get the picture. i knew from a previous experience -- that i will share at some point -- that we were having a girl long before i was even pregnant. and so when the ultrasound technician told us that, in fact, it was a girl i was filled with joy for avery and for june. that they would have each other for time and all eternity.

the idea of eternity is an interesting one. usually we only think of it a uni-directional -- going on forever forward. but if eternity is really eternity that it is one eternal round, meaning that it goes on forever forwards as well as forever backwards. this can start to trip up the human mind and i don't have any general authority quotes on it either, but i feel something telling me that if my family is eternal now it always has been in some weird time-does-not-exist-God-way. which means that june and avery were always connected, always sisters somehow. we were always a family. whether or not it's exactly true, i like to think of it this way. it makes us feel even more eternal to me. like we just met back up here on this earth instead of just coming together for the first time.

and so june and avery. the first time june smiled it was at avery. devan, avery, and june had been sitting on our bed one morning enjoying each other's company. devan had tried to get june to smile at him many times, but she wasn't doing it. at one point he said that he called her name and smiled at her and she looked over at him, but didn't smile. then she very deliberately turned her head towards avery and looking into her eyes, smiled for the first time. devan said it was an incredible moment because he could see them connect to each other. like their spirits connected. or reconnected i would like to say.

they've been great friends to each other. there is no better big sister than avery. not anywhere that i've seen at least. avery has cared for, loved, played with, and helped june very consistently and with incredible love since the day of june's birth. avery has never been jealous of june, but has felt a great responsibility to show june the ropes of living with all these boys and a sometimes very difficult mother. :) june, for her part, loves avery the most. when she was just months old she would respond so well to avery's singing and cuddling. if june was upset i could pass her over to avery and avery had the magic powers to help june feel happy again. it was amazing to watch.

this is an incredible thing to watch. avery is so loving towards june that it often reminds me of how Christ cared for the people in his life. i believe this beginning -- so much of which can be attributed to avery's good and kind heart -- will lead to a lifetime of friendship between these two girls. i hope one day june will get to watch these days of her childhood again so she can re-know just how much avery loved and cared for her. cause it's been a gift to watch.

avery has shown me God so many, many days.

mother's day 2012

mother's day was great today. usually i find them difficult to endure for many reasons i won't enumerate here. my point is that today i recieved a beautiful poem from avery (an acrostic with words that indicated that she really thought about me), a great puzzle card from cole with a pen he made for me, a picture magnet from ike, and breakfast from chas. all of these things were wonderful because they were sincerely given and given in love and gratitude. i think they meant more to me this year than any other year thus far because they were given without any outside pressure to do so.

the day was topped off by chas singing in church. he and devan were set to sing a duet, but at the last minute devan didn't feel up to attending church. chas was disappointed at first, but then decided to sing by himself. he was nervous. we practiced only one time before church and i told him he certainly didn't have to do it, but he assured me that it was what he wanted to do. so when it was our turn to play and sing we went up to the podium together. i began to explain that devan wasn't going to be singing, but then lo and behold we saw him at the back of the room, having just come in. the relief that swept over chas' face was palpable. so they sang together as originally planned. it was beautiful. chas' voice is a clear one, with great tonal quality and lots of sincerity. his singing was a great gift to me today. but i have to say this: the greatest gift was his willingness to go on even by himself. his bravery and commitment to follow through despite challenges is what was really inspiring today. he is a great example to everyone in our family.

he helped me see -- and feel -- God today.

life in a family

life in a family is hard. the further along i get into creating a family of my own the more i know this to be true. growing up i just assumed being in a family was what one did. that families just happened. it had not occured to me that people chose to be in families. and while it can be argued that we don't get to choose our family, i think with an eternal perspective this argument holds little weight. whether we chose our family before coming here or as adults (when choosing to marry) we are in our families for a purpose, even if it is a purpose "we know not." and so as an adult i've come to see that many, many people chose not to have a family of their own and chose not to be active in the family they grew up in. if family has brought you little else besides pain i can see why this might be. that thought makes my heart sad. cause everyone deserves to love and be loved. everyone deserves a good family. or at least a family that's trying to be good. many people choose not to have family because it is so much easier to make decisions without having to think of others. planning for yourself, preparing only for yourself, thinking, acting, sacrificing only for yourself: easy peezy lemon squeezy. anyone that tells you otherwise probably hasn't lived in a family. or at least not a large enough one to make them know for sure what it means to have to think of others so consistently and so deeply.

but i digress. as usual. my point is that life with family is challenging. our family life is challenging. we have seven very different personalities. seven. that's a lot of needs, wants, attitudes, heartaches, sorrows, disappointments, dreams, hopes, and desires to address. they often collide and sometimes even crash terribly. when they do a lot of prayer, patience and forgiveness is required. a lot. more than we generally have to give, but not more than God has to give us to give to others. i absolutely know this to be true. in my heart this is a fact as sure as i know that i have gray hair at 36 or that the sky is blue out my window. fact. truth.

and so today i was reminded of a time when devan and i were struggling with each other. couldn't seem to figure each other's needs out well at all. it was getting worse and worse and we were both praying a lot about it, but it wasn't getting easier to understand each other. and then one day as we were driving out of our neighborhood in phoenix -- at this time we had chas and cole and i might have been pregnant with avery -- devan started feeling very upset. so upset, in fact, that he asked me to pull over and let him get out of the car. so i did. he started walking back to the house and i just sat there in the car cause i didn't know what to do. after a minute i turned to chas and explained to him that dad was struggling and needed our prayers and asked if he'd say a prayer with me. he agreed and we began praying together, asking God to help our dad feel the Spirit. help him feel loved. we asked him to soften devan's heart. when we finished praying i turned back around and looked out the rear view mirror. i watched devan stop walking away, pause for a moment, then turn around and walk back to the car.

he told me later on that he knew we had been praying for him because he felt a very distinct feeling come over him, encouraging him back to his family. i believe it was the Spirit we had been asking God to give him.

we saw God that day.

i don't have enough fingers to count the number of times God has brought devan and me back together again. softening our heart to each other. that's the direct result of a covenant marriage. a temple marriage. at this point in the world's history i don't know if it is possible to have a successful marriage without one. it's hard enough to have one with that sacred covenant. satan works viciously hard on families. the marriage covenant is a protection against the destroyer because it is what gives us literal access to the powers of heaven, what allows us to call down God's power on behalf of our families. to require God to save us when we cannot save ourselves. thank God for my temple covenants and my sacred temple marriage.

roger that good buddy

tonight chas came to me saying he had something he needed to talk to me about. he shared with me that recently he's started to notice that he's feeling more mean and negative... just about everything. we had a wonderful discussion about hormones and bodies changing and puberty and periods and pregnancy and all the changes that can send our bodies on roller coaster rides. we talked about how he felt, what he thought, and what i could do to help him. we decided on a few ideas, but mostly we just got it out into the open. we began a discussion that i hope lasts as long as he needs it to.

i've been so worried about him as of late. i have been feeling afraid of loosing him as he grows up. we've always been close -- i have always felt very close to him. he is easy to talk to and i enjoy listening to him and working ideas out with him. i don't want to loose that closeness because of puberty, growing up, hormones, or anything. i've been praying to God constantly about this. asking him to help me know chas well enough to know how to help him through this tough stage of life.

tonight felt like God answering my prayer. i believe He prompted chas to come talk to me. i believe He prepared my heart and my mind to be ready to listen with love.

this goes down as one of my most favorite moments as a mother thus far. i am so grateful that chas trusted me enough to come to me. i hope he always feels that way. i hope i can always retain his trust and confidence.

i felt hopeful after we got through talking. chas thanked me and i thanked him. the Spirit was there.

that's how i saw God today.

Peace between brothers

yesterday was easter. we had a nice day for the most part. at one point during the afternoon chas and cole sat down to play a game of chess with chas' chess set. i'm not exactly sure what happened -- there are always mulitple versions of these sorts of sitatuions depending on who is retelling the story. suffice it to say they had a disagreement that ended with cole scratching chas and chas telling cole that he couldn't use his chess set ever again. again, which order those two events happened in is beyond me. not the point really. they were upset with each other for about an hour or so. after that time i was in the kitchen making dinner (honeybaked ham -- yum!) and chas was helping set the table. cole came in and within a minute i overheard the two of them talking calmly and nicely to one another. they were talking  out their conflict. each apologized genuinely for their part in the tiff and checked in with the other to make sure all things were settled. at this point i had stopped what i was doing and was focused on their conversation. waiting to see how it would progress. this might be a good time to mention that i myself had been struggling a bit throughout the day. i was feeling angry inside for some personal reasons and had felt far from the Spirit. at this moment as i was listening to the boys work things out i realized that my own heart  began to unknot itself. i felt calm inside again. i began to cry. they boys looked over at me and cole said, "i just nearly started to cry myself mom. why?" i thanked both of them for the way they handled their conflict and told them that what we were all feeling was the Spirit of the Lord. that overwhelmingly good feeling that was making us cry and feel happy all at the same time was the Spirit.

we all felt it together. it was such a cool experience. one i will never forget. i'm writing it here so chas and cole don't forget it either. they felt the Spirit. i felt the Spirit.

we saw God on easter sunday.