i am important in the eyes of God

yesterday i went to the temple. i wanted to write down three names on the prayer roll, one of them being my own. i've never written in my own name on the prayer roll because that just seems odd to me, but i've been so filled with anger lately that i just needed extra prayers. so i wrote down the three names, including my own, but then erased my own and wrote another. then i went home thinking nothing of it.

fast forward to this morning. in the last twenty-four hours i found out my cousin committed suicide and instead of feeling better, i'm feeling more sad than ever. as i was moving furniture and boxes out of our front room in preparation for the tile to be set, billie perini knocked on my door. she came to tell me she has just returned from the temple and while there she felt impressed to put my name on the prayer roll.

my name.

it felt like God sent her as a messenger to tell me that my name is worth putting on that prayer roll; that i count; that i'm important to Him and He sees me. He knows my heart is so sad right now and feels betrayed, deceived, and just so sorrowful. i cannot express adequately how strongly i feel that God sent her to me today. she said she has been trying to listen and follow through on promptings. i'm so grateful she did.

i saw God in billie's eyes today.

Working together

so we moved back to arizona. that's another story altogether, but the long and short of it is that we are back in our yale street home trying to make it a home we can live in. devan and chas have been working together every weekend (and many week days) to open up the central portion of the home and put in beams for support where necessary.

while the work they've done has been incredibly impressive -- even the city inspector was impressed, calling their first foray into placing a beam "beautiful" three times -- what has been even more impressive has been the kindness with which they have worked together. last night i was in the bathroom taking a long, long shower (cause i'm post eye surgery) and i could hear them talking to each other. listening to them work out the math necessary to build the beam structure was awesome. those men are so smart. and they asked each other questions and thought through each other's ideas with kindness.

there is little else that makes my heart feel as much joy as listening to devan and chas talk to each other and work together in love and patience. both of these men have struggled internally in ways that i think have affected their sense of self and their ability to feel settled inside to the extent that they can easily let go of pride. as a result, sometimes they struggle to work together in kindness and patience. but they are both men of God and are two men that i know are absolutely good to the core -- they both have souls that are just so good. they both intuitively know what is good and are drawn to goodness.

so i love when their goodness is felt in our home. i felt God in our home last night.

every time. every. single. time.

i also just wanted to say that yesterday was the first and only time in all my school years that i have been tempted to break the sabbath and work on the brief in order to help my teammates that were sick and had procrastinated their writing.

but devan and i made a committment a long time ago that we would never do homework on the sabbath -- not when he was in school and not when i am in school. and we never have.

yesterday my faith faltered and i felt worried all saturday as i was anticipating it. how could we possibly have enough time to finish by 10 am on monday morning if i didn't do anything on sunday? so i worked all saturday and late into saturday night. i did everything i could do. then i spent sunday at church and with family. just as sunday was turning into monday i got up and started working. i worked from midnight until 4 am and then again from 5:45 am until 9:56 am, when i submitted the finished product.

and i realized again that God honors who honors Him. i kept the sabbath day and God kept me from failing.

there has never been a time when He hasn't helped us when we keep his commandments. never one single time.

God keeps his promises. for sure.

praise God for every little thing...

"that which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased."

this is true, in part, because we get smarter, stronger, and more capable as we practice. it is also true because the enabling power of Jesus Christ makes it possible for us to be more than we are, think more than we usually can, and do more than our bodies and minds are capable of doing.

today i completed writing a 45 page brief for a national moot court competition i am competing in with two other teammates. we finished with two minutes to spare. we have been working ferociously on it through sickness, family emergencies, and regular mid-term break life.

now i have a week off before classes begin one final time and all i have to do is read 50 pages for wills and trusts. that seems like nothing these days. which is funny because three and a half years ago reading 50 pages of a law school text was extremely challenging. and so i realized today that my power to do has increased significantly over the last three and a half years. i read fast, i comprehend more quickly, i write like a boss, i can even research better. i can endure hard things longer, like hours on end of researching, writing, revising, and doing it all while managing five children's needs.

and, in part, i've gained the knowledge and the strength because i've done little else besides practice these things over the last three and a half years. but i've also gained the knowledge and the strength -- the increased power to do -- because Jesus Christ has been pouring out the blessings of the enabling power of the Atonement over my head, my mind, my intellect, my neck, my shoulders, my back, my hands, my eyes, my everything. praise God for the gift of His Son.

with my whole soul i love my Savior and Brother, Jesus Christ. through His gift to me, i saw God today... in myself. wow. that's awesome.