Write at the Heart

My phone died over the weekend. Like, DIED died.  Almost immediately I got anxious. Because CERTAINLY hundreds of people were trying to get ahold of me, & NOW THEY COULDN’T! How were they gonna know I wasn’t ignoring them? How was I gonna check FB, Insta, email, GroupMe, Marco Polo, Messenger? How were my husband and I gonna coordinate our 6 kids’ soccer practices that were ALL on Saturday? I tried EVERYTHING to bring it back to life. But, nothing.  Then on Sunday, after already feeling cut off from the world, the power went out for a few hours! So not only did I have no phone, but no power or internet. #firstworldproblems  Somehow I survived. And went to church. At church, I thought about God. I know, what?😉 I thought about my communication with Him. I wondered: When I feel far from Him, when the connection is “unstable,” do I feel the same sense of urgency to get it working again as I do my phone? When I feel I can’t hear Him, am I as anxious about what I might be ...

He tried to tell them what would happen. “But they understood not” (Mark 9:32) No wonder the apostles got all bent out of shape when Mary anointed Him with expensive oil. She knew. But they did not quite understand. They fell asleep in His darkest hour. His friends, His followers, His confidants- they fell asleep! They did not quite understand. And then Judas. WHY JUDAS WHY? FOR WHAT. 30 pieces of silver he could not even bring himself to spend, 30 pieces he tried to give back, realizing the magnitude of what he’d done? 30 pieces thrown down in the temple just before his sad fate. Betrayer of His Friend, betrayer of His Savior, Betrayer of his own soul. He did not quite understand. Then those who “sat daily with” Him in the temple came at Him with weapons to take him. And “all the disciples forsook him, & fled.” (Matt. 26:55-56) They did not quite understand. Peter then denied even knowing Jesus. 3 times. He did not quite understand. Pilate said “I find in him no fault at all” (Joh...

True story: I was once trapped between two herds of bison. On my bike. When I lived in Utah, some friends & I loved waking up early to bike around Antelope Island- a small island surrounded by the Great Salt Lake. We had the road to ourselves & saw all kinds of animals. Including bison.  One day we found ourselves facing a herd of bison ALL over the road.  3 years biking the island, & we’d NEVER seen them like this. Antsy, pacing, facing us head on. Unpredictable. We'd also never HEARD them like this! Grunting, growling, loud, agitated. Blocking our only way home. BEHIND us, another herd was making their way across the road. A few weeks earlier a runner had spooked a bison & ended up in the hospital. Bison can run 35 mph. So yeah, we didn’t feel very safe facing them in our bike helmets & spandex! WE WERE TERRIFIED. AND VERY TRAPPED. I prayed in my head- Help us be safe! Then my friend said out loud, "We need a car! Heavenly Father, please send us a car!...

Often when I try to write a spiritual post, a little voice in my head tells me, “You have nothing to say.” Sometimes I believe it. But most of the time I force myself to write anyway. 🤷‍♀️ These words from the hymn “The Spirit of God” have been on my mind: “The veil o’er the earth is beginning to burst” Burst-  “to give way from an excess of emotion” “to be filled to the breaking point” “to flood over” (Merriam-Webster) And just like that veil... so close to bursting... there are feelings deep in my soul ready to burst each time I study the words of God. And I KNOW- I DO have something to say.  (Finding the right words is the hard part.) “Declare my gospel with the sound of rejoicing, as with the voice of a trump” (D&C 29:4)  The voice of a trump. Mine’s probably more like a triangle, or maraca... ya know, a small background percussion of sorts. Gotta work on that trumpet thing. The scriptures mention trumpets multiple times. “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,...