Write at the Heart

My scripture study has been less than stellar lately & I don’t have any recent deep personal insights, to be honest. The month of May is crazy. Life is a roller coaster. So many good desires. Failing at most. Can’t seem to get it together. Last week halfway through our stake conference meeting, I realized I was not getting much out of it. I was drowsy. Disengaged. Disappointed. I prayed right then. “Please help me get something out of this. I know I should have been more prepared. Maybe it’s not too late?” I didn’t expect much. But to my surprise, there it was. Not a moment later. I felt it. WHAT CHANGED? Not the speaker. Not the subject. Not the setting. It was actually there all along. I just opened the way to receive it. And when we sang the hymn: “Where Can I Turn For Peace?” the 3rd verse hit me: “He answers privately, Reaches my reaching In my Gethsemane, Savior & Friend. Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching. Constant he is & kind Love without end.” REACHES MY ...

She didn’t want to do track & field. But she needed a gym credit. She was SO nervous & WAY out of her comfort zone. Week after week, running & more running. She started to believe in herself. The meets were even going ok! I loved watching her be brave. Then her coach put her in the 2-miler for the home meet. She cried. SHE WAS SCARED. She hadn’t trained for that distance! She knew she was going to be WAY last & completely embarrass herself! I knew she could do it. I prayed for her to know, too. In her words (that she shared in church today): “On the day of the meet, I was terrified & did not think I could finish the 8 laps. I prayed a lot & when it was my event, I felt a calm. I started running & I felt good. I knew the spirit was with me. I could feel it as I ran.  My Heavenly Father definitely helped me cross the finish line. As I crossed the finish line, I felt exhausted, & one of my teammates was there waiting for me & wrapped me in the bigge...

 Stuck at the seashore. The enemy behind & deep waters ahead.   “Entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut [me] in.” (Ex. 13:3) What do I do? Lately I am definitely feeling the “bigger kids, bigger problems,” & I have REALLY been missing the days when everything was fixed with a popsicle. Or a bandaid. Or a timeout. When mommy could kiss it better. Parenting is no joke. The responsibility is amazing & terrifying at the same time. One minute I’m a natural, the next I’m completely out of my element. It’s felt very heavy lately & I feel like I’m drowning. Or like I’m walking a tightrope, & the way I handle things right now is gonna make or break the future. Such a delicate, crucial balance. What if I mess up? What if I miss something? How can I be more deliberate? How can I be the best mom I can be for my kids? How do I not fail them? Those beautiful, incredible, imperfect kids… they’re everything. And the words spoken at the seashore sink in my sou...

So my oldest is learning how to drive. And even though it is TERRIFYING to hop in a car with your teenager & let them take your VERY LIFE in their hands, I feel like I’m a pretty upstanding parent passenger. Well, APPARENTLY my daughter thinks this is NOT QUITE accurate. APPARENTLY, while I’m SAYING all the right things, my body language says something different. 🤷‍♀️ Ok, maybe clinging to the door handle, clenching my arm rests, tensing, gasping, squeaking, groaning ALL SAY OTHERWISE. Who decided we could legally put 16-yr-olds behind the wheel anyway?! 😉 (She really is doing great, btw!) Point is, she sees my actions no matter what I’m saying. I can imagine how crazy Moses felt every time Pharaoh said one thing & did another. With each new calamity came promise after promise: “I will let the people go” (Ex. 8:8), with apparent humility, “I have sinned this time” (9:27) & “forgive, I pray thee, my sin” (10:17) But when each trial ended & “he saw that there was respit...

There was no burning bush.  But like Moses, the Lord had asked me to do something I was NOT looking for or particularly wanting to do… ever. UNLIKE Moses, I was not asked to, ya know, bring the Israelites out of bondage. I was asked to fulfill a church calling. But LIKE Moses, I was apprehensive. Ok, I was terrified. Just as Moses asked, “Who am I that I should go unto Pharoah, & that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Ex. 3:11), I agonizingly wrote in my journal: “What do I have to offer? What does the Lord see in me? What do I bring to the table here?” And UNLIKE Moses, I cried about it for days. Maybe he did though… 🤔😉 And LIKE Moses, who brought up the reasons why he WOULDN’T be good at this, “They will not believe me” (4:1) “O my Lord, I am not eloquent… I am slow of speech, & of a slow tongue” (10), I also thought of EVERY reason why I’d be bad at my new calling. But LIKE Moses, the Lord reassured me, “Certainly I will be with thee” (3:12) A...

 Go go go Joseph! 🎶 I grew up to the soundtrack of Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat- Any dream will do… Those Canaan days… Close every door… ahhh, musical gold!!  I know every word! But as I studied the story in Genesis these last couple weeks, I was like: WHY did I not know every word in the ACTUAL story? It’s EVEN BETTER. REASONS WHY JOSEPH IS AWESOME: -“The Lord was with him” (Gen 39:1, 3, 21, 23) & others could SEE that & trusted him! -FLEES from Potiphar’s wife! (39:12) -Turned to God again & again, even after being enslaved & then imprisoned. “Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?” (40:38) -He is kind! Ya know, the butler & baker would never have told him their crazy dreams if he hadn’t noticed “they were sad” (7) & asked them WHY? Being in prison at THAT time with THOSE people & caring enough to ask WHY THEY WERE SAD directly led to him ruling in Egypt & saving his family & countless oth...

Recently I was at the temple with my husband doing sealings. It had been awhile & I kept getting flashes of a feeling throughout. What IS that feeling? I wondered. Then it hit me- Coming Home. Beautiful familiarity, security, belonging, peace. Even those words don’t quite hit on what I felt. And then when the sealer mentioned "Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob" my ears perked up & in light of my recent studies, I wanted to say excitedly, "I KNOW THEM!!" Cause I feel like I kinda do, really, for the first time in my life. And then when I carefully folded my sacred & symbolic temple clothing, I felt a rush of connection with ancient Israel! Their worship, my worship. Their covenants, my covenants. Their God, my God. With Sarah, who waited so so long to see promises fulfilled, but rejoiced knowing they were coming.  With Hagar, who wanted to be seen, & God saw her! With Rebekah, who said I WILL GO. Who inquired of the Lord & to whom the true birthright of...