Sanity Returns....But Where Is...

Well, Gabi finally ended her siren when Beth came down asking if she'd heard they could get in the bath! Amazing what a little water can do for a kid...sick or not. After that, Gabi was great. Her cough sounds so much better...and seems to be just about gone! Hurray! One kid on the upside!

Beth, however, was back down today. If she's not fully hydrated by tomorrow morning, then we'll probably have to take her into the hospital. She really doesn't want that, so she's working really hard at drinking! She just doesn't understand that there are certain things we have to do to help ourselves get better. Our bodies can't really do it on their own. When Daddy comes home tonight, she'll get a blessing too.

So things are quiet....and if it weren't for the bread in the oven, then I'd probably be asleep too! But I thought I'd share with you a thought provoking question Gabi asked me when I tucked her in.

"Why can't we see Heavenly Father and Jesus?"

I stopped for a minute before answering her to evaluate what kind of answer was best suited for the newly 6 year old. Then I explained that we could see everything and knew about everything before we came to Earth. But that we also knew we needed to learn about faith and that we needed to be able to have free agency (the ability to choose for ourselves what we would do and say while here). In order for us to do those things, we had to have a veil (much like a curtain or a blanket) covering the part of our mental soul which remembers those things. And that after we die, that veil will be lifted again. And we'll be able to see and remember everything.

I also explained that it was through the power of the priesthood that some people are able to see Heavenly Father and Jesus while on Earth. People like Christ's disciples and the Nephites.

All this time, Gabi was looking at me very carefully. And then she said, "It's like our hair is the veil." (A sweet child-like way to see it, but it made sense to her some how)

Yet still, how often do we ask similar questions? Where is God when I need Him? Why can't I see Him? I think that we, too, forget the simple importance of learning faith. If we could see our Heavenly Father all the time, we would not need to have faith in Him. Without that faith, we do not learn adequately how to trust Him.

Though it can be so easy to think we are forgotten, I am often reminded of the poem "Footprints". It was a favorite of my PopPop, so it has been with me since childhood. It tells us that the Lord carries us in those time's of hardship and trial. It is easy to forget there is anyone else when we are being swallowed up in trials, hardships, grief, and life. Yet, Our Lord is always near us. He helps us. He carries us. And when we take a moment to pray, even during such times, we feel Him lift us, wrapping His arms around us, comforting us, and guiding us even when, in His infinite wisdom, there is nothing else left for Him to do so that we might learn.

I know that we are not given anything more than we can handle. There have been times when I've wondered just how much more of something I could take, or someone else I loved, only to see the Lord take over when the trial had indeed hit a point that I, or the other person, could no longer handle. I love that we are asked to endure to the end. We are told to be perfect, but we also know such perfection comes from enduring to the end. Enduring does not always mean getting to the end that we can see. It is getting to the end the Lord sees for us. Enduring is having the faith and the willingness to go forward, knowing that the Lord will provide a way for success.

He is always there. We may forget, or push Him away, but though we cannot see Him, He is there. And if we look, and if we have faith, we will see Him in the way He would have us see Him. Whether that be through feeling His help, His love, and His comfort. Or whether that be, as the prophets both olden and modern, in vision and in the flesh.