This morning on my drive to Idaho Falls. I listened to a devotional by Brother Chambers who is the temple president. He shared his testimony of the importance of temples and then shared his experience on his sealing day that was less than ideal. He woke up with a temperature of 104° but was determined to still get sealed. While he was kneeling at the altar, listening to advice from the sealer, he passed out. After he was revived, he felt the urge to throw up, but didn’t want to do that in the temple. His brother rushed over to his mother’s purse, emptied its contents in her lap and handed it to him so he could throw up in it. After this, his future bride, who was still kneeling at the altar, turned white as a ghost and passed out as well. In the end they were still able to get sealed that day but I can’t imagine a wedding day going much worse! I loved how he expressed gratitude for the blessings of the sealing despite the messy circumstances of the day.
The thing that touched me the most though was the phrase in the closing prayer where a girl said “we are thankful that we get to see the sun.” This really resonated with me as I thought of Emily serving in Norway. It's been more foggy than she expected but she still persists trying to do her best with a positive attitude. It’s been cold and windy the past week here in Rexburg with temps back down in the 20s with the windchill, but the past few days have been getting warmer and warmer with the high today forecasted as 75 and clear blue skies all day! It’s crazy, but this little comment that the girl said in her prayer made me actually cry because I thought of the double meaning of how thankful we are for “the Son” and the hope that he brings in our “cloudy” moments.
After a tense moment with someone this morning I was feeling a bit gloomy, but this comment helped me to refocus on the good and listening to the devotional and prayer was like a ray of sunshine that helped me to feel the Spirit and not give up hope.
Sometimes I think the key to happiness is being able to focus on those little tender mercies of the Lord instead of being consumed with the gloomy other hard things that can overwhelm us.
Yesterday was a blessed day, getting to watch Livia, take her out in the sun to play on the trampoline and capturing pics of her with the sun streaming in through the window of my piano room. She is so delightful and is getting really good at mimicking what she hears and sees.
She also has a mind of her own. Her favorite toy is her baby doll that she inherited from our stash used by Alyssa and Emily When I tried to put on a new dress to cover the old stains from years of play, she burst into tears and tried to pull it off, then was totally fine once I revealed the dirty stains again.
