The End of Winter + Thoughts on Prayer

I am so behind on blogging. It’s been a busy couple of weeks with work, trying to figure out insurance plans, and deciding whether or not to move. Well, it’s April 1st and we renewed our lease for another year, signed up for insurance, and I’m still busy with work but I need to play catch up on here! What a crazy couple of weeks it has been!

I bore my testimony at church for the first time in quite a while. It was something I have really been thinking about recently and so I just want to document it on my blog too because I want to remember these things. So, basically what I said was this:

A couple months ago in the dead of winter, I realized I had been really slacking on saying my prayers and I just felt done with everything. Done with living here. Done with the winter. Just done with everything. I just had a bad attitude about everything and noticed I hadn’t been saying my prayers as regularly as I should. Sometimes it’s hard as a parent because when you wake up in the morning, it’s to the sound of your baby crying and so you just get up and go into mom-mode. Then around 4 pm or nap time, you realize you’ve been going for hours and haven’t even taken time to pray.

So, I decided I needed to pray more. Goodness knows I’m still not great at it. It’s something I have to really work on every day and make an effort with. But, I have had three incredible experiences with prayer this month that has certainly strengthened my testimony on the power and importance of prayer.

1. We have been uninsured for about a year. Since it was open enrollment recently, we decided to start searching out all of our health insurance options and think about getting insurance. We wavered on it almost daily. The plans were expensive, the coverage was minimal. One day we’d decide we shouldn’t get it. The next, I’d think maybe just for Eva. The next I’d think we should all have it. Another day, I thought we’d get the cheapest plan offered by T.J.’s HR department. I mean, I’ve never looked at so many insurance plans in my life. Every free moment of my day, I found myself looking over all of our options. We prayed about what to do but never felt anything about one way or another. So, we said… okay… this is it… we’re getting it just for Eva because that was a cheaper option but still covered Eva if anything happened to her. But I almost felt sick about it. Each day I still found myself back at the marketplace looking up plans. After talking to a couple of family members and going over our finances for the final time, we thought we should take the plunge and get it for all of us. Within minutes of making that final decision, we both felt instance peace. PHYSICAL chills. I’m not kidding. Immediately we knew we had our answer to the prayers. Heavenly Father let us study it out in our minds and then gave us the assurance that we had made the right decision.

 8 But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.

2. One night I was very upset about something going on in my life. I was angry and felt that I should kneel in prayer and ask for Heavenly Father’s help concerning this situation. But because I am prideful, I thought… no… I can do this by myself! I continued to be so upset and just pouted. Within minutes, the words from the hymn, Be Still, My Soul, came into my mind. I was amazed at how Heavenly Father answered the prayer in my heart through music (a hymn I had chosen to play for church the week before), even when I was not in the mood to actually kneel down and pray. My heart was softened, my mind became clear, I was able to deal with my situation and get in control of my emotions.

3. The past week or so, I have been praying for a missionary opportunity. We were having the missionaries over the next night when I decided to invite my neighbor from across the hall (Hi, Mingming! haha 🙂 ). She said yes and we had a great night with the missionaries on Sunday! After she said yes about coming over, I realized that was another answer to my prayer! I had asked to be a missionary in some way, and Heavenly Father gave me the opportunity to invite a friend over! It was a simple, yet concrete, answer.

Anyway, I just wanted to share all that with you guys too! I am so grateful for prayer. I am also so amazed at how prayers can be answered through so many ways. Through the advice of a friend, through the whisperings of the Spirit, through words of a song, through peace. Prayer can do amazing things and work miracles. It can also help us in the little things we encounter every day in life. As a parent, I understand now that a parent wants all the best for their children. Heavenly Father is the same. God cares about us and He wants to hear from us so he can help us.