Adoption/More Than Just A Shadow In A Picture

This is a picture of me as a baby at a picnic with my parents. I was told that the shadow in the corner was my father's leg.

I just read a facebook post about a young woman having the love and the courage to give up a child that will be born out of wedlock. I feel so passionate about this because I am a sixty-year-old grandma who should have been given the chance to have parents who loved me and who were prepared to care for me. My teenaged mother was pushed into a "shotgun" marriage by her father, and after the marriage didn't work out my father left when I was only two. I didn't see him again until I was twenty-one years old. I remember as a child I would touch the shadow in that picture and long to know what it felt like to have my own father!

I grew up in abject poverty, and my childhood was miserable after my mother married a man who was abusive. She finally abandoned me when I was ten, and I was raised by a grandmother who resented every moment of it. I remember when I was little my mother would tell me often about a couple she knew who couldn't have children and who wanted very badly to adopt me. Then she would add, "At least I didn't give you up for adoption." I think she was trying to say, that she had tried to do what she thought was right, but that decision to keep me ruined her life, and denied me the love of a mother and a father.

If you know of any young girl who finds herself in this difficult situation, please tell her my story. I have heard of adopted children who mourn their birth mother, feel abandoned, and wonder why their mother's didn't want them. If you know of anyone like that, please tell them my story! And then tell them the story of Soloman's wisdom in 1Kings 3 about two women who both claimed a baby as her own. When Soloman threatened to cut the baby in half, giving each a portion, the true mother offered the baby to the other woman to spare it's life. Tell the children who are lucky enough to have had a birth mother with such wisdom, and love, that to spare the life of her child, she gave them the gift of gifts, the love of a mother AND a father who desperately wanted them and were mature and prepared enough to give a child a happy life!

After my marriage of almost forty years now, I am truly one of the most blessed women on earth, but even with the love of my wonderful children and husband, I don't think I will ever get over a deep longing to know the love that only parents can give.

Please tell the children!

Be Still And Know That I Am God

This is just a glimpse of the stories coming from faithful Saints in Haiti! If you haven't started reading this series you are truly missing out! Click the link on my sidebar for Meridian Magazine to read more and find out why these homeless Saints are dressed so beautifully! (It's NOT what you think!) But do think of last month's visiting teaching message!
Guerby Pierre was one of the more prosperous members who is now homeless and each night as he lays under the stars, it reminds him of what is really important in life. He said, “In one sense I have nothing, but in another, I have everything because I have the gospel, and this earthquake has only augmented my testimony. My life is changed. The earthquake simplified it. Since the earthquake, I could all of a suddenly think clearly.” Here he is holding up his temple recommend, which with his scriptures were one of the few things, he salvaged from the quake! When asked if his scriptures, which had all of the gold gilding worn off, were damaged in the quake, he grinned and said no, he just loved to read them! (My scriptures don't look like that!) No wonder he has such faith!

Charles Marie Murielle “From time to time the earth would shake again. I was continually scared. I was the only member of the Church nearby, and I felt like I was alone. People from other religions were making a lot of noise and were screaming. I found myself in silence because the Spirit told me exactly what to do. I knew it was not the end of the world. (Her story makes me think of Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God . . .")

I have often wondered, since we live in the last days, if we will not one day find ourselves in similar situations! What faith! What an example these people are to all of us!

Read of their remarkable sacrament meeting talks, and of their other classes on Sunday, and their songs "How Firm A Foundation" and "Come, Come Ye Saints!" Truly THIS is Zion!

LDS Volunteers In Haiti!

Check out the link I added to my sidebar for this special edition of Meridian Magazine! Note that they post the latest story on top so you should scroll down and read the last story "Meridian Joins an Army of LDS Volunteers Heading to Haiti" first so you can appreciate and follow the journey of these selfless volunteers now in Haiti!

I have been following this amazing story and I know all of you will want to read and help! As I have followed the story of how the spirit of the Lord has touched each of these people, called only by the sweet quiet whisperings of the spirit, to do so much good ON THEIR OWN, it has been a powerful witness of the Lord’s hand in all of our lives as well as my own! I testify that He WILL help us through these last days, and that He is in charge, and that now is the time to redouble all of our efforts to follow the prophet and get our lives in order! God lives — Jesus is the Christ, President Monson is his living prophet and He is guiding his Church and all of our lives! D&C 58: 27-28 teaches us this principle: "Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; for the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward." These wonderful volunteers are perfect examples of this, and faith like theirs, is the reason MIRACLES still happen!

Makes me want to do more good in the world today!

Life Is A Blessing

Ron and I watched a movie tonight (in between trick or treaters) about a Dr. who went to Calcutta, India to escape his life. He'd lost a young patient and intended never to practice medicine again. While there his wallet was stolen and he was stranded for three weeks waiting for a new passport and funds. Of course he ended up befriending the local people and helping out the local medical clinic whose Dr. had left, and in the process found he had never been happier.

I was so moved by the poverty and hardship of the people's lives and amazed by the cruelty and inhumanity of some people. Lately I've been thinking about how corrupt almost all of this world's societies have been. Most people that have ever lived, have been enslaved by wicked, power hungry, selfish and brutal men; only a few times in the history of the world have there been perfect and happy societies. It makes me so sad. I've wondered how Heavenly Father can stand the grief.

While watching the movie I nearly cried as I wondered why some people were born into such poverty and hardship, but then, I had the most distinct and amazing thought that their circumstances are NOT a punishment but a blessing.

"A blessing?" I questioned in wonder.

I received an immediate and again distinct answer, "Yes — for all that experience will be "but a moment" and will serve them well through all of eternity.

Amazing! Our Heavenly Father truly loves His children as He watches over them, comforts them, weeps with them and rejoices over their triumphs! Truly ALL things will work together for our good if we but love the Lord. I feel better tonight — about the world. There are bullies here, but most people are humble and good, and even the bullies are loved by their Heavenly Father and are learning wonderful lessons. Again I am comforted that one day "every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ!"

Utopia/Zion

Almost thirty years ago when we lived in Denver, Brother Daniel Ludlow taught a class that I took. I can't remember much about it except that he said something that has stuck with me through the years. He said that if you want to know what will soon come to pass in the Lord's Kingdom, then listen carefully to what the adversary is about. For instance, before Joseph Smith had the first vision, there was a religious revival going on which was confusing and divisive. Before the blacks received the priesthood the world was stirred up over the civil rights movement. He said in essence that satan gets there first to distort people's thinking and to try and thwart the Lord's plan---to present a counterfeit if you will.

Today we are hearing a great divide in our nation and the world. It really is the war in heaven still raging. I just heard a commentator on the radio accuse a liberal caller of wanting a Utopia that will never work because she didn't believe in freedom. To want the government to redistribute everyones money by taking from the rich and giving to the poor will destroy incentive and take away everyone's prosperity (I agree). Satan uses many truths to present one distortion, such as gross inequality in the world is wrong (with which I also agree) but then he presents a false plan to equalize the problem. However, the reason the "Utopia" of the adversary will never work is one word---force---satan's counterfeit for Zion. Sir Winston Churchill said, "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

The Lord's plan WILL work because when people choose to work together for the good of everyone in their community there really will be "no poor among us" and we will be happy like the Nephites after the coming of Christ! I have heard it stated that it takes a MORAL people to have a representative government like we in the United States are blessed to have (which almost everyone agrees is certainly hanging by a thread) but a Zion government will take nothing less than a people with pure hearts and perfectly righteous minds, united as one!

I haven't thought of Brother Ludlow's comment for years, but this morning it came into my mind as I realized how much of this stuff we've been hearing. We've just been blessed to hear again the Lord's plan of happiness for His children during Conference! Our Bishop said this last Sunday, that he prayed for Zion in our ward and that we should strive for it in our families and that we CAN create in within ourselves, right here, right now! How exciting! I really do believe that the time is coming (oh please let it be soon) that we will ALL live in peace and prosperity together in Zion!

Variety of our Bounty

I was at the store today buying fresh fruits and vegtables. As I put the beautiful oranges, apples and bananas into my cart I looked around at all the variety of wonderful foods we are priveledged to have. I felt a sudden surge of gratitude to our Heavenly Father for this amazing bounty! What a wonderful time in which we live.
I could not help but remember when I was a little child . . . and oh, how I loved fruit. I could NEVER have it except in the fall when I could pick it from a tree. My best friend and I would ride our bicycles to the banks of the canal in West Jordan, then climb the abandonded fruit trees that grew along it's banks, and make ourselves sick eating apricots and green apples! My bike was a very, very old one we found in my Grandmother's garage. My friend Pauline helped me paint it with flat grey wall paint, you know to improve it. We both thought it was just beautiful even though the rude boys in the neighborhood relentlessly teased me about it. Just know that I'm pretty sure I have large leg calfs to this day from riding that broken down thing.
I also felt a surge of gratitude for Ron. He works so hard and takes care of me so wonderfully well. I am a very blessed woman indeed!