Hand of God 2

A few weeks ago I realized that I was still carrying around a lot of guilt for a mistake I made years ago. It was the sort of mistake where I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make it turn out right. I knew that the guilt was not rational guilt -- the kind that makes you want to make amends and change how you do things -- I had done all those things long ago. This was the generalized "everything is my fault, I must be a horrible person" kind of guilt that my brain generates on overtime about just about everything I encounter.

Anyway, I called Mom for advice, and she told me, among other things, that if I could feel the spirit in my life, then God must have forgiven me for whatever I had done wrong, and so I could reasonably forgive myself too. This was mildly comforting at the time, but I mostly just shoved the guilt down to the bottom of the pile I'm always suppressing, and kind of forgot about it.

I was reading the Ensign this morning, and found the article, “I Will Not Leave You Comfortless” by Elder Cecil O. Samuelson. As I was reading, I felt the spirit say to me, "The Lord loves you, and is pleased with your efforts." And I knew that it meant He had also truly forgiven my past mistakes.

I am so thankful to have the Spirit in my life, and to have people around me who teach the truth about how to have a good relationship with the Lord.

Hand of God 1

At General Conference last weekend, one of the speakers suggested keeping a journal of times when we see the Lord's hand in our lives. Here are a few little coincidences that made me feel like somebody was watching out for me this weekend.

First, Miriam bought me some Halloween socks as a "welcome to our house" present. I love fun socks, and often buy them for myself. I had seen these particular socks several times at the store, and had almost bought them a couple of times. Every time, though, I thought, "No, you don't need to buy Halloween socks today." So I got to honestly tel Miriam that I had really wanted these socks, and that she picked the perfect present!

We had a long drive in the car to get from our house to Mike's. I really need to have some music or book on tape playing while I'm in the car. I brought along my iPod full of songs, but forgot the charger. We listened all the way up (about 6 hours) and all the way back, and the iPod died as we were turning into our own driveway! I said to Peter, "That was a thing of beauty!" It worked exactly as long as I needed it, and no longer.

Somebody loves me.

Alcatraz Fan Art

When I went to visit my brother and his family this past weekend, I thought it might be fun for them to go to Brandon Sanderson's book signing since he happened to be in town that day. I thought is might be more fun if they had a clue who he was and what he'd written, so I took along the Alcatraz book to read to Aidan. I figured I'd get a few chapters read, and if he liked it, we'd go to the signing and get him his own copy to finish. Well, we were so engrossed in the reading that we forgot to leave in time to get to the signing. I did ask Aidan to draw a picture for Brandon though.

Here it is. This is the scene where Bastille and Quentin are fighting the Alivened Paper Monster. You can see the monster, Bastille's broken sword coming out of its chest, Quentin with his gym bag full of guns, and Bastille with her dangerous handbag. I'm not sure why they're wearing helmets. I think that Aidan just thinks helmets are cool.