Faith

We all have times of trial... times where it seems like the sun will never shine but I think the true test is how you deal with it. I do not always deal well with trial and have been working on that. I have been lucky to have lots of strong women in my life to draw inspiriation from and to learn from. I found out about a woman named Natalie who is going through a huge trial with her family and her testimony and outlook is amazing and she has strengthened my testimony. I feel what she recently wrote is so powerful I had to share it. So I copied this from her blog which is: www.natalienortonphoto.com Thank you to Natalie for sharing and thank you to all the amazing women in my life who constantly teach me and astound me with their strength.

I want to make this very clear:
my son died
because God called him home.
For a while,
Gavin was kept alive by a merciful God
in response to the faith and love of countless hearts
the.world.over.
The moments surrounding his death
are far too sacred to share in full.
However, I feel that those of you who were
praying fervently for my sweet son
deserve to know
why God didn't answer our prayers of faith.
There was a point at which the fight was really "on".
His little body was literally head to head with Death himself.
Thinking about it,
aside from making me want to vomit,
reminds me VIVIDLY of the strength of my son's spirit.
His spirit was SO MUCH LARGER
than his tiny mortal self.
Suddenly I came to this horrifying realization:
I was keeping him here on Earth.

It was my faith, coupled with yours,
and his sweet daddy's. . .
oh, his sweet wonderful daddy.
It was our faith that was keeping
Gavin's beautiful, pure, PERFECT spirit
here in this fallen world.
. . . and I knew I had to let him go.
I was terrified.

Yet, in that moment,
I became keenly aware of my inherent strength
as a literal spirit daughter of God.

In that moment,
my faith in Him
translated into faith in myself,
and with all the courage in a mommy's very soul:
I leaned over his bed,
kissed his puffy, ice cold cheeks,
my loving tears rolling across that tiny chest. . .
wherein lay his perfect heart. . .
his perfect, dying heart.
I took his tiny fingers in mine.
Those fingers I had held and counted a billion times over. . .
and I told him it was alright to stop fighting.
I told his heart,
it was alright to stop beating.

It was time to go.Tears were shed,
promises made,
and moments later, my little angel in the flesh,
was returned from my arms
to His from whence he came.
And the Spirit of God shone around us in that
little room.
And we knew,
WE KNOW,
the separation is only temporary.

We will hold our boy again.

When the time came,
we squared our shoulders
and hand in hand we carried our broken souls. . .
away.

I still don't know how I left that room,
how I handed his tiny body to the nurse. . .
and left.

Left that room,
that hospital,
that state in it's entirety.

Only in and through the grace and power of God. . .
who has remained at our side.

God does hear our prayers of faith
. . . and true faith requires our ultimate submission to,
and trust in, His perfect will.

Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend (Mosiah 4:9).
Believe these things.
I sure do.

Meeting Ree the Pioneer Woman

A few months ago I traveled to Salt Lake to visit my family and to go to a book signing for Ree Drummond aka The Pioneer Woman. She has a blog that I ready & once I found out she was having a signing for her new cookbook I decided I needed to go. I think Bill thought I was crazy, my family probably thought I was crazy but I was determined to go.
One of my niece's volunteered to watch Greydon and Dylan and another one volunteered to go with me. We arrived at this TINY bookstore in Salt Lake that bless their hearts had no idea how popular Ree was and were ill prepared for the mass of people that showed and the chaos that ensued. Kara and I were there for HOURS...
While most people thought we were nuts and Benjamin was less than thrilled we had a good time hanging out and visiting. And, how cute is Kara's hair??
So check out Rees blog at www.thepioneerwoman.com

Cute Picture of the Boys

So apparently I am terrible at keeping up this blog. In my defense we are super busy & we don't have terribly exciting lives but still I could atleast post a picture right? :) I will try and do better. Here is a cute picture of the boys that was taken around Halloween. They are all doing great and growing too quickly.