Show of Hands

OUR FAMILY JOURNAL FOR HOW HEAVENLY FATHER IS WATCHING OVER US

(inspired by Elder Henry B. Eyring's October 2007 General Conference Talk)

11 Oct 2007 - Thursday  Heavenly Father helped the hotel maid not throw away our Polly Pocket packaging so we could take Polly back to the gift shop because it was a fake Polly and the Sleeping Beauty dress ripped when we tried to put it on her.

12 Oct 2007 - Friday  Heavenly Father helped us squish on the bus to Epcot - it was already full but they let three more people squish on. We only had two hours at the parks and didn't have to wait 30 more minutes for the next bus and we got to ride Soarin one extra time! And He helped us fly home safely and get Max. And our house was safe while we were gone all week.

13 Oct 2007 - Saturday  Heavenly Father protected Max. We were all shouting for him and he was on Mom's new mattress, which is too tall for him to jump off of (or else he might break his back like the Pitt's bunny, Cheetah, who just died of a broken back). Heavenly Father helped Max stay on the bed and not jump off even though he always jumps down and races to us the second we call him. He didn't get hurt and was only stretching when we got to the bed. Mom needs to buy a bench for the end of the bed so he can get up and down on his own.

14 Oct 2007 - Sunday  We just remembered this one. When Mom got her x-rays at Dr. Packard's office in Murray she had to take off her wedding ring and accidentally left it on a table. Teeno ended up driving there to get it, but Ari wanted to note that Heavenly Father kept the ring safe and made no one steal it.

24 Oct 2007 - Wednesday  Heavenly Father has totally watched over us while designing the catalogs. The email server never went down, our phone worked, and Quark and Acrobat never crashed even though a gig of work was running at all times. And he helped Ari's cough go away before Mom and Dad leave for Denver.

Spring 2015  Mom woke with a start in the middle of the night; there wasn't a sound. She kept listening, nothing. Something wasn't right. She raced to Archer's room and he was in the corner of his crib with the bumper ties wrapped around his neck, struggling to get untangled. He wasn't making any noise because he was choking. Mom got him untangled, took the bumpers off his bed, and watched him through the cracked door to make sure he fell back asleep safely. We know the Holy Ghost woke Mom up so she could save Archer.

20 February 2018 - Tuesday  It's been a mild winter but a massive snowstorm hit Sunday and Monday. There was no school Monday, which was lucky since we had 18" on the driveway and drifts up to three feet in places. Dad got up at 5:45 this morning to shovel the driveway so RE could leave for school at 7:15. He had to do it manually because we do not have a snow blower. We do not have a snow blower because we were tapped out after we moved and wanted to buy a sofa instead of a machine. It was also one more thing to research and Mom couldn't handle that. Dad shoveled until 7:10 and still had the last ten feet to go- the worst ten feet closest to the street all heavy with plow residue and water. His arms were burning and he was exhausted. He had not stopped shoveling for almost 90 minutes and didn't know what else to do, so he said a prayer that he would be able to clear enough to get RE to school. A minute later our next door neighbor, Kelly, walked over with his snow blower running and busted those last ten feet out in mere minutes. Greg got teary when he told us the details. If we were in our old ward he would have told that story in the "How have you seen the hand of the Lord" part of Sunday School. The funny thing was RE walked out into the garage with her backpack and smoothie and saw Greg shoveling (after 90 minutes) and said, "Did it snow last night?".

13 March 2018  After months of waffling and deliberation Mom ordered two matching vanity mirrors back in November. They arrived and the first one she opened was so pretty she hung it immediately. The second one was smashed in a thousand pieces and so she had to ship it back. The company said they'd send a replacement as soon as the broken one returned to the warehouse. During broken mirror's three day trip to Ohio the mirrors sold out and were backordered until March 7. On March 7 Mom got an email saying the mirrors were removed from the website due to quality issues and were not being restocked. We had no matching mirror for the one already mounted to the wall with two giant anchors. Mom reluctantly shipped the pretty mirror back and got a refund. BUT...she quickly found two new mirrors that were cheaper and even prettier than the originals. Miraculously, their hanging hardware was in the EXACT spot as the previous mirrors, so we didn't have to thrash our sheetrock with more anchors. Crazy. Mom never actually prayed that her backordered mirror would be in stock, but she's thankful she found prettier mirrors for less money. It's a little thing, but it's still a blessing. The Lord knows Mom cares about color schemes and proportions and budgets. Dad doesn't even know what to do with himself now that he has a mirror above his sink eight months after moving.

I found our family journal in the bottom of my last pile! I thought it was a blank journal but we wrote on the first four pages. It was a fun little treasure to find 6-year old RE's perspective toward miracles. I think the smiracle seed was planted in my heart in 2007. I added the snow and mirror stories because I had two post-it notes on my monitor reminding me to not forget them. I don't want to forget the little things because they are actually pretty big. I have renewed vigor to keep our family's "Hand of the Lord" journal.

Photo of the Snowball Bush (viburnum) we planted for Max after he died. It's at our old house next to the shed. We picked it because the blooms looked like his puffy Bichon fro after he'd been groomed. When Max died I remember thinking it was worse than my miscarriage, worse than anything I'd lived through. I saved the tuft of his hair in his brush and didn't wipe his nose smears off our window until we listed our house several years later. Now I don't even think about him. It's weird how something that feels like it might kill you can morph into something you literally forget about. "These things shall be but a moment."