He was there.  I don't know it but I do.  Today in my study I ready about witnesses to an event, witnesses to Joseph Smith's claim of the reality of the Book of Mormon.  They saw and touched the cold metal, pressed into pages and carved to preserve the reality of the authors' existence.  Yet a small fraction of the world believes their witness, what they saw and felt.  Why?  Why are we as people so unbelieving?  I feel like the father in the New Testament who pleads, "Lord, help thou my unbelief."  We doubt and worry, question, wonder.  I wonder if it is in the empty space in between the begining and the end that we begin to not trust. It can be hard to remember the details, how it felt, wonder if we are tricking ourselves to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, naive.  No one likes to look like a fool, not in the halls of a high school wearing the wrong clothes under the burden of judgement others place on our shoulders, bowing us over in shame.  Belief has to be a choice.  

A month ago, my husband laid his hands on my children's heads and blessed them through priesthood power God has given to worthy men to benefit them in their lives.  He blessed them each with specific blessings regarding their schooling.  Kjerstin, also received a blessing, ready to head off to college, live with roommates out from under her parent's watchful, worrying eyes.  She was eager to prove to the world she was ready.  And I entered the empty space.  Three weeks in and I find out through a text that a girl in her apartment has COVID, which sees college campuses like a fruit fly sees a bowl of fruit.  My mind flies back to the photo she posted of her roommates crowded in a small car, out to get drinks a few days before, no masks, no distancing.  And I forgot.  I forgot that beautiful blessing where her Father promised her she would not get sick.  I had to be reminded.  And so I am documenting that He was there.  He was a 1000 miles away protecting my daughter when I can't be there.  I can only hope she will remember this tender mercy she has received and remember.  He works in mysterious ways and has his fingerprints in our lives if we stop to look and choose to believe.  

After a day of rain, wind and clouds, the sun came out today.  After living in Oregon, the rain doesn't bother me as much as it used to.  But there is something about the sun, especially during quarantine for COVID19.  It allows me space to breathe in this confinement. Periods of restlessness and anxiety attack me as my mind scurries forward.  How long can this go on?  I try to rein my consciousness back to the present, back to my comfortable yellow house filled with people I love.  We have what we need.  Food, water, shelter, a cupboard full of games, movies and each other. Soon my senior will leave to embark on her own path for life as she leaves for college.  Cherish my time with her, even as she spend time secluded in her bedroom.  She is still here, somewhere under my mother hen wings. 

It is Sunday, the Lord's day.  I sat on my couch and looked at the picture of Christ on my piano. My husband knelt and blessed the sacrament as our children sat around him.  He was blessing it for them. Pleading for them.  Words of a Father, asking for blessing for his children's souls, entreating them to remember Jesus, the only peace in this life and the next, and petitioning His Spirit to be with them.  It was very personal, the way the Savior wants the sacrament to be for us, intimate. 

We sang hymns of praise to Him.  I felt His spirit in this place.  I felt His light streaming down on me, trapped or free.  It is still there.  Yesterday, even in the bluster, there was a moment, when the sun broke through the clouds.  He never leaves. That comforts my mother heart as it stretches with children who leave the bundle of twigs and branches I call my nest.  He will still be there.