Orson Pratt taught:
How many thousands have been miraculously healed in this Church and yet no
one has recorded the circumstances. Is this right? Should the miraculous
manifestations of the power of God be forgotten and pass into oblivion? Should
the knowledge of these things slumber in the hearts of those who witnessed them,
and extend no further than their verbal reports will carry them? . . . We should
keep a record because Jesus commanded it. We should keep a record because the
same will benefit us and the generations of our children after us. We should
keep a journal because it will furnish many important items for the general
history of the Church which would otherwise be lost (Millennial Star:
11:153).
I really can not let this opportunity pass me by and not share my testimony with my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. And this is what I print my personal history from.....so I will blog!
Being grateful for blessings
during a trial:
Let me first state that I
would never call Aileen a trial. Many trials in raising her have come and
gone. But she is perfect in every way!
When we realized that Aileen
was not going to be “normal” but a special needs child, we grieved, of course
we did, this is normal. And at first
when people would say, “I don’t know how you do it” or “I could never do it” I
would kind of blow them off thinking that of course they would do it if they
were faced with it. But later I realized
that not all parents/mothers “do it” (take care of these precious children). So the first blessing in the middle of a
trial was that I could truly pray and thank my Heavenly Father that he would
give her to us. To a family that would take
care of her and giver her every opportunity to have as normal a life here on
earth as possible. Being able to thank
Heavenly Father was the first step in healing.
Another realized blessing
during all the turmoil of realizing what that meant for us as parents is that
Heavenly Father had, had us move to that exact City that had the best autism
program in the country for pre-schoolers and that they had just decided they
wanted to except 2 yr olds to see if it made any difference starting children
younger in their program! It was at CBTU
(Children’s Behavior Therapy Unit) that she stopped only eating baby food; that
she learned to crawl and then finally walk for the first time when she was 3, she
learned sign language (so did we) etc… she has never been in a school or area
that benefited her more.
We realized that Aileen was
going to be with us for the rest of our lives and the work entailed that goes
along with that and because of my having such early births we decided maybe we
were done and should do something more permanent about it because we definitely
had our hands full…..but then happy surprise we were expecting Allison, and can
I tell you Allison brought sunshine and joy back into our lives as a
family. We were so grateful for all the
little blessing that went along with her development being normal, her looking
at us when we called her name – we called the whole family the day she did
that, little blessings that are really huge blessings. Allison finished the healing process. And Aileen made us realized how blessed we
were to have Anne Marie our 1st child who had been such an easy baby
and did all the right things as a toddler, never any trouble, she was almost a
child that was an adult. My mother told
me once that she thought Aileen made me a better mother – because I praised the
positive, instead of focusing on the negative which we learned at parenting
classes in how to work with Aileen….it carried through in our dealing with our
other two children as well.
Another time that Heavenly
Father made circumstances so that we were living where we were supposed to be
was our move to Texas, and I’m not going to lie, our life had fallen apart
financially after 9/11 we had lost everything, and that was why we were moving
to Texas to live with my parents…..How embarrassing is that!! But when Aileen turned 18 and we had to go to
court and be made her legal guardians, because of Aileen’s estate, which was
nothing, we did not have to pay, where in Georgia where we had lived before it
was going to cost us thousands of dollars.
Heavenly Father has blessed us continually throughout Aileen’s life.
There are so many more
experiences, but these are the few that popped into my head when first given
the assignment I hope this is what Yensy wanted. But the biggest time for us that we just went
through was Alan’s unemployment for a year…..who would have ever thought? You get all your education and experience so
this sort of thing doesn’t happen and then when you do get laid off, you think
it will only be a short time and then you will be o.k……never with how amazing
my husband is, his experience, and talent did we think that we would have a
year of unemployment, but we did.
And all through that year,
even though we did get discouraged at moments, we could not deny the great
blessings Heavenly Father poured out on us so that we were able to make it without
having to ask family or the church for any help. A huge blessing! One that I will never forget. One that because we had followed the counsel
of the prophets about not being in debt, made it possible. One that when things broke down, there was
someone who could help us, or some other amazing blessing happened and
we could take care of it. Or someone was
prompted to help us and they listened to that prompting and helped us without us having to ask.
During this year of Alan’s
unemployment our Anne Marie had the nursing program pre-req’s change at her
hospital that she works at so that she could get in sooner and will be applying
in the spring. Allison and John
graduated from BYU and John got a Graduate Assistant’s job (masters program) in
Tyler , Texas
Throughout my life, heavenly
father and my savior have been merciful and loving and by us through every
trial that has come our way and our testimony has only been strengthened as we
have watched the miracles unfold in our life that is living proof that we our
Children of a Heavenly Father who loves us and is there for us at all times. I’m grateful that in the moments of self
doubt and struggle I can pray to and pour my heart out to my Heavenly Father,
and my Savior and know that they are listening and there for me.
In the name of Jesus Christ,
Amen.
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