Val, Charity, and Friendship Ripples

 I have been blogging for about 12 years now.  I blogged daily for about half of those years, but the last few years I've blogged less, choosing/needing to focus on my family more as our family has doubled in size since I started blogging among other changes! (As you can see, I am slowly getting back into it as I could use the outlet!)

But some of you, dear readers have been here since the start.  And some of you I've even gotten to meet, running into you randomly in the Philadelphia temple, and then when I moved some of you welcomed me here to Pittsburgh, which has been so nice.

I want to share today just one more of those "ripples of friendship" that crosses even the Atlantic Ocean and ended up helping me with a problem that I was having.  

Some years ago a longtime blog-friend named Kayla befriended a stranger who was kind of out of her element and definitely out of her country at the time.  Kayla went out of her way to help this person and her children while they were traveling/living in Ireland.

This had a big impact on this young mother.  Fast-forward some years later, and this young mother went out of her way to befriend ME and my family when we moved here to Pittsburgh, very distraught over having to abruptly move! She has baked me birthday cakes, attended my home-study General Conference groups, and brought me small gifts and words of encouragement over the last four years.

Recently, it was this friend's birthday, so I decided to run a small gift over to her house (yes, it was actually a very late Christmas gift, but those are details!)  Anyway, I went over to finally do something nice for this friend on HER birthday, but once again she ended up helping me.  

I was having a problem helping my son learn his letters.  And it was really worrying me.  My friend ended up suggesting, then loaning me a letter-learning video for Val, and it has actually helped him a lot.

This might not sound like a big deal, but it really helped me, because I was really worried about it.  And I can't help but see the connected between my friend Heather, my friend Kayla, and me.  And that connection is not blogging, it is friendship.  It is kindness.  It is charity (which is the pure love of Christ). And I am on the receiving end of the charity that was shared first by Kayla to Heather and now Heather to me. 

So thank you, Kayla.  And thank you Heather.  And thank you to the Lord for sending your sweet spirit to inspire these lovely friends to love one another.

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Nephi's Reminds Us that The Lord Remembers Covenants

I slowed down a bit this week and studied the Book of Mormon more for myself than for my kids, and boy, I learned a lot.

One of the things I've been increasingly impressed by is the idea that when we make covenants the Lord can bless and uphold us in a very powerful way.

As I was reading and studying for myself last Saturday, I came to 1 Nephi Ch 17:22-55, in which Nephi is preaching to his brothers Laman and Lemuel.  He is recounting for them the flight of Ancient Israel as they escape from bondage in Egypt.

Since I was in a pondering mode, I asked myself, "Why is Nephi bringing this up right now?"  What is the correlation?

I always just thought, well, the Israelites are their ancestors.  The miracles of this story means a lot to them.  And the promises as well.  

As I started to write down the details in the story, I started to compare Moses and the Israelites' journey to Lehi and his family....and things started to look really similar.

I wrote down three columns across the top of my paper:

The first column is for Moses, the second is for Lehi's family, the third is the Lord's covenant people today (the Church).

I started to see many comparisons:

Who: The Ancient Israelites - Lehi's Family - God's People Today

Their Leader/God's Prophet: Moses - Lehi - God's Prophet on the Earth Today (Pres. Russell M. Nelson)

The Wicked City/Place of Bondage:  Egypt - Jerusalem - The World/Babylon

Miracles God Provided on their Journey: Manna for food - The Lord made their food sweet so they didn't have to cook it - We are spiritually fed today probably more than ever.

Miracles in Travel: The parting of the Red Sea - The Crossing of the Wilderness without fire and the Crossing of the Ocean in a boat made in the wilderness - The Crossing of the Plains by the pioneers and more miracles ahead!

How the groups responded to God:  Led by the Lord, but hardened their hearts and had to be chastened - Same for Lehi's family from time to time - The same for us.

How the Lord handled their enemies: The armies of Pharoah were drowned in the Red Sea when they pursued Ancient Israel after setting them free - Laban was killed when he tried to stand in the way of Nephi obtaining the plates. - The Great & Abominable Church (Satan's church) will eventually be destroyed as well.

Another similarity in all three: The Lord brought each group of people eventually to their promised land, however there were casualties along the way.  Spiritually speaking, we don't want to physically go with the flow and then be "lost" spiritually in the end because we weren't learning and growing closer to God along our journey.

There are other comparisons to be drawn.  But it wasn't until I slowed down that I could really inspect them, and then it became clear why Nephi is telling his brothers about the freeing of Israel by Moses.

That story is the story of how Christ will always deliver his people if they choose to follow him.  It is how he is currently delivering his people today.

Here are two quotes that stood out to me as clear, strong, reliable truths:

1. He leadeth away the righteous into precious lands.  (As someone whose family was recently moved from one precious land to another, this truth brought me hope in God's ability to lead me along and helps me trust Him more!)

2. The wicked he (eventually) destroyeth. (Both from 1 Ne. 17:38.

And 3. He LOVETH those who will have him to be their God.

And how do we show the Lord that we "will have him to be our God?"  I think this is answered in 1 Ne. 17:40:

"And he loveth those who will have him to be their God.  Behold, he loved our fathers, and he covenanted with them, yea, even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and he remembered the covenants which he had made; wherefore, he did bring them out of the land of Egypt."

I believe in the power of making promises with God in holy Temples. These promises are what we call Covenants.  It is a powerful bond between God and his people, between groups of people and more recently between individuals.

I'm sure I learned this comparison in Seminary or something years ago, but I'm glad that I took the time to slow down and let the Spirit reteach these truths to me again last week.

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Exploring Differences at #FHE

During #FHE tonight we explored differences, different abilities, disabilities, different ethnicities, races, religions, etc. And that some disabilities are harder to see. We talked about what makes us different and what commonalities we all share. Namely that we are all Children of God. 

We sang "I'll walk with you" from the Children's Songbook. We watched a few videos from YouTube from a guy who interviews people with different abilities. We learned from the way he spoke to his interviewees with love and genuine interest.  We role-played making friends with people who are different from us and how we might defend others given different social situations.

We talked about my Uncle Johnny who spent a lot of his life befriending people in wheelchairs. At his funeral a line of people in wheelchairs braved the frigid, icy January weather to pay their respects at his casket.  

We want our kids to have many people stand up when their lives are finished to testify that they were a friend to those who felt different or left out. It was a good lesson, and I'm grateful my Bro-in-law was here because my kids acted and participated better! 

In the pictures we were doing various physical challenges to introduce the idea of differing physical strengths and abilities (like doing a tripod or balance on one leg).

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