Finding Strength

Among other things, today my thoughts have been centered around a little girl I have never met but pray constantly for.  Her name is Preslee, and she fell into a canal last week and was retrieved by a farmer a few miles down the canal from where she fell in.  She is still alive, but she has considerable brain damage.  The hope is that the damage is temporary and she can recover all of her abilities and live without machines very soon.  Right now, she and her parents are at Primary Children's in Salt Lake -- where she is heroically overcoming many obstacles and fighting for her life, strengthened I am sure by her parents' love and constant care.

As I looked at her pictures, I saw my little Abby!  And I wanted to run into her room, wake her from her nap, and just hold her and cuddle her and sing to her and make her laugh and never. let. go.

Of course, I didn't.  I sat contentedly with Isaac and just cuddled with him, content that he was content to sit with Mommy for a few moments without getting up and running off to explore and conquer! 

And I thought about how great it is to be a mom!  How hard it is almost every day, and yet it is also so rewarding.  I don't know what I would do if, in an instant -- or worse, over the course of several days or weeks of helplessness -- it was all taken away from me.  There would be an inexplicable void -- and I don't know that anything or anyone could ever fill it again.

And I prayed for a miracle for this little girl and her parents.  A miracle to serve as a capstone to the many tender mercies they are already experiencing.

Amid these thoughts and my other worries/concerns about things going on in life right now, I read a scripture from the Book of Mormon this morning that humbled me and brought me peace:

"[H]ow is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him? Wherefore, let us be faithful to him."  ~ 1 Nephi 7:12


From that moment, my prayer for this family and for myself is simply that the Lord will help us remember that together (He and me), WE can do ALL things according to HIS will.  And that's so much nicer than my rattling brain trying to do it all on my own!  I'm sure that is why this family has so much strength and so much peace!

Stay strong, Preslee!