He Knows You. He Hears You. He Has Already Provided A Way.

This weekend was Stake Conference.

I found myself thinking about another Stake Conference that had been pivotal in my life.

During my divorce I had moved in temporarily with my Brent-Dad and Julie-Mom.  It was a temporary solution.  I was, of course, struggling emotionally and spiritually.  I was walking away from a marriage that should have been eternal but ended up being mentally and emotionally abusive and oppressive, and had asked more from me than I should have had to give.  Even so, it hadn't been an easy decision for me to walk away from it.

I was having a hard time finding a job.  I didn't have a finished degree (the reason I'm pushing so hard to finish it now, I'll never be so unprepared for life again) and I had an eight year gap in my resume from being a stay-at-home mom.  The mental adjustment from being a stay-at-home mom to a single, working mom wasn't an easy one for me and it added to the situation.  I was cleaning houses on the side where I could with my sister, McKell, but had nothing substantial to provide for my girls.

A neighbor reached out to me one weekend and invited me to attend Stake Conference with her.  I don't know if she was acting on a prompting or if she was simply tying to be a nice neighbor to the new person in the ward, but I will forever be grateful for her invite.

The Stake Conference was being held in a conference center and I rode with my neighbors there.  I can't remember anything that was said in that conference, but I do remember that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the twelve Apostles was the concluding speaker.  To be honest, I can't even tell you what he spoke about, but at the conclusion of his talk he proclaimed that he felt the need to leave an Apostolic blessing.

Though I was sitting in a large conference center, full of people, that moment became an intimate one for me that it could have been just Elder Holland and I having a private conversation.  I knew in that moment, despite who else might be needing it, this was for me.

Elder Holland went on to bless fathers, mothers, and children with all the wonderful characteristics that fathers, mothers and children should have.

Then he said, essentially, to those of you who are struggling: He knows you.  He hears you.  And He has already provided a way.

A few weeks later I was offered a job with a company that took very good care of me and my girls for the next few years, even with a recession.  And within the same hour of being offered the job, my application for an apartment was accepted.

I had the things I needed to take care of my girls.

I'm no apostle, but I can testify to you that He does know you.

He knows you.

He hears you.

He has already provided a way.

And I have a firm testimony of the spirit and personal answers that can come from attending Stake Conference.

Daily Grind.

This was the first post ever written on this blog.  I wanted to keep track of my life, the details of it, and so that's what I first wrote about it: the daily grind.

This post was originally written and posted on April 10, 2008.

Divorced... with kids.

Someone should make a TV series out of it.

Seriously.

I'll admit switching gears from stay at home mom to working mom hasn't been easy. I'm still trying to get the hang of it. The routines are different and there is so little time to spare.

I'm up at 5:00 a.m., the girls are up at 6:30, and we're out of the house by 7:30.

Off to daycare where thankfully they eat breakfast because if I had to add just one more thing in the morning we'd never make it out of the house on time.

I say I wake up at 5:00, but realistically I'm rolling out of bed an hour later at 6:00.

Mornings are not my friend.

Some how, miraculously, all five of us are ready to go in an hour and half.

(Maybe I won't mention that sometimes this means compromise to avoid arguments, like Cali (3 years old) wearing her dance out fit and snow boots to daycare).

I can usually drop the girls off at 7:45 and make it in to work aby 7:55-ish, where I get to answer the phone (Thank you for calling Burt Brothers, this is Stephanie...) and scan my life away... one paper at a time.

I only have seven overflowing inboxes...

Lunch time is errands. If it weren't for that one sacred hour of the day I would get nothing done. I squeeze as many little errands into that one hour as I possibly can. This includes grocery shopping.

I start the count down for 5:00 at about 2:30, when finally I can hit the gym (more daycare for the kids, but they like all the friends they're making). The gym is the one thing in my life that I do for completely selfish reasons.

I do it for me.

Of course, this means dinner at 7:00, and somehow we squeeze in homework, baths, and story time to make it to bed by 8:00.

Not me, the girls.

After the girls are in bed, I get to do laundry and dishes and any other miscellaneous cleaning jobs like mopping and picking up stray toys.

Maybe I'll make it to bed by 11:00...

The Geyser In My Front Yard.

This post was originally written and posted on June 20, 2009.

I came home from work on... Wednesday?

Yes, Wednesday.

I'd been to Casey's funeral.

West had fallen into the basement of the house he was framing and messed up his foot, breaking his toe.

I came home and turned on my sprinkles... only to discover a geyser next to my front porch.

Wednesday was a good day.

I checked it out and it wasn't a sprinkler head.

I stuck my hand into the hole the water was gushing out of to feel for a pipe... no pipe, only the strong rush of water coming from off to the side, and that rush of water was washing out the dirt from under my grass.

I was suddenly very concerned that the geyser that I was finding to be somewhat entertaining, was going to make my grass cave in.

I called Mark.

My neighbor across the street, the one who always saves me in my single motherness (do you have a ladder so I can take down the Christmas lights the previous owners left up? How do I set up my swamp cooler? Do you know how to turn my outside water on? Mark, there's a geyser in my front yard.).

Every single mom needs a Mark.

I now know how to fix a crack in poly pipe. Something every woman should know how to do.

While Mark was working in the geyser-turned-crater, we had a visitor...

Too late, the geyser is closed for sight-seeing.