Gratitude #17

This is something I am deeply grateful for.  Not only for the blessing it is to my life but also to the lives of my children.  I am grateful for the Priesthood.  I can't even begin to tell you the ways it has blessed this home.  I can however give you a little taste by relating a recent event.  Over the last few months our home has been a very stressful place.  We have had DCFS breathing down our necks.  My confidence as a mother (what little there was) was shaken so badly I couldn't make any decisions on my own.  I did find the courage to ask my loving husband to give me a blessing of comfort.  I was at the point that I was sure it would contain disappointment in the way I have delt with the situations given to us.  Instead, I found hope and love within the messages given.  My most recent blessing contained the following:

1. Focus on increasing your spirituality

2. Pray more even if it is only a quiet prayer in your heart

3. Study your scriptures

4. Go to the Temple

5. This is a trial and you have the capacity to overcome it

6. Your Father in Heaven LOVES you

After this blessing I can to realize how much I had given up during my stress.  During the time when I needed the blessings they brought.  Since then I am happy to say that I have been doing those things and life around here has improved so much.  When even I find myself falling back to the way it was all I have to think about is how much happier everyone is when I do what Heavenly Father whats me to do.  I am deeply grateful to have the Priesthood in my life especially in my home.

I am also grateful that the Priesthood is in the lives of my children.  I have a few examples of this.  I will use the one from April 2009.  Our youngest Samantha was a week old when she got a stuffy nose.  We were told that all we could do was use saline and a bulb sucker to keep her nose unplugged.  By the time she was 10 days old I was so worried about her.  I sat with her on my bed and counted down the time until her doctor's office would be open.  As I was waiting to make the call to get her an appointment she gasped.  It was then that I realized that she hadn't been breathing.  I called my sister-in-law to see if she would watch Emma and then raced toward the hospital.  I called Les to let him know what was going on.  He told me to come get him so he could go.  He meet me outside one of the buildings he has class in and with him was my brother.  They quickly gave her a blessing and then we took off.   At the hospital it was determined that she had RSV.  Eventually the decision was made to transport her to Primary Children's Hospital.  I know that because she was given a blessing she was given the strength and the determination to fight off the illness.  In fact she is still a fighter.  For a while it seemed that she was a little behind.  However, she is learning so much now that there is no way she is behind anymore.  There will be more about her when I do a post just about her later on.