Be Still My Soul!

     Recently B and I attended a fireside to listen to Kitty De Ruyter, an LDS woman who suffered through World War II in a concentration camp. The opening hymn for the fireside was “Be Still My Soul”. As I opening my mouth to sing the familiar words


Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side;
With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In ev’ry change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: Thy best, thy heav’nly Friend
Thru thorny ways leads to a joyful end

their meaning sunk deep into my being and I found I was unable to speak let alone sing, as I was overcome with gratitude to my Father in Heaven. Truly this hymn was for me in that moment to be reminded that I need to trust in him. So often I question the path I cannot see lacking the faith to trust my footsteps in any direction at all.

Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as he has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: The waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

     So I will continue on with peace in my soul and, as we all know, I will stumble and fall and I will get back up knowing it is God’s arm that I am using for support.

     I have also been reading a dramatized book of the prophet Abinidi and for those of you who know the story it also includes an account of Alma as a priest of King Noah. In the book Alma has not yet heard the words of Abinidi and isn’t living the life he should and is often making wrong if not terrible choices. I have found myself reading and my heart aches for Alma and I want to shout “Don’t do it…you are better than this…don’t you know who you are and what you are to become”. You have probably guessed that this was a light bulb moment for me. I realized the irony in my statements and that they could very well be what my loved ones here on earth and on the other side, and surely my Father in Heaven, are saying as I go through life making mistake after mistake.

Building our Nest!

B and I have been working non stop to try and get our house back in order and to make sure that our little girl has a space to call her own when she comes home...but let's be honest she wouldn't care and the room is more for us.  I painted the mural free hand...you can see the mama bird but if you look very closely near the top right side of the small tree you will also see a bee.  I told B that this represented me and that there was no need to paint a daddy bird as she wanted me to do.



With only 6 weeks left until the big day the reality of the situation is settling in on my shoulders and have made me take a closer look at who I am and what type of dad am I going to be. I am terrified that I won't teach my kids the lessons they need to learn and that my little girl will be dirty mess squatting in the corner eating gum she found under the table with clouds of dust billowing up around her like pig pen on Charlie Brown.  But then I take a step back and look who is standing by my side and realize I have nothing to worry about. 

You see, I realized something the day I knelt across from the alter from my beautiful wife and said 'I do'.  I realized that she is perfect for me in every way.  She brings the sunshine when my days and mood are grey, she laughs at my jokes (even some of the inappropriate ones), she calms my rising fears with whisperings that everything will all be okay.  Most importantly she loves me for who I am and sees who I will one day be.  I realized that even though she seems incapable of shutting cupboard doors or turning off lights that she brings the spring blossoms to what was a world of stark winter without her.  She truly is the one in our relationship that brings us closer to our Father in Heaven and reminds us why we are here.  Last night as I was reading in Alma 56 in the Book of Mormon about the 2000 stripling warriors it hit me when they said "We doubt not that our Mother's knew it" that my children won't doubt.  They will know, because of who she is, that their mother, my sweet B, knew it.