A Child's Prayer

Well, I've caved.  A couple years ago, before my mission, my avid-blogger sister decided to start a blog for me called "The Lameness of Leighann."  It's probably still out there somewhere.  For the first few months of my mission she kept it updated for me with my letters to home, but then it got cast aside.  (Thanks a lot, Veronica.  If only you had kept up my blog the ENTIRE time I was gone, I could have been a true blogger right off the bat when I got home.  It's not like you had ANYTHING else to do!)  Then after Skylar and I got married, we started up a silly blog to show others how truly, disgustingly united we were in our marriage.  It's pretty funny.  You should check it out here.

But alas, it seems the only way to show the world that you're a grown up is to become a blogger.  And since I don't want anyone to doubt my adulthood, I find myself here - in blog land.

So to start out my blogging adventures, I thought it would be a good idea to begin with something positive. (because I can pretty much guarantee that I will blog about negative things from time to time, since I recognize that life isn't all sunshine and unicorns).  Anyway, here's my positivity for the day:

At the beginning of the year, Skylar and I were asked to be Primary (Sunday school for the kids) Teachers for the 5 year olds at church.  We laughed at first because we realized that they pretty much only ask the newly married couples without any children to do this.  We aren't sure if they're trying to encourage us to have kids soon, or if they're using it as a form of birth control.  Either way, we LOVE our calling as teachers, and we have the funniest bunch of kids. We even like to coordinate outfits with them sometimes...

Anyway, I remember going to primary as a kid and feeling like it was the worst torture in the world to have to sit there and sing songs and listen to stories.  I don't know why, but I hated it.  However, as an adult I still remember all those songs we learned and one song in particular is kind of my safety net.  It's called A Child's Prayer and I still find myself singing it whenever I get scared (yes, I'm still afraid of the dark).

Now to my point of this positive post.  Things have been pretty tough lately.  I've been struggling really bad with school already this semester, Skylar's working hard to get his company going, but there's always unexpected strain with that, and I've been dealing with something very difficult emotionally for months now.  This morning, I woke up and just felt completely burnt out and miserable, with very little desire to go to church.  Of course we went anyway (mostly out of duty for me, though) and I am SO glad we did.  Sacrament meeting (the first hour where everyone in the congregation meets together) was good, but it was after we finished that meeting and went to Primary that I began to feel the most.  Today in Primary, we sang a bunch of songs as usual, but 2 stood out to me in particular and deepened my testimony that my Heavenly Father not only knows me individually, but loves me individually as well.  First, we sang my favorite, A Child's Prayer.  The lyrics are:

Heavenly Father, are you really there?
and do you hear and answer every child's prayer.
Some say that Heaven is far away,
but i feel it close around me as i pray.
Heavenly Father, i remember now,
something that Jesus told Disciples long ago.
Suffer the children to come to me,
Father in prayer i'm coming now to thee.

Pray, He is there.
Speak, He is listening.
You are his child,
his love now surrounds you.
He hears your prayer,
He loves the children,
of such is the Kingdom,
the Kingdom of Heav'n

How did God know I needed to hear this again?  I didn't even know I did.  True testimony that He knows us far better than we know ourselves.  Next, we sang  I Will Follow God's Plan:

My life is a gift; my life has a plan.
My life has a purpose; in heaven it began.
My choice was to come to this lovely home on earth
and seek for God's light to direct me from birth.
I will follow God's plan for me; holding fast to His word and His love.
I will work, and I will pray; I will always walk in His way.
Then I will be happy on earth and in my home above.

Bottom line, in the first song I was reminded that no matter what, He hears my prayers.  I may not always feel like it, but it's true.  There's nothing so trivial that He doesn't have time for it.  In the second song, I was reminded that I chose this life even before I came here.  I lived with God before and while I may not have known all the specifics about what would happen, I knew this life would be full of trials.  Some of our trials are brought on by outside circumstances and some are brought on by ourselves.  But no matter how difficult things get, if we will just follow the path that's been laid out for us by our Savior, we'll be happy here and happy forever.

Finally, the last thing that happened for me today was after church.  I had to meet with the Bishop (the head of the congregation) to get approval to stay at BYU next year (a routine endorsement we have to receive once a year).  While I was in there chatting with him, Heavenly Father reminded me once again how much He loved me and was aware of my situation.  Like I mentioned before, I've had some emotional struggles I've been dealing with for a while now and I've been praying for some sort of opportunity to come along that would help me get them worked out.  As I was visiting with the Bishop, that opportunity opened up, completely unexpectedly.  That may not seem like a huge deal, but it was to me.

I am so thankful to know that I'm truly a child of God.  I know that He doesn't JUST know my name, but He knows everything about me and cares about all the little struggles of my day to day life.  I'm especially thankful to be a member of His true church, where I'm taught to seek out that personal relationship with Him.