This past week I worked 4 days in a row. I know not a big deal to most peoples 5 day work week, but 10 hour days make for a long week. When I get home I typically head right up stairs to change, put my hair up, and take my makeup off. Friday for some reason I decided to have a seat on the couch, turned the TV on, which I never do because there is never anything on, then I turned it off and just sat there for a few minutes. I don't typically do this. I was able to sense those things around me, including the refrigerator running. It seemed to be running longer than I had remembered the last time I sat and listened to it(I don't do this often). I went to the fridge and had a drink of apple cider and noticed it felt a little warm. I then opened the freezer and to my utter surprise everything was defrosted, like it had been that way for quite most of the day. So not what I needed at 9:45 on a Friday night. So what did I do? What anyone else would have done,I called home, because that is where answers come, but no one answered. I know now that I should have called to my Heavenly Home first, but didn't. I then called dad, mom, and the Middlebrooks and of course no answer, it was Friday most people have dates on Friday nights, everyone but me of course. Dad called back shortly thereafter but they were at dinner and didn't have much time to talk. I was really trying not to cry as he told me it was probably the compressor and it would be better to just go buy a new fridge. He was like are you crying over a fridge, no of course not I said as I was trying to fight the tears. So I started throwing everything into the garbage. Just as I took the first bag out, the tears began to flow freely down my cheeks and then the phone rang and it was Sister Middlebrook who at the sound of my voice was like what's wrong girl. She of course told me not to worry about it and we would get it fixed in the morning. Well then Nick called and just hearing his voice made me cry even more. He seemed to think this was rather entertaining that I was crying over a fridge. I mean really, if it was any other women I'm sure they would have been crying too. I think the reason why was the fact that I couldn't fix the fridge. My profession is all about fixing things and at this point there was nothing ERFIXITGIRL could do to fix this fridge. Typically I would have gotten on my knees and begged Heavenly Father to do something, but between the phone calls and hauling the spoiled food out I didn't make the time. Sometime at the beginning of the process I had moved the temperature on both the fridge and the freezer up one degrees. So with all of the food out of the freezer, phone calls made, and not feeling any better with every ones advice to just go to bed, I opened the fridge to start emptying it. I heard my neighbor come home and called her to see if I could bring some food to her house, just the things that were still a bit cold. She came over and saw that I had totally lost it with mascara smeared around my eyes. She opened the freezer and the fridge and was like girl this is cold and the food in the fridge is cold. Keep in mind this was about an hour or so after I had moved the temperature. To my delight and gratefulness she was right. I don't know how this happened, but I do know that someone said a prayer in my behalf and it was answered by a loving Heavenly Father who knew that I needed help. How grateful I was and am that some how it works just as it did before. It is only 3 years old and should work for years to come. Last night after Stake Conference Nick asked me what ended up being wrong with the fridge and I told him the story. He said to me, you must have needed humbled and you know he was probably right, dang him for being right. I have found in life, sometimes life sends you humble pie when you don't have time for it, when it isn't convenient, and when you think you could do without it. But that is all part of the growing process. It seems like I have felt stagnant in my life recently and maybe this was just what I needed to move me forward, to strengthen my faith, and remember that Heavenly Father is all to aware of me and my situation. Today in Stake Conference President Baker summarized the following quote that I so love from Elder Neil A. Maxwell, "Recall the new star that announced the birth at Bethlehem? It was in its precise orbit long before it so shone. We are likewise placed in human orbits to illuminate. Divine correlation functions not only in the cosmos but on this planet, too...God, who oversees the interlacings of galaxies, stars, and worlds, asks us to confess His hand in our personal lives, too (see D&C 59:21). Have we not been reassured about the fall of one sparrow and that the very hairs of our heads are numbered? (see Matt. 10:29–30; D&C 84:80). God is in the details! Just as the Lord knows all of His vast creations, He also knows and loves each in any crowd—indeed, He knows and loves each and all of mankind!...These words of Anselm are thus such good counsel: “Believe in order to understand,” rather than “understand [in order to] believe” (St. Anselm, trans. Sidney Norton Deane [1903], 7)"
And so this quote got me thinking about something that I think about quite often. Why am I hear in North Carolina? I have always been able to see Heavenly Father's hand in my life, maybe not always at the time I needed to see it, but always later. I know exactly how I got where I am today. It wasn't easy, it was hard with lots of detours, backtracking, and sometimes temper tantrum. But His hand has gently guided me here. But why? I feel that I know why, but also I think there are many different reasons, people, and experiences that I have needed in my life for purposes that I may not know why until after this life. But I can't deny this is where I need to be. As much as my parents, friends, and family out west try so hard to understand what drives me to stay here, I know just as Heavenly Father put the Star in orbit to be there when the Savior was born, He put the opportunities and experiences I have had to get me where I am today. No one can understand this or know this but me and our Heavenly Father. My mother told me to be faithful and prayerful when deciding where to start my career and so I was. However I was recently instructed that I needed to increase in my faith, something that I am working on, but seems to be much harder than in times past, or maybe it is just Heavenly Fathers way of helping me to work on humility.
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