Listen to the Still Small Voice!

I just have to share this wonderful experience that Taylor had yesterday. She told me it would be okay! I always feel that when we see the hand of the Lord in our lives it is important to acknowledge it, be grateful for it and share it with others!

So, if you read about camp already, you know what happened at the testimony meeting at camp. If you didn't, here is the abbreviated version...Taylor spoke for about 30 minutes about her family and friends, she didn't get a chance to finish since she was asked to wrap it up by one of the leaders to leave time for others, she felt REALLY bad about taking so much time and then not even bearing witness of her true feelings about the gospel and the Savior, she stayed up most of the night crying & beating herself up about it and had been moping whenever anyone mentioned it since we've come home. My prayer for her was that she could feel good about the things she said that night and only have good memories of camp in the years to come. Whenever I mentioned it, she would get all funky so I decided to not say anything about it, hoping that time would pass and she would move on and only remember the good stuff.

At any rate, my mom was visiting for the weekend and Taylor talked Grandma into taking her back to Holden, when she left on Sunday, until we would join them on Pioneer Day. She got packed & loaded up Sunday morning as we were all getting ready for church. Taylor kept saying to me, "I feel like I'm forgetting something." "What am I missing?" "Can you think of anything?" I told her we'd bring anything that she might forget and sent them on their way.

About half an hour before church started, I got a phone call. It was Taylor calling from my mom's cell phone. "We're coming back," she says, "I just have a feeling I need to go to church today." And so they came back, Mom dropped Taylor off and she went upstairs to get ready. My mom said she would wait at my sister's until we got back. I was just thrilled that Taylor was coming with us. Like most teenagers, she keeps her eyes open for any excuse not to come to church and being in the car on the way out of town was one of the best excuses ever. I wasn't about to question it. :)

We went to church and I didn't really think about why Taylor might have been meant to be at church until we went to the Young Women's class and Brother Massey got up to speak, a very unusual occurance since he doesn't regularly attend with us. He started to say how he'd been having very strong feelings about saying a few words to the Young Women. He talked to them about the camp testimony meeting and about how the things that Taylor said that night were completely appropriate and that she shouldn't feel bad about anything that happened that night. He spoke to the leaders and said that it was completely appropriate that time was a concern and that no one should feel badly for what happened. He talked about how all the girls bonded that night and that we all needed the words that were said.

I was watching Taylor as this speech took place and as soon as the testimony meeting was mentioned I could see all the feelings of shame and embarassment that she'd had since we'd come home return to her face. However, the more she listened to Brother Massey, I could see her sitting up taller, starting to smile. I saw those bad feelings lifted from her, and I was in awe!! As far as I knew, Brother Massey didn't even know that Taylor had been feeling so badly about it. But to see the change that came over her was so amazing. By the end, she was practically glowing.

Afterwards, I went up to Brother Massey and told him that Taylor had been on her way out of town and was called back to come to church. I was so proud of her for listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. She needed to hear his words, she needed to be there for that. It would have been so easy to keep going, to ignore her feelings, but she didn't.

I truly feel like this was an answer to our prayers. I feel so strongly that the Lord loves his children individually...He knows Taylor and felt her pain and knew exactly what she needed to feel better. How blessed we are as children of a loving Heavenly Father! I'm so grateful to Brother Massey, too, for listening to the promptings he felt to come and say what he did. I just know that Taylor will always look at this whole experience as a miracle in her life. When things like this happen, I just don't know how anyone can doubt the power of God in our lives. He lives, He loves us, He wants us to be happy!