Hello All!
Sooo....it's been quite a while since I've last blogged. I have tons of excuses...getting married, Bryce having surgery, moving, getting a new job...things have definitely been busy! But I've missed writing on here. And I get a lot of people asking about updates with our lives so, I decided this would be a good place to do that.
Previously, I used my blog purely for spiritual posts, specifically my thoughts and studies on general conference talks. I still want that element to be there, but I don't want to have a completely separate blog for everyday posts so...it'll be a bit of a smorgasbord! I guess I'll just write about whatever I feel like...it is my blog right? ;)
Anyway, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to write about, just that I wanted to write. But I've been thinking about an experience that happened to me and my friend a couple months ago.
My close friends probably know, I'm slightly obsessed with book signings. Well, books in general, but when I get the opportunity I LOVE to meet the authors and get my books signed! And Utah has a lot of really awesome, really talented authors! Really! Brandon Mull, Brandon Sanderson, James Dashner, Shannon Hale, Josi S. Kilpack, Sarah M. Eden, Gregg Luke...like, a lot of really great authors. (Side note, one of the great things about fall, is there are so many book signings!! I've already been to a few, and still have more to go to!)
I also have a few close friends who love to go to book signings with me. A couple of months ago there was one in Sugarhouse. My friend and I decided to go even though it was a little far, but Bryce couldn't come with us. I don't even remember why. But that's ok, because we had google maps to get us there in tact and on time! Er, well that was the theory anyway. I'm sure if I had taken the time to really read all the directions, or better yet print them off, that would have been the case, but I was in a hurry and figured all I really needed was to see which exit to get off and then write down the directions from there. What I didn't realize was, the exit number was for I-80...not I-15.
So needless to say...we got lost. I'm not even sure what city we ended up in, and had absolutely no idea which direction we even needed to go to get to where we wanted to be. Even my good friend Emily who is amazing at directions didn't know where we were. And that was the scary part. (Another side note...I just realized that Bryce has never heard this part of the story since Emily and I both decided that it would be better/less embarrassing to just leave it out....hi honey! Surprise surprise, your wife has no sense of direction!) Neither of us knew it at the time, but both of us took that time while we were wandering aimlessly around the Unknown City to say a silent prayer that we would be able to find our way. We stopped at a gas station hoping somebody there would be able to give us directions. We approached the man behind the counter and asked him , and not only did he have directions for us, he even had a map! We raced on and barely made it to the store about a minute before the event started. Yes! We were pretty proud of ourselves. :)
Since we'd gotten to the event so late we were pretty far back in line, so we decided to wander around for a bit. After all, it was a book store, so there should be plenty of things there to keep us entertained, right? Well...we were really far back in line. Even the bookstore was not enough to keep us entertained. So we decided we'd just run and go get something to eat to kill some time (we had tickets to save our place in line.) We wandered about some more in the car until we found a McDonalds and got ourselves some yummies.
Now this is the interesting part. I don't know how it happened. For the life of me I can't remember. We got out of the car to head back into the store, leaving our food because we weren't sure if we could bring it in. After seeing that we were still a ways back in line, we went back out to finish eating. I started rummaging in my purse looking for my keys as we walked back to the car. My purse is pretty much a black hole that eats up everything as soon as it lands in there, so I was having a hard time finding them. A really hard time. I was still shuffling through my mess with straps when we got to the car. We stood there as I rummaged some more. I began taking everything out, feeling a little panicky. I looked through the driver window. And there were my keys. Just sitting there in the ignition.
I hadn't even taken them out of the ignition! I tried the door. It was locked. I had locked my keys in the car with them still in the ignition! I didn't even know that was possible!! Only once before have I locked my keys in the car...and since then I've been pretty conscious about it. It's almost muscle memory for me to take my keys out, drop them in my purse, and then leave the car! But there they were, dangling for all the world to see, with my car locked tight and not a window pinched open. Oh, and our food was inside.
I had NO idea what to do. I know that really cool people can get their cars open with a coat hanger or something, but not only did we not have a coat hanger, or anything even close...I'm just not one of those really cool people who would even know what to do with the hanger even if we had one.
So I called Bryce. 'Hello husband who is an hour away, guess what I just did??'
Our car is one of those fancy (not really) ones that has a key pad on the door that can unlock the car with the right combination, so even though we had never used it before and I had never asked Bryce about it before I was really really hoping that he would know the combination and that the problem would be fixed quickly and painlessly. But things never go that easily, do they? Not when the only other way to get into the car is a clicker on a keychain in a house that's an hour away. Bryce...didn't know the combination. He gave me a couple to try (he knew there was a one in it...and maybe a nine?...) but none of them worked. We didn't have it written down anywhere. Like I said, we never used it. By this time, I was feeling sick. I just felt so dumb! How could I have left the keys in the ignition and locked the car with all our food?? There was no other way around it. Bryce was going to have to come down with the extra clicker to open it. I felt so bad! I was pretty sure he had plenty of better things to do than to waste an hour coming down just to open the car and then drive an hour back! If only I knew the combination!!
I felt like crying. I was really close. I told Emily I would keep fiddling with the code and she should go ahead inside and wait for our numbers. Mostly because I didn't want her to see how upset I was. She left, and I took a deep breath and tried another random five digit code, hoping beyond all hope that I could get it open before Bryce had to come all the way down. Nothing happened. I felt a few tears drop onto my cheeks, so I closed my eyes tight and said out loud word for word, 'Heavenly Father, I know it's a long shot but please please bless me that I can guess the combination. I opened my eyes and didn't even give myself time to think before punching in five random numbers and hearing a soft click. I'm pretty sure I stared at the door for a full minute. Right before swinging open the door, grabbing the keys and slamming the door back shut as fast as I could. I cradled those keys like they were my first born child. I couldn't believe it! I had actually guessed the right combination! Now I'm no mathematician, but I'm pretty sure that even knowing there was a one and possibly a nine in the com, there would have been hundreds of different combinations and I could have been at it all night. But I had guessed it. It had only been like, my sixth try. And my first one, right after I had prayed.
I knew that right there a small, precious miracle had just occurred. At that moment I had felt such a surge of gratitude and love for my Heavenly Father, and for this experience that he'd allowed me and my friend to have. We had no one to turn to but Him, and he had showed us how much he loved and cared about us. I had already had a testimony about prayer, but I had never had one answered so immediately and so powerfully as that one. Now maybe this story seems like not that big a deal, or maybe even a little bit silly. But for me, it has become one of the most precious and poignant examples of my father's love for me that I have yet had. He knew how badly I felt. He knew how badly I wanted to be able to get into the car without Bryce having to come all the way down. He also knew that I wasn't going to die if I didn't get it open myself. Or Bryce, or Emily. He knew that in the grand scheme of things, it really wasn't that big a deal. Or maybe it was. Because He answered my prayers anyway. I won't pretend to know God's purposes, or his reasons for opening my car (because I do know that it was Him), but the answer that keeps coming to my heart is because He wants me to know that He loves me. He wants me to know that He loves me enough to grant a miracle, even though I didn't need it. He wants me to know that He loves me so much, that he's not just there for Needs. He's there for wants. He wants me to know that prayer is not just a nice thought, something that we can do to comfort us when we're feeling down or scared, but that it's real. And that he has fashioned the order of prayer because He loves us.
On the way home from the booksigning Emily and I were both so filled with gratitude that we said a prayer out loud thanking Heavenly Father for helping us. That prayer felt so sweet! For it was because of prayer that God was able to help us, and because of prayer that we were now able to thank Him.
I try really hard now to be more purposeful in my prayers. I'm not perfect at it by any means, but it has certainly helped me to take the time to slow down and talk to God. I have a greater love and appreciation for those times of prayer. And a greater sense of familiarity.
I know that it's not just me that God loves, but everyone. I know it's hard to feel that just by listening to someone else's story, but please don't just listen to my story! Put it in action! Make a renewed effort to really pray sincerely. Thinking back on this story, one of the things I really love about it is how sincere my prayer was. I'm sure if I had taken a moment to compose myself I probably would have been a bit more formal in my wording...But God answered it anyway! Because he knew I was sincere! I'm not encouraging casualness in our speech in prayer, but I am encouraging sincerity! See if you can have an honest, heartfelt prayer with God without using any of the practiced phrases that creep in our prayers too often. Just sincerely tell him how you feel, and I know He will answer you! Just be careful to grab your keys as you're leaving the car. ;)
