The Power of Prayer

Things have been crazy busy. I've been busy with work and the family has been busy with multiple things, which means I've been CRAZY BUSY!

After our experience with the support group, Mark was feeling better about things. It really seemed to make a difference. I took care of another wedding and we met with vocational rehab. Mark struggles with them because it's such a slow process. He really wants to open his business back up, but I'm absolutely terrified of it. I don't know if I can deal with the stress of it again. It was overwhelming. Anyway, she gave us some tasks to do and we're going to meet back with her in a few weeks.

Since the girls were out of school on the 20th & 21st for Fall break, we decided to take advantage of it. My mom has some neighbors that own a cabin in Mt. Pleasant and they offered it to us. So we loaded up after work on Thursday evening and headed out. We got there about 8:30, just in time to get a fire built, get the girls beds put together and get them to bed. Mark had been struggling with things that week and was kind of an emotional mess. He didn't really want to talk about it because he said it was the same thing it always is....life. We're convinced that the adversary is really working him over. He vulnerable not only from the brain injury, but because of the general state of things. Our lives have completely changed and it's difficult to deal with at times. As we tried to get comfortable to go to sleep, Mark had a severe anxiety attack. He couldn't sit down, couldn't get comfortable anywhere, was pacing the floor, couldn't breathe and his heart was racing. I had taken something to help me sleep, and I was tired anyway, so I wasn't being so compassionate. But when he said the we needed to go home I realized he was in bad shape. So at 12:45 we loaded everything back in the car, gathered the girls out of their warm beds and headed home. As soon as we got on the road...Mark crashed. He was out. Needless to say I wasn't too happy about that. I don't want him to be miserable, by any means, but asleep? We hadn't even come off the mountain into town and he was GONE! Since I had a car full of sleeping people, I had to chew on a straw and on some gum to keep myself awake. We got home at 2:00 a.m. and Grandma looked at us as if we were crazy. But one of the girls had told her that Mark wasn't feeling well, so just like me, she took it in stride. Mark's had these episodes before, we just haven't ever been able to figure out what they were. On Friday he still couldn't get comfortable in his skin. His heart was still racing. When he would finally fall asleep from exhaustion, the left side of his body would twitch. So he would wake up, try to get comfortable again, and start it all over again. Friday night was a long night. Finally, Saturday night he was able to get a little sleep after about 1:00 a.m. It wasn't much. He'd had so little sleep in the last 3 nights that he was considering skipping his talk in church. But he figured it was the adversary trying to keep him from it, so he said he wasn't going to let him win and we all went to church Sunday morning.

My mom was the first to speak. Our topic was "The Power of Prayer". She did a great job setting the scene for me to talk about our lives. I've given a lot of talks in church in my life, but none have been quite like this one. I went to the pulpit armed with only my scriptures and my testimony. I do believe it was the BEST talk I've ever given. No notes. No outline. No fancy stories or quotes. Just one scripture (Mosiah 29:20) and my testimony of prayer. And a few tears. I even kept it short enough for Mark to do more than just bare his testimony. He was worried that he wouldn't be able to find the words he needed, so I went and sat behind him on the stand. I want you to know that Mark stood up there and spoke as if he had no brain injury. He bore powerful testimony, shared experiences, and only missed one word. As I sat behind him I think I witnessed a tender mercy. Those of you that know Mark well know that he has a tendency to talk ALOT! He went over, but there wasn't a dry eye in the room. It was powerful, powerful, powerful. And we're glad it's over! Although, the Stake President lives in our ward and there was a member of his presidency sitting on the stand. He came over and shook our hands and thanked us for baring such a strong witness and drawing the Spirit into the meeting. I hope we're not getting roped into a future speaking engagement. Sacrament meeting is one thing.....Stake Conference is a whole other ball game!

As Mark prepared his talk, he received some powerful revelation and inspiration from his Father in Heaven. We feel as if it was personal manna from Heaven reserved just for us. He enjoyed so much being able to stand before the congregation and share some of that. Most of it we feel is too sacred to share publicly. But what a blessing it's been to our spirits!

I fear I have run on and on. We're headed into the Halloween weekend and what fun it's going to be. We wish you and yours well and thank you for all of your love and support. We surely would not be where we are today without it.

Blessing of the Week: friends and family