The church changed its whole learning curriculum. It put the primary responsibility of teaching back on the parents, with support from the church and leaders.
It changed the way it ministered to a higher, holier way.
I had a spiritual experience that required me to humble myself and give the boys the option to homeschool.
I received a blessing, that blessed me with an increased ability to relax and wait on the Lord and his timing.
I felt an urgent need to continue to spiritually prepare myself and my family for the ever impending return of the Savior.
I started stressing about putting my house in financial order, paying things off rapidly and acquiring more financial reserves.
I felt an increasing need to distance myself from the world, the news, and the imposed doom and gloom of daily peer pressure.
I was impressed with the desire to go to the temple more, become unbending in making daily scripture study and prayer a daily habit and more prominent part of each day.
I felt the weight of teaching my kids how to Index and getting them to practice more so that I wouldn't need to sit with them each time they decided to do it.
I felt a need to start eliminating activities, extra curriculars, and superfluous demands that didn't immediately and blindingly bond our family spiritually to the Lord and one another.
I got a blessing with the words, have an increased ability to relax, to wait on the Lord's timing. All of these things have happened in the previous year or so.
And then 2020 happened. It happened with the swiftness and craziness that would challenge most any dystopian book. Natural disasters, political nightmares, and super-viruses challenged our whole way of living.
January started a new job for my husband, and brought wildfires that devastated an entire country and continent of Australia.
February a plague of locusts in Africa.
In March, COVID just got real, especially for the US; schools close for the rest of the academic year.
April brought us news of "murder hornets" along with hoarding of supplies and grocery stores having empty aisles and limits on food and cleaning supplies.
May the economy starts to collapse, layoffs, unemployment, and all that create financial hardship for large portions of the population.
June brings protests and riots galore. Started around Black Lives Matter but quickly evolving to every injustice and with a demand to defund the police.
July shows us just how bad the child trafficking situation is, along with pornography, and the horrific part is how masks have increased the predators ability to snatch kids.
In August, the Beirut explosion largest since Atomic bombs occur.
And with September just right around the bend, already election fighting has started, sides are being taken, and already divisiveness rules supreme. I'm sure this will continue and escalate all the way to the November election.
I logically think I should feel worried, stressed, powerless, but all I feel is awed, humbled, and thankful. Where the world sees a million calamities and I can't dispute them, I see the hand of the Lord that spent the last year and a half preparing me for this. I see mass changes for the church that prepared us to do church at home, I see ministering as the solution for checking on those who are isolated and socially distanced. I see blessings that prepared me mentally for what was in store. I had increased revelation to change my way of thinking so the adjustment would be easier for me and my family. I saw job changes that afforded us more job security and disposable income. I saw food storage and supplies of normal living items carrying me through shortages. I see my lack of cable as a buffer from the pervasive fear mongering. I see that when the temple is closed, I have hundreds of experiences in the past three years to carry me through. I have children who learned to and now monthly participate in those ordinances through indexing. I see a million ways in which we were prepared and I am reminded, "he shall prepare a way for them to accomplish the things which he commanded."
And what did he command, that we should be a light unto the world, and "giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." So are there times, when I still can't wrap my brain around all of this dystopian crazy, absolutely. But I testify that I have never felt more confident in the words of the Lord, in his promises and their assuredness, and last that as we are obedient to the eternal laws that govern both a God in Heaven and this Earth, that he through loving instruction has given us a sure fire plan to feel peace, happiness, and shoulders that can bear the burdens placed thereon.
No matter what religion you are or where your faith lies, I invite all - "come unto Christ, be perfected in Him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness." I promise - it is worth it!
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