After being up very late I awoke on my own by 7:00 am in time to make a scheduled visit to the Houston Temple with Eleah Boyd. As we were driving we got stuck at a red light and saw a life flight helicopter taking off. It was right next to us, and it brought up all kinds of emotion. Evenso, I realized that it was the life flight that transported Taylor to the hospital that he needed to be in, which happened to be the number one trauma center in the western United States. I am grateful for their expertise in his care, and for the miracles that we witnessed. I also found it symbolic that we were on our way to the temple to worship our Saviour Jesus Christ and come to understand our Heavenly Father better. Another life flight symbolically.
In the Temple miracles opened up as we were surrounded by young sister missionaries. I realized as I was sitting behind a large group of them, that their mothers would absolutely love to be were I was at that moment glimpsing their daughter's experiences. I have so wanted to know what Madie is doing and see glimpses of her mission. I can say that in extraordinary ways I have known that her influence is tangible here to individuals as they have shared experiences with feeling her help. I too have felt her working with me and helping me at times. I call them my Madie hello's, and yet I wish they were more tangible. I miss the physical connection, hearing her voice, seeing her play with her hair, or bite her nails as she is deep in thought. I miss her laugh!
Crazy how we always want what we don't have instead of focusing on what we do.
As the session started I felt incredibly grateful to be there with Eleah experiencing the Temple so early in the morning. What I hadn't expected was that I would be seeing a new movie. It had things from the very beginning that brought me to tears. It was so incredibly beautiful. It appealed to all of my senses, and tears flowed freely. As it progressed I realized why it was so special. It was being created during the last moments of Madie's life and into the period of time after she died. So many aspects reminded me of her. I couldn't contain my tears. They were from so many different emotions. Tears of gratitude, tears of longing, tears of realizing that she isn't so far away, tears of wanting to turn back the clock, yet knowing I need to move forward.
Beautiful sacred moments happened, as I thought about each girl in front of me and how much their mothers missed them. I missed my girl too, but knew she is often seen by my own mother and mother in law. She's busy, doing Heavenly Father's work.
Eleah and I were the last to enter the Celestial room, and as I walked in there was a girl sitting in a chair right by the door. She was sobbing, and I felt the need to sit in a chair next to her and put my arm around her. We sat there for awhile and I had the impression repeatedly to tell her this was from her mother. I was concerned that it might be taken wrong but eventually she looked up and I told her. We visited and she told me about herself. She's from Australia, and has been out for about 3 months. A beautiful Samoan girl. She told me how much her mother misses her, that she has 2 other sisters serving missions right now as well, and that her mother carries their baby clothes around and smells them. I thought, oh another mother's heart so lonely for her daughters. We discussed how there's opposition in everything. It's part of the mortal journey.. When we experience pain of any kind it humbles us and helps us realize how much we take for granted when we are feeling good. I believe when our natural instincts are being stretched, whether it's we are hungry, angry, sad or in pain, in those times our physical body is weak but our spirits are becoming buff. That is when we grow. When we feel better again, we often forget our spirits, and neglect them.
So today was a getting buff day. Last week when I had a headache over a 4 day time period my spirit was getting buff, as I continued to try to forget the pain, as many great experiences were happening, one of which was Taylor Jones was baptized and confirmed. what a miracle around this experience.
Madie and Taylor were in kindergarten together and attended each other's birthday parties that year. I remember Madie telling me about Taylor because she thought it was so cool that there was a girl in her class with the same name as her older brother. That was the end of them having a class together and then a few years later Taylor went to a catholic school and then later moved and went to High School with Sawyer, and was in ROTC with him. After Madie died a friend of Taylor's texted her that Sawyer's girlfriend was killed in a car accident, and she was in a pretty difficult place at that time but was curious about who his girlfriend was and through facebook figured out it was this girl from her kindergarten class. She found my blog and eventually reached out to me last April, and through messaging we discussed her rediscovering a belief in God. I felt impressed to ask her if she had ever thought about learning more about our church, and told her about mormon .org and lds.org. She replied that she had thought about visiting our church sometime, and eventually decided to be taught by the missionaries. What a great experience it has been for me to be a part of that and to feel of Heavenly Father's love for her. We had several discussions in my home with the sister missionaries, and then I left for a 19 day vacation with my family. On returning her baptism was scheduled and I was asked to speak about the Holy Ghost. Since so much of everything about my connection to Taylor had been through personal promptings, it made the talk unique because I learned so much about the Holy Ghost working with her. There were times when I literally felt like heaven opened up to my mind and I knew things about her worth that were so tender to my heart. I knew that ever ounce of pain I had experienced since losing Madie was worth it to bring Taylor to an understanding of Heavenly Father's great love for her and how much Jesus Christ was aware of her and loved her. I knew that Madie was working with me, and that she and I were companions in a way. Sacred experiences that I hope in recording will help others on their personal journeys and struggles.
Saturday and again Sunday during the baptism I felt an outpouring of the spirit speaking to me as I continually tried to redirect my focus from the physical pain in my head, to the spiritual "buffing up" that was taking place. As the headache went away yesterday I realized how grateful I was to have a day to get things done when I felt no pain in my head. I realized how much more I need to express gratitude when I don't have physical pain instead of taking it for granted.
Last of all my new friend, took a picture with me outside the Temple and told me she was going to write me every week because I was her mother in America. I couldn't help but reflect on a quote that I had recently come across.
