Spiritual Thoughts and Genealogy

Why Not to Give Up, Everyday Miracles

believeI want to share with you WHY I believe what I believe. I know many of you may not have not had a singular, spectacular moment when your testimony was born; rather it grew from moment to moment. For me my belief is founded on remembering experiences I have had.

Let’s look at Moroni 10:3, a portion that I believe is often overlooked or misunderstood.

Moroni 10:3

“3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.”

This is exactly what I did. Are we not all children of men? ‘Up until this time’ means up until now. I tried to remember how the Lord has been merciful to me from my birth until today. I have a ‘spiritual journal’ I keep track of spiritual experiences in my life, many of these I had forgotten until I read them again this week and remembered them…

  1. I remember the fact that I barely made it into this world being born 2.5 months early with spiral meningitis and being airlifted all the way from Logan to SLC for better care. I know that Heavenly Father helped me survive my first few months of life.
  2. I remember one of my earliest memories when I was about 6 years old traveling in a UHAUL truck moving from Nebraska to Utah. I was with my younger brother and my uncle was driving. My uncle got tired and fell asleep and drifted off the road. We woke up screaming as we flipped over about 8 times. Miraculously all three of us exited with hardly a scratch while the truck and all contents were demolished all over the mountainside. I know we were protected.
  3. I remember turning 8 and waiting to get baptized because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to or not and it was a serious commitment.  I remember conversations with my bishop and finally a few months after my birthday I agreed to be baptized. Of all ordinances I have participated in that was the most memorable. I still remember feeling a heavenly blanket wrapped around me as I went down into the water and back up.
  4. I remember growing up with my single father and my grandmother helped take care of us for several years. She passed away just a week before my father met my future step mother whom I am very close to now. Before she passed away my grandmother told my father that she felt her last mission in life was to help me and my brothers until we had a mother to watch over us and it ended up being true.  I have since named our daughter after her, Leila.
  5. I remember having a dream when I was about twelve years old of Jesus taking me through a field with a white box in the middle of the field. He went to the box and opened it. A green snake slithered out towards us.  I was very scared. He simply told me to not be afraid of the snake then he hugged me and said goodbye. I remember waking up with the strongest feeling of love I have ever had before and was in tears for hours. The same day, without any knowledge of my dream, my grandmother called my father and said she had an interesting dream where she was in a room with nice furniture with the Savior and all he said was ‘Tell Eric I am sorry I could not stay longer and that I love him.’
  6. I remember when I was about 16 years old and my family was loading up in the car to go on a trip to Oregon for a week. I was extremely sick and wanted to go but didn’t think I should. I remember my father giving me a blessing and me be instantly and completely healed, getting in the car within 10 min. of the blessing and leaving on the trip with no sickness after that moment.
  7. I remember in the MTC at the start of my mission reading 1 Ne 11:32-33 one night. I remember feeling the spirit testify to me that Chris really did live and die for me. To this day it is my favorite scripture even though it is not a popular one and I feel the spirit each time I read it.

1 Nephi 11:32-33

“32 And it came to pass that the angel spake unto me again, saying: Look! And I looked and beheld the Lamb of God, that he was taken by the people; yea, the Son of the everlasting God was judged of the world; and I saw and bear record.

33 And I, Nephi, saw that he was lifted up upon the cross and slain for the sins of the world.”

  1. I remember on my mission a single older sister coming up to us after sacrament one day and asking for a blessing to be healed. I could not understand what she was saying and was not good at the language. I gave her the best blessing I could that she would be healed, it was very simple and short. I remember the next week when she came to us in tears and as I was looking up words in my dictionary to find out what she was saying realized she had been diagnosed with breast cancer but after the blessing when she went back to the doctor to discuss treatment options the doctors said it was gone and they couldn’t explain it. I saw God’s love for that sister.
  2. I remember going to college one day on Trax and meeting the most amazing woman I could imagine. Going on the first few dates with her felt like we had known each other for eternity and we ended up being married to her just 3 months later.   I know God’s hand was in this.
  3. I remember being young poor newlyweds and having a car that was so old I had to hit the battery with a hammer each morning in the winter to get it to start. One day it overheated, leaking radiator fluid all over the ground. I had no idea what to do except pray as I pulled over next to a very old abandoned looking house. I knocked on the door and a young man in his twenties came out and helped me patch it up enough for me to get home. I went back many times and was never able to find him again to thank him. I know he was a an answer to my prayer.
  4. I remember Mindy feeling prompted to do a FHE lesson on loving your parents with our one of our exchange students a few years ago. He did not have a good relationship with his father and disliked him. We felt prompted to tell him to try to have more love for his father and to tell his father that he loved him next time he spoke on the phone with him. A week later his father died on a bus that crashed with an oil tanker in Nigeria where he was working. We were grateful he was able to be on somewhat better terms with his father before he passed away.
  5. I remember being at the state fair and running over our son Lucas (with the stroller, not car!) after he fell out of the stroller. In the confusion our other son, Chase, disappeared in the crowd for almost an hour but I had a feeling of complete peace that everything was fine while we were searching for him. My wife was not as calm as a mother never should be in that kind of a situation.
  6. I remember feeling prompted heavily to start working on genealogy work & temple work recently. I remember wondering if it was even real or not and almost giving up on it because it was so time consuming. The same day I had these doubts Mindy’s sister who was helping to do initiatory for some of my ancestors told me for one particular name during initiatory she felt a whisper in her mind of “Thank you, Good Man, Good Man, Tell Him.” I never second guessed since then that it is an important work for me to do.
  7. I remember our son Chase not being able to go to the bathroom on the toilet and becoming frustrated with the situation as he was 3.5 at the time. Then one day he woke up and said “I am going to poop in the toilet today because I said a prayer and Jesus said he will help me.” It was the first prayer we know of that he uttered on his own accord and he was potty trained ever since.
  8. I remember being in a restaurant in Texas, away from home, and having a particularly hard day with the kids. When we were almost done our waiter delivered a free dessert to us that someone else bought for us with a note that simply said, “Because God Loves You” I have that note framed in our home now to remind me of that experience.
  9. I remember one night our son Lucas coming downstairs where Mindy and I were reading books and telling us he wanted his pajamas on. I felt the prompting to go get them for him but just told him he could do get them himself and ignored the prompting. A few minutes later we heard a very large crash and ran upstairs to find our entire dresser crashed over and on top of him with a LCD TV shattered to pieces around him. It was so heavy I could lift it only a few inches for Mindy to get him unpinned. We pulled him out and he just had a small bump on his head. He should have been crushed but we know angels protected him.
  10. I remember not wanting to have anymore kids but having an amazing experience adopting our last child from Alabama.  That experience was so amazing it has its own story that you can read here.
  11. I remember for each of these experience the hundreds of other experiences in between. As I do, I am sure you can remember the many times having something deep down inside you telling you that you are a child of Heavenly Father and knowing it is true. Let us not forget those precious moments ever!

Do we believe in following the prophets and apostles? If so follow this commandment: Dieter F. UchtdorfFirst doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. How can I NOT believe if I remember these experiences and how the Lord has been so merciful to me. I can choose to remember or to forget.

And Going back to Moroni – Remember how merciful the Lord has been to YOU! Sit down tonight and make a list of all spiritual experiences you have had in your life and you will be amazed. Try to keep a spiritual journal to remember them in times of need.

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