What a Saint!

So, I just wanted to tell everyone how amazing my friend Lyssa is. Lyssa and I go to church together and we are visiting teaching companions in our ward.

(FYI for my non-Mormon readers out there- a ward is basically a relatively small and local group of members of about 300 to 400 people which have been divided into a congregation from out of out of the total membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints which has about 13+ million members total. Also, if you don't know what exactly visiting teaching is, it is a divine system set up among the women in our church to watch over and take care of each other. The men have a program too called Home Teaching. With visiting teaching the women are set up in pairs and are then assigned and organized to "visit" two, three or four other women in the ward. It is set up in such a way that all the women in the ward who want to be visiting teachers can be but even if there are those who are not visiting teachers themselves, they still have their own visiting teachers who are there for them. At least monthly, the visiting teachers go to their homes and visit with them and share an uplifting message and basically make sure they are doing OK and see if there is anything they can do to help them out in anyway at anytime. And then they keep in touch throughout the month is case anything new comes up. Some of my greatest friendships at church have come because of visiting teaching and I know what a brilliant and inspired program it is.) Hope all that made sense. Sorry, this posting has a lot of "Mormonese." I'll try to avoid that in the future.

So, anyways, getting back to my original point... Lyssa and I visiting teach Ati, Katrina and Maelynn. Lyssa, being a good visiting teacher and a good friend, knew that Maelynn's anniversary was coming up this month- it was earlier this week in fact. She also knew that Maelynn needed some R&R alone with her hubby without the kids so they could unwind from the day to day craziness of life. Note, Maelynn has five kids under the age of 7 including twin two year old boys. Needless to say, her life can be hectic. So, while Lyssa was praying one day about a month ago, she felt inspired by the Spirit to offer to babysit Maelynn's kids for 4 days over her anniversary. Of course Maelynn was way excited and accepted her offer. Now, if that doesn't seem amazing enough, Lyssa has three little kids of her own. Can you imagine 8 little kids under 7?!? Good thing Lyssa's house is much bigger than mine because there is no way I could attempt that in my tiny house. I guess most people would think Lyssa is completely insane but I think she is awesome.

Now, if that doesn't all seem crazy enough, just three weeks ago Maelynn was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Sad, SAD, SAD! I am sure you will find me blogging about that a lot in the future since I find myself profoundly effected by the whole situation... And yet, as seemingly tragic as the circumstances are, I think it is wonderful to know that even before any of the people in this story knew just how badly Maelynn needed this help, God was mindful of her situation and inspired Lyssa to help her out in such an extraordinary way. I also know that as wonderful as Lyssa is and as much work as it was to watch over all those little kids, it was truly God's work that she was doing. Therefore from at least the time she received the inspiration to do it to at least the time it was over, she was also empowered and enabled to accomplish all that needed to be done. It's not like God would ask her to do something and then abandon her in her time of need. I know that most often that is how God accomplishes His work- through people doing things for other people. What a blessing it is for ordinary people to be trusted and entrusted with God's work, to be empowered to accomplish things they never thought they could. Pretty cool if you ask me. I know that to many people out there, such things may just seem like a coincidence or just a nice story but to me it was a simple example of how deeply God loves each of us and how despite the difficulties of life, He is always there to provide His tender mercies so the hard parts of life don't consume us. I think that if we are paying attention, we will see that God is completely involved in each of our lives and that He is always pouring out His blessings, whether we notice or not.