My testimony after hearing President Henry B Eyring at the conference of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Later Day Saints. This talk hit me as no other talk ever had. These were my thoughts after.
As I sat there listening tears of joy were streaming down my face. I have felt this overwhelming happiness in my life many times. It’s a happiness beyond all description. I felt this happiness first after I gave my heart to God. I had a mighty change of heart at the age of 19. It didn’t completely come over night but it came in many steps. It came through dreams of warning given to my mother for me. It came through personal experiences as well. The first time I felt the Holy Ghost, I didn’t even know what it was in the moment, I was 16 and at a friends house. We had got back from a night of raving and drugs. We got to her house and just crashed. When I woke up I had an overwhelming desire to return home. It was so strong that I couldn’t ignore it. It was so strong that it wiped out my desire to live that life anymore. To me the life had been fun and adventurous, thats what I wanted, fun. As far as I was concerned I was having fun. It was only in the quiet moments when I was alone that I felt sad, lonely. This pushed me to stay away from home as much as I could. With friends, drinking and drugs I felt powerful, I felt invincible and I was having a grand adventure. Until that moment when that desire came and consumed me, I never went back to that friends house again. I never did any drugs again. It was so powerful that I didn’t even have withdrawals. I had been doing drugs for two years, just that night I had mixed some sort of laced mariguana with a couple of doses of acid. I should have probably been dead, but somehow I wasn’t. My mom had already told me that she had seen my death and that if I didn’t stop thats where me future was headed. So God sent the Holy Spirit to intervene in answer to my mothers many pleas. She spent many nights pacing and praying for me in the Living room, I didn’t know it at the time, this overwhelming feeling was in answer to those prayers. It wasn’t my faith that saved me, I didn’t have any nor did I want any. I didn’t change completely in that moment. The complete change happened a few years later. Again one day an overwhelming feeling and desire to stop doing what I was doing came over me. I threw my pack of smokes out the window one day on my way to my Aunt Bettys house, again no withdrawals just overwhelming peace and assurance that it was the right thing to do. I joined my mother at church from that Sunday on. I cleaned up my act in every way possible. A month or so later I started to seriously date the man that would eventually become my husband. He was preparing to go on a late mission, he had been a bit lost as well as a teenager. So I had to wait for him for two years. It was a wonderful two years of growing and learning. In this two years I felt a connection to my Heavenly parents like I had never felt in all my life. I not only felt the love of a wonderful Father in Heaven but of a loving Mother in Heaven as well. During this time God blessed me with a set of dreams that taught me many precious things. I walked in my dreams with Satan, it was a feeling of fear that was equally beyond description. I could not in that moment nor could I now ever deny the existence of a devil or his desire to make me miserable like unto himself. The very next night I walked in my dreams with my Savior himself, i was not permitted to remember what was said or what He looked like, without a doubt though I knew who He was. The feeling of pure joy consumed my every being. Anything could have happened it that day and nothing would have pierced through that happiness. I cannot even to this day deny that I have a Savior who loves me and has forgiven me of all my sins,every one!! The mighty change of heart came and I have and will never be the same person that I once was, I owe my life to a mother of faith, like the mothers of the stripling warriors, To a Father and a Brother who knows me and loves me, who cared for me even when I didn’t care at all!! After two years of prayers, church attendance and faithful tithe paying I entered the temple with my earthly Mother on one side and my Heavenly Mother on the other. Knowing they were both there was a feeling I will never forget!!!! I walked out of the same temple a few months later with my husband by my side. God promised me I would be happy and blessed with a strong son of God and He kept that promise!! He also said many children would enter my home, this to is a promise that has kept. God also chose to take some of my children back home, Kolob was especially hard for me in the moments when I was hoping God would chose to save him where particularly hard. After I told God that I accepted that He needed him home I was again filled with the overwhelming peace and happiness, a joy beyond words. Only with this peace and joy was I able to burry my son, only with my faith and the knowledge I had that families are forever could I leave his body there in the ground. I felt my son happy, I knew then and I know even now that he is in Heaven a missionary furthering Gods work in the Spirit World. Kolob was a gift to me that I might not have ever received if I had walked away from that first feeling to change, he would have never been my boy. It may seem odd to some to call that a blessing but it was. He is mine forever, my angel and my beautiful boy. He is also Gods as well, His missionary in Heaven saving and teaching many souls, Many of his brothers and sisters in need of this joy and this peace. Most recently we lost another baby, I was so angry. I forgot about all these blessings, how easily we forget when consumed by anger and emotions. In that moment though it was brought to my mind the very story of Joseph Smith that was said in this talk. The part that came to me was, this is but a small moment and if thou endure it well thou wilt be exalted on high. I don’t think getting angry was exactly enduring it well, but God was reminding me to have faith and it would all be ok. I also felt this deep peace and joy when my mother passed just a little over a year after my baby Kolob. I was blessed twice to see her filled with joy and happiness, running through a field of flowers with long flowing hair. She looked so young, so full of life and so happy. And again the day of her funeral when she sat beside me and laughed as my husband was chasing our son up by the pulpit. She apparently found it very funny and her Joy and humor filled my soul so completely that I was laughing, even at my mothers funeral. I know they are all together and they are all happy. Hearing this talk brought all these times and moments in my life when I have felt that indescribable joy and peace, even love. I am far from perfect, I still get angry, hurt and have a hard time with trials but God always finds away to remind me of the many many times He has stood right there and blessed my life, changed my heart and given me everything I ever desired in this life. I am full, complete and so overwhelming happy!!!! I wish I could take a piece of what I feel right now and share it with everyone on this planet. I wish I could take a drop of my oil of faith and pass it around to everyone. I would never wish my hard life on anyone, a lot of it from my own bad choices, I would wish, I do pray that someday everyone everywhere can feel this same joy and peace which at times has so fully consumed my very soul and heart. Never could I ever turn my back on my Heavenly Father again, or my Savior, I have been saved and changed through the love of my God and my Savior. As well as the love of a mother, a mother with powerful faith, never underestimate your job or the power of your prayers for your children. It took ten years of my mom prayers, fasting and faith!! She will always and forever be a special person in my heart. The way I feel about her for the sacrifices, the love and the many prayers she sent up for me, I cannot begin to describe. God knew I needed her as my mother in this life. I wouldn’t have made it with anyone else!!! Everything in my life has been a blessing from a God who loves me, cares for me, knows me, fought for me and wants me to return to Him and be happy. I am filled with Love at this moment for my brothers and sisters here on this earth fighting right now, don’t give up and know that no matter what God calls you to go through it is but a small moment and if you endure it well you will be exalted on high. This is my testimony in the name of my Savior Jesus Christ. Amen May God fill your soul with peace, happiness and joy!!!!!!
A stay at home mom 