More of My Soul's Desire

Heavenly Father is the Master of communication. The other night I was all in a dither...I just felt so incongruent. There were things in my life that I didn't understand and that made me nervous. I had talked with my roommate Tammy, and that helped a little. Then I sat and played the piano for a while. The strains of "I Need Thee Every Hour" calmed my nerves slightly; mostly they just expressed the truth about my situation. Truly, I needed my Father.

I got ready for the night and then knelt next to my bed. As I began my nightly prayer, my pleas were somewhat "vain repetitious." My leg had a bit of a muscle twitch and I gently tapped the night stand next to my bed. Unexpectedly I heard a loud crash; it caused me to jump and look. One of my pictures on the shelf of the stand had fallen down. I quickly picked it up and put it back without really looking at it and returned to my prayer. The muscle twitched again, and once again I heard a crash. Looking over, I noticed that the same picture had fallen again. That picture has never fallen before nor since, even when I climb on the night stand to get into bed (which is extra tall). This time when I picked it up I looked at the scripture written next to a painting of Christ helping two children out of a rushing river. "Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not" (D&C 6:36). 

Like I wrote at the start of this post, Heavenly Father is the Master of communication. Either I wasn't listening to anything else or He just really wanted to make His point in a tender and somewhat comical way. Whatever the motive for this method, I got the intended message. It was that I was not praying as He had taught me to pray. I stopped my racing thoughts and took a few deep breaths. Then I looked to my Savior. Together He and I started over, and I prayed this time in His name. My words were what He would have me pray, and it wasn't really what I was expecting to ask for -- it was better. He is so good to me!

I told Tammy later that I didn't really resolve anything that was racing through my mind, but I was on good relationship terms with my Father in Heaven, which is really all that matters anyway. Last night I read this in 1 Nephi 18:21, "And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had prayed ... there was a great calm."