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He Heard Me
My husband and I lived at the University of Utah in the married student housing in the early 1980s. We had two little children. My husband was a student at the law school, and therefore he was gone almost the entire day every day. So that pretty much left me home alone with the children. So my children and I spent a lot of time on the playground with other children and with the other moms. One of the women that I met on the playground was a Nigerian woman. She was pregnant with her first child. Her husband was…
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I Know You
I had been disappointed by answers from the Lord before but this felt the most confusing. In 2013, I’m at BYU. This was my first senior year. So I turned 21 the year before. And I’d always intended on serving a mission if I was still single, and I was, and that had been a big deal for me. I had taken mission prep. I had always been preparing for this thing. And then when it finally came time for me to start actually working on my papers, I finally realized you’re supposed to pray about this decision. So I…
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Finding God’s Fingerprints
I’ll never forget an experience I had several years ago, I was speaking at a huge event that thousands of women were attending. For the event, I had purchased a red dress that had a black satin sash around the waist. And that morning, as I was preparing for my turn to go on stage, I found that I was concentrating more on trying to keep that black satin sash tied together than I was on the details of my presentation. I kept going into the bathroom over and over again and realizing that that sash untied it would fall…
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I WAS LOST AND THEN FOUND
It was 7:30 and the convention had finished. The girls were going to stay back and play games with friends and my neice was good enough to set the car maps up for me to get back to the hotel. I knew my phone battery was very low but she thought there was plenty of battery to get me there. 2 minutes into the drive, my phone died. I had no navigation back to the hotel, and our hotel was at least 7 miles from the convention center. I had gone a different way than the other days to drop…
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The Miracle of Gratitude
Yesterday I wandered outside before it was too hot and sat in my swing chair. Usually I’ve got an earbud in my ear listening to something or talking to someone on the phone, constantly adding noise pollution to my thoughts. I took my earbud out and listened all around me. It was quiet. No sound at all. Then, I saw about 20 birds over in the park flying from the ground to the tree. I saw the action before I heard it. I leaned in, carefully listening to the birds. Then I heard them. Quiet at first, and then as…
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Miracles Do Exist!
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Pay It Forward
While sitting in a medical clinic waiting room, I noticed a mother with her daughter. The child wore a face mask and coughed many times. Her eyes were sunken, and her face was pale. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Her mother looked worn-out. The waiting room was small, so I heard everything she said. After she paid her co-pay for their visit, the receptionist reminded her of a past-due balance that was more than double what her current visit cost. The woman explained, with difficulty controlling her emotions, that she would not have any spare money until…
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Go Check on Wendi
When our oldest daughter, Wendi, was five, she attended morning kindergarten class. One day I sent her to school, then readied our two younger children to go shopping. I felt rushed because it usually took over two hours to do my grocery shopping, and I wanted to be done in time to pick up Wendi from school. So with my shopping list in one hand and my two preschoolers in the other, I set off for the store. About 20 minutes later I had a clear thought interrupt me: Darlene, go check on Wendi. I thought to myself, How silly!…
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Prompted
I am grateful for a teacher who encouraged his students to keep a journal of the whisperings or promptings of the Spirit in their lives. He directed us to note what we felt and what resulted. Little things became evident. One day I was frantically trying to complete some assignments and prepare for a trip. I had just been down to the laundry area of the dorm to move my clothes from the washer to the dryer. Unfortunately, all the dryers were in use, and they all had many minutes to go. I went back upstairs discouraged, knowing by the…
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Sand Trap
One Saturday morning many years ago, my brothers and sisters and I scurried around the house, doing our chores early. We were excited because Dad had promised to take the family for a ride in the five-year-old station wagon he had recently bought. We had wanted him to get a newer vehicle, but he said a newer car would be too expensive. Besides, he said, the one we bought was heavier and would be safer in an accident. That was an important factor for Mom, who had recently been in a terrible head-on collision and had almost died. Once we…
