Ere You Left Your Room This Morning Did you Think to Pray?

Visiting Teaching is a wonderful thing that happens in the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints.  Each sister is assigned to visit and teach other sisters each month.  This visit is to build each other up spiritually and physically.  There are numerous accounts of people receiving rich blessings both by visiting and by being visited.

Sometimes the grief that I'm working through leaves me feeling quite powerless.  I feel unable to reach out, to be vulnerable or to help someone else.  Wanting to be totally, completely alone is new to me.  I
generally gain a great deal of my strength from my relationships with people.

This morning it took every ounce of strength that I had to get up, get ready, and go to church.  The Relief Society sisters were warm and inviting.  They always make me feel loved and supported (why do I hesitate to be there with them?)

A sweet sister rose to give the Visiting Teaching message.  I cringed, and wanted to run right out of the door.  You see this wonderful sister is someone that I am supposed to Visit Teach.  I have been
THE very worst Visiting Teacher.  I think I've physically visited her once or twice in this last year.

In the last month I have at least started to reach out through email.  Then one day I felt inspired to tell her that I was praying for her.  I really was praying for her, and for her family.  You see, I LOVE this wonderful group of people.  My inability to Visit has nothing to do with her lack, and all to do with my feelings of inadequacy.

Now can you imagine that she shared my attempt to Visit Teach.  She told that she was having a very rough time in her life.  One day the spirit told her that the people who love her are praying for her.  The next day I sent her a message and told her that I was praying for her.

The Holy Spirit knows our hearts...he knows what we need, and what we NEED TO DO FOR OTHERS.  I'm so grateful that I felt that inspiration to reach out in prayer.

The other thing that it reminded me was the power of prayer.  It is not some ethereal words that we mumble into an uncaring universe.  Prayer when uttered with faith, even as small as a grain of mustard seed (have you ever seen how tiny a grain of mustard seed is?) can move mountains.  In this case it linked my heart to this beloved lady that I Visit Teach, and reminded her that she is loved, and it also connected she and I to our beloved Heavenly Father.  Mountain moved.