28

I started a list of things I am grateful for, counting from 1-28, starting with 1 True Love of my Life, adding 3 wonderful children, 6 awesome siblings.... 26 houses I have lived in to always keep shelter over me.... and, finally, 28 wonderful, challenging, lesson-filled years of my life.

Today is my birthday. I don't feel any older. Well, emotionally at least. Some of you know some of the things I have had the challenge of dealing with over the past two months. Many of you don't know the half of it. But when I look over the past two months, and then add everything I have been reading, praying about, meditating over.... I feel grateful for the overall experience of it. There is no school on Earth that could teach the Life Lessons that each of us learn. There is no teacher on this planet that could help us understand what it is all for, or why it all happens.

Physically, I feel like I am trapped in a 90-year-old body, dealing with all the inhibiting challenges of body exhaustion, injuries, lack of ability to process thought as instantly as I use to. The challenges of the past two months have created a barrier, a hurdle, one more challenge I need to face and overcome. Once I do this, what next will there be to teach me another lesson? What lessons have I left to learn?

I feel like I have begun to travel the next spiritual plain, of many I am sure, of things I can take and absorb from these trials and blessings (they travel in pairs, don't you know). My teacher.... Our teacher.... has so many wonderful things in store for me to learn. Some of those lessons come with "hands-on experience". And why not? SO much has been given for me to be able to be here, to be with loved ones, to be able to go through each day, striving to be a better person.

I am so grateful for the Atonement of my Brother, my Savior, Jesus Christ. I am grateful for His love, and the love of His, and my, Eternal Father in Heaven. I am grateful for the inspiration and guidance that the Holy Ghost gives me each day, each second of my life. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to live and learn with Their guiding light. I am grateful for the Restored Gospel, the restored Keys of the Priesthood, the Eternal Covenants and blessings I have made and received through the sacredness of the Holy Temple. I have no doubt in my mind, in my heart, in my entire being that these things are true, sacred and without them the puzzle that is life is incomplete. This is my testimony, in the name of my Savior and Brother, Jesus Christ. Amen.