best. monday. ever.

I’m not gonna lie, I usually crash and burn on Mondays. They are not my forte. I’m usually overwhelmed by it and I miss Daniel Cakes after having had him with me every waking moment over the weekend. So Mondays usually suck. But not today and I’ll tell you why: I prayed.

I don’t always share spiritual experiences, but I felt like I needed to document this. I want to remember it.

I was asked to give a talk on the 24th on “increasing your faith”. It sounded totally ambiguous to me and nothing came to mind when I heard the topic. I even did a half hour of looking around on lds.org to help find other talks for inspiration. And I was coming up empty. So then it was Monday morning, this morning, and I had all three boys home because of midwinter break and a talk to write and a house to clean, laundry (of course) hanging over my head and blah, blah, blah, I was stressed before I even got out of my bed.

The morning was a little foggy and weird because I was up off and on starting at 5 am because of Ray, but I did get to sleep in a little because I didn’t have to rush out the door to get boys to school. I was going about my business, making breakfast, feeding Ray, putting in a load of laundry and wondering when I could find a few minutes to dedicate to study for my talk. I finally got Ray down for a morning nap and stopped and knelt by my bed. I very realistically prayed. I told the Lord that I didn’t know how I was going to do this because I could never carve out more than 15 minute increments to dedicate to anything during the day and that I needed help. I asked for the Lord to help me write this talk …. and fast. Really. I know everything is supposed to be on the Lord’s time table and I should submit to Him, but I was very seriously just telling him what I needed help with and asking for Him to bless me.

I sat down on my bed with the laptop on my legs and searched and read for about 15 minutes and I was so frustrated. I was not finding what I was looking for. I had to stop and change the loads, make lunch for the boys and go potty. I did those things and came back to the laptop. And then it worked. I found a great talk by Dallin H. Oaks that really got the ball rolling and that was it. Everything clicked. I don’t even know how it all worked out, but I wrote the whole talk, the whole thing and did so much around the house too. I got it all done and more. It made me think of this talk I heard about mothers and how they would be blessed and “made more than you are”. Today I felt like that was true.

I looked around at 4:30 pm and realized I had accomplished more than I have been able to do in over a week. Here’s the list of accomplishments:

• washed and folded three loads of clothes
•  wrote my whole talk
• rearranged Ray’s nursery
• made breakfast, lunch and dinner before 4:30 pm (had all day beef stew going in the oven all day and ready to eat at dinnertime)
• picked up the front room, my room, the kitchen and bathroom
• gave Liam a bath
• got the boys to do their chores
• swept the kitchen floor
• cleaned my craft area downstairs
• fed Ray 4 separate times
• cleared off the dresser in my room
• called Eddie Bauer about my ruined coat, then fixed my coat and washed it.
• saved the bouquet of dying flowers Daniel brought home for me a week ago
• checked and sent emails
• helped Noah read a chapter and a half of the Book of Mormon

Maybe that doesn’t sound like a lot to others, but for me, that was miraculous. I felt such an overwhelming feeling of love and gratitude by the end of the day that I had to kneel and thank my Father in heaven for hearing and answering my prayer so obviously and immediately. I didn’t think it could get better …. then Daniel called me at 4:45 pm and told me he was coming home early. I seriously almost burst into tears of joy. My cup runneth over … really. best. Monday. ever.