Write This Down

I have promised myself that I'd be a better blogger if I was using it as a substitute journal. I'm just not very good at keeping a journal so I've been relying on this blog to help me out. However, it doesn't do much good if I don't update it very often. I envy my friends who religiously keep a blog and have vowed to be more like them - mostly so I don't forget things down the road. So for my own benefit, I'm going to try and write something once a week. It may be really short, or it may be a chapter book, as we said in elementary school. Either way, I'd like to be better about writing things down, even if they aren't entertaining or beautifully written.


I've also decided to really follow through with a goal I once had that was inspired by President Eyring's Conference talk, "O Remember, Remember". I really recommend going back and reading this talk.

"When our children were very small, I started to write down a few things about what happened every day. Let me tell you how that got started. I came home late from a Church assignment. It was after dark. My father-in-law, who lived near us, surprised me as I walked toward the front door of my house. He was carrying a load of pipes over his shoulder, walking very fast and dressed in his work clothes. I knew that he had been building a system to pump water from a stream below us up to our property.

He smiled, spoke softly, and then rushed past me into the darkness to go on with his work. I took a few steps toward the house, thinking of what he was doing for us, and just as I got to the door, I heard in my mind—not in my own voice—these words: “I’m not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down.”

I went inside. I didn’t go to bed. Although I was tired, I took out some paper and began to write. And as I did, I understood the message I had heard in my mind. I was supposed to record for my children to read, someday in the future, how I had seen the hand of God blessing our family. Grandpa didn’t have to do what he was doing for us. He could have had someone else do it or not have done it at all. But he was serving us, his family, in the way covenant disciples of Jesus Christ always do. I knew that was true. And so I wrote it down, so that my children could have the memory someday when they would need it.

I wrote down a few lines every day for years. I never missed a day no matter how tired I was or how early I would have to start the next day. Before I would write, I would ponder this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?” As I kept at it, something began to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done.

More than gratitude began to grow in my heart. Testimony grew. I became ever more certain that our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. I felt more gratitude for the softening and refining that come because of the Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ. And I grew more confident that the Holy Ghost can bring all things to our remembrance—even things we did not notice or pay attention to when they happened.

The years have gone by. My boys are grown men. And now and then one of them will surprise me by saying, “Dad, I was reading in my copy of the journal about when …” and then he will tell me about how reading of what happened long ago helped him notice something God had done in his day."

So starting today I'm going to take his advice and write down a few lines each night of how I saw the Lord's hand in my life that day. At least it will be something for me to look back on.

For today's issue of my blog, I will share with you how I saw the Lord's hand in my life today.

It was simple, and almost the last thing I heard someone say to me today, but in the circumstance, it meant more than most times. Three little words. I love you.