I had the most interesting experience tonight.

Simple and profound.

Today as I walked Millie to school I recognized something –

since being called to be the primary president I have turned into an A1 grump.

The reason is three fold:

1. I am the mother of two small children and when I add another 5o children to the mix all of the sudden, I feel totally out of my depth, actually I felt out of my depth when it was just two small children so I guess that I am drowning at this point

2. I have felt under spiritual attack – (Dear Satan, you stink! Please go bother someone else.)

3. The harder you work, the more vulnerable you become to the callousness of others

Whatever the reasons – I want to toss them off! BE GONE, GRUMPY LIZA! This is an official invitation to GO. As in out the door, never to return.

Tonight as Millie lay next to me in bed (Jan is out of town and so Millie always sleeps in his spot when he is gone) I was reading to her from the scriptures. We read her a scripture every night and I am pretty sure she listens, but it is in a half-hearted way. I was trying to convey to her what the Savior has done for us.  And that if we repent, are baptized, follow Jesus the result is – YOU GET EVERYTHING HE HAS! These concepts are pretty major for a four year old (they are pretty major for a 33 year old) and then I said to her, “Millie if we didn’t have Jesus than when the day comes that you or I die – that would be it. We couldn’t be together.” The look on her face was one of total and utter disbelief. She heard that. And I felt the truth of it as I said it to her.

Later in the evening I was blog hopping. I learned that a woman I know is going to have her sixth child, I looked at photos of a beloved friend’s newly decorated home and we exchanged emails (I love you, Zi!), I looked at my cousins food blog and wished that she was still East Side and that I could drive to her house with a fork in my purse, ring the bell, sit down in her kitchen and TUCK IN to whatever she was making, I jumped over to another cousins blog and read about her futile attempts to buy a mattress for her pack and play – boy did she get the run around! I looked at a blog where a woman had moved to France for three months and renovated a house, I then jumped over to a blog of a mother of three little kids who is a very gifted photographer – and on her blog was a photo of her sister-in-law dressed in black, at her mother’s funeral. The photograph was so moving – apparently this woman’s mother died suddenly and unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm. This mommy had been called home and here was her beautiful daughter, in tears, placing a rose on her mother’s coffin. I thought of my own mother. Of how much she means to me. I thought of Millie who I’d just been trying to teach about moments like the one this girl was suffering though. I wept for this beautiful girl in the photo. I may not know her – but in a way I am her, we are all her.

All these people: Their lives. Their news. Their dreams. Their efforts. Their contributions. Their daily struggles. Their victories. Their pain.

As I jumped from blog to blog I felt the same way I do when I drive through Manhattan and watch the throngs of people streaming past me. HUMANITY! IS! REMARKABLE!

At the center of it all, is Jesus Christ.

Then I went upstairs and read my scriptures. I read about Christ’s betrayal, his trial and crucifixion. Certain moments really stood out to me as I read. When the soldiers showed up to arrest Jesus, I so touched by how quickly Jesus identified himself and made sure that his friends didn’t get hurt, he says, “I am the one you are looking for please let these men go.”  Another moment that just got me was when he was taken to the high priests and they are so rude to him and then one of them has the audacity to hit him in the face. How could they have done that to him? I don’t know why it hurt me so deeply, but it did. Perhaps it is because although I may have never physically slapped Him, I know that in another way I am guilty of taking him for granted every day. His love, patience and kindness I cannot live without and YET I forget!  The other moment that really stood out to me was when he talked to Mary at the tomb as a resurrected, triumphant being. He tells her not to touch him because he hasn’t ascended to his father and her father. His God and her God. As our savior, he invites us into the most intimate and glorious relationship in the universe. He lived perfectly. He never once let his father down. So that relationship – the one he shares with his Father, becomes one that he willingly shares with us.  Christ’s love and atonement make a bridge for you and me to our Father. We couldn’t have it without him.

I can’t believe that he did this for us. But I am so grateful that he did.

As I read through these verses Millie reached out for me, in her sleep, and I could hear my little Clara coughing in her room. After I said my prayers I looked up and the first thing I saw was this  –

My daughter. She looked so beautiful to me. Lit by the bedside lamp she seemed to be glowing. (Maybe it wasn’t just the lamp light, could a few celestial rays have made their way to my little bed room?) This little person, who I call M I N E, is only mine because of Jesus Christ. I felt this in such a profound way.

I just wanted to thank Him, publicly for what he has given me – everything – and for what he has promised me if I just keep at it – everything and more. I want the world to know that I have signed up with him, to fight for his cause, to do his work as best I can.

I love him.

Clara just started crying (by golly, so am I).

So I guess this is the end of this post.

And the beginning of a HAPPIER me.

(P.S. To everyone who has had to endured the A1 grump,  I am sorry.)