PRovERbs 3:5-6

I had a dream last night.  It was stake conference.  I was sitting in the far, far back row of the gym like I've done every year for conference, and a few rows in front of me I see Sister Tsang turn around and signaling me to go up on the stand (which is so crazy of all people, because I haven't seen her forever and I know they were saying goodbye to everybody this week before taking off to the Taipei Taiwan Mission.  It's so funny how dreams work sometimes).  So, I slowly make the longest walk of my life, through all the hundreds of people and make my way up to the microphone.  My heart is racing, I can't breath, and I don't know what I'm supposed to say, then I wake up.

I lied awake in bed for a while, and really pondered about what I would have said while I was up there on the stand (maybe I was still partially asleep or something because I was really determined I needed to have a testimony solid and ready in case I was asked to go up again, LoL).  And I think this is what I would say....

Yesterday was a pretty eventful day for our little Blackburn family.  We've been married almost 3 years now with one main goal in mind... Get Mitch through school so he can be a pilot.  We've been working, and schooling, and saving, and planning everything the best we know how.  And we thought we had a solid plan and had everything worked out.  We've been getting ready to move down to Vegas for the last stretch of Mitch's flight school.  We've got a place picked out and started job searching and everything.  And we discovered a little hiccup yesterday.... actually it's a pretty big hiccup, and will definitely require some re figuring and improvisation, and we're not exactly sure how we're gonna do this.  It made us stop and look at everything, and it's been kind of scary trying to think of what we plan on doing next.

But even with all this chaos, I know everything will work out and be ok.  Mitch was set apart a few weeks ago for his YM calling at church.  And during the prayer, he was told "all our plans and goals we've been working towards will work out."  

It's funny how throughout our whole lives we're taught to trust in the Lord.  We hear testimonies and personal miracles where we sit back and think, "Hmm, that's interesting."  But when the time comes in our lives when we're faced with a trial we don't understand, do we remember and still have faith when it counts?

Every Friday morning all through high school was scripture mastery in seminary.  Remember Fridays?  I used to sit with Jill MacDonald (Jill Hill now :) ) and we'd set the scriptures to familiar tunes to help us with our memorization so we could get a sticker that day.  Forever echoing in my mind, I don't think I could even forget it if I tried, is Proverbs 3:5-6 to the tune of The ABC's.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart

and lean not unto thine own understanding

in all thy ways acknowledge him

and he shall direct thy paths.

Proverbs 3:5 and 6

Next time wont you sing with meeeeeee

It's SO EASY to forget to be open-minded, to completely rely on the Lord and realize we don't see the whole picture like he does.  It's like a man trying to describe to a fish in a little pond what his world looks like.  The fish would never be able to understand because all he's ever known is his little world of rocks, water, and algae.  Things happen for a reason.  Maybe this is just a test of our faith or an experience to make us stronger, or maybe the direction our plans were going wasn't the right path for us.  Whatever the reason, I'm gonna go ahead and just realize we can figure this out and everything will be ok.

Like Grandpa Crockett said when his beautiful backyard was destroyed in flames after a 4th of July incident with the neighborhood kids, "We'll get to work and we'll build from the ashes and make it better than ever!"

This is a video I made for an LDS video contest a while back.  And I'm really, really embarrassed and insecure about it.  REALLY.  And I never planned or wanted to share it with anyone, but I feel like it kind of has to do with what I'm talking about, not really, but kind of.  And I guess I had that dream about Sister Tsang for a reason, and maybe it was so I could blog about it.  Who knows.  But here it is, and yeah...