"It's a Christmas Miracle!"

Foreword: With help from the title, I want you to think of that episode of the Brady Bunch where Carol losses her voice right before she sang in church for Christmas, okay??
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I'm a voice major. Choral Education to be exact. Because voice is my main instrument, I'm required to take vocal classes and private voice lessons, obviously, and one of the grading criteria for this class is to pass a jury.  At the end of each semester I have to get up and sing in front of a panel of professors, and I get graded on my singing.  This is the equivalent of a final test that other classes would give, except it's completely different; it's not just 15-20 percent of your grade like other classes I'm in, it's 50 percent of the grade. That's right. 50%.
So you try your hardest to perfect your music and stay healthy and prepared at every moment, and then something truly awful happens.  It's less than a week before your jury, and you wake up with a terribly sore throat.
NOOO! You scream internally, because heaven knows you can't, for the life of you, make any sound come out of your mouth except the hacking of a cough which hurts like none-other.
You think to yourself: surely it's just because I haven't gotten up and warmed up my voice- it will go away as the day goes on.
But the next day comes, and the sore throat is still there, burning, and your chest hurts from all the coughing, and you can't believe your jury (in which you have to sing lots of F5s and even an Ab5) is in four days. 4 DAYS. How is it even humanly possible to be healed of this sickness in 4 days?!

And then  you remember what you read in your scriptures the previous night.  You had been discouraged, and feeling ill, but you pulled out your scriptures and started reading in 3 Nephi 17.  The Lord was still visiting, and about to leave when suddenly He's filled with great compassion and asks that all the sick be brought to Him so that He may heal them, and because of their faith they are healed.  You continue to study this chapter though, because wow were there some great blessings that came in a situation similar to yours, so you look through footnote scriptures, and as your turning from one to another, you lose your grip on the book you're holding and lose your spot, for the book has opened to another page. It's landed on Mark 5, and a single verse is already underlined and draws your attention immediately to it: verse 34.

"Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace and be whole of thy plague."

WHAT.
Yeah. I wasn't even turning to that scripture. It just appeared.  Heavenly Father must really love me. And I think because I was searching truth, He gave it to me.

All today I've been thinking of ways I can channel my faith and be healed.  Immediately what I thought of was to have a priesthood blessing. And then I thought about what others may think if I ask for another blessing when I'm not even the only person who's sick.  I shared these thoughts with the friend I asked to give me a blessing. He assured me that asking for a blessing was not a sign of weakness, but of strength and humility; it shows that I turn to the Lord in my trials.  I was reminded of D&C 6:36 where it states to look unto Him in every thought, to doubt not and fear not. What I took from this scripture was that it's okay to turn to the Lord for strength in every thing, especially when it's important to us. I learned that I shouldn't fear man's opinion of me; it's okay to ask for blessings when we've been striving to stay righteous and are in need.
So Trevor and Jonathan came and gave me a blessing. It was beautiful, and I wish I had recorded it.

Then there's Nicole. She's amazing, I tell you! Nicole has been heaven sent, that's for sure, and I don't know how I would've survived this past week, nay, this past semester, without her offering me love and support the entire way. She has been the biggest blessing to me.
She has been praying for me, and offering to help me every minute this week, and even put my name on the temple prayer role and told her family to pray for me because she realized how important juries is.  Then she called over the guy she's dating to come give me another blessing this morning before my jury, and assured me that asking for another blessing is not bad at all.
So Jameson came over and gave me a beautiful blessing, and this time I recorded it.

HOW GRATEFUL I AM FOR PEOPLE WHO MAKE IT SO EASY TO LIVE THE GOSPEL AND FEEL GOD'S LOVE.

Having worthy priesthood holders all around is truly so amazing to me- that I could call on almost any of my neighbors and they'd be over in minutes to use their priesthood power. They're the greatest!

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So juries:
I was really nervous, and at the same time, not at all nervous.  It's a weird thing to experience.
But I got to the building and was so glad that Heavenly Father sent angels before me so that I would know a familiar face as I got there to calm me down a bit.  Brooklyn, a friend from choir, was there and as we conversed, she just soothed me so much and I felt everything would be okay because Brooklyn was there to answer my dumb questions and give me the best advice and be my friend.
And then more angels arrived as I waited and just so many tender mercies as I went into the room to perform (side note: the Caine Room, where I performed, is the epitome of a Jane Austen novel setting. I'm pretty sure one of the professors sitting by the window was actually Mr. Bingley writing a letter, but this is besides the point of this blog post.), and I'm just so grateful to be a daughter of a Heavenly Father who loves me, and I love Him!!
Although I was nowhere near perfect, I did my best in that moment and just tried to perform like everything was normal.

Basically, this whole experience was a Christmas miracle, but unlike the episode of the Brady Bunch, I recognize and know that this all happened because of a loving Heavenly Father and the faith I exercised in Him.

Have faith, kids. God loves you and is looking out for you. He'll bless you if you just turn to Him.

These things I know to be true, and I say them in the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

P.S. My Relief Society Presidency gave our apartment little photos of Christ, and this was mine. On the back, it said, "The Savior is my friend and knows my every need."  I found it very uplifting during this discouraging trial. :)

Give Love, Not Gifts

Let me start with a question that I want you to answer for yourself.
What is your love language?

If you don't know, go here and take a little quiz that will give you a pretty good idea.

Then I want you to think about those you love most. What is their love language? Generally it's the top one or two love languages that affect a person most, in my opinion.

Now think about this Christmas season.  There's a large focus of showing love, right? Because Christ's light and love is something we try to emulate especially at this time of year, but have you noticed that people try to show love in a generic way at Christmas time? And that way is usually through gifts.
The problem with this, is that this is not everyone's number one love language, so getting them a gift is not very meaningful.  I mean, have you ever tried to think of the perfect gift for someone, but had the hardest time thinking of what they would want and be really excited and happy with?  My thoughts are that it's so hard to think of gift ideas because we're thinking giving a physical object is the only way we can show love, the only type of 'present' we can give.

From personal experience of taking the quiz, and other friends taking it as well (hopefully my roommates don't mind me sharing), the love language of getting gifts has come in last place by a long shot for most of us.   Maybe we're unique, but for people similar to us, I don't think it's too far-fetched to say that gift-giving is not the number one way we'd like to be shown love this Christmas.

In Relief Society yesterday, a young women raised her hand and shared similar thoughts with us.  She pointed out that Christmas time is a time to show love, and that we should tailor the love we give to others for them, and not just go with the flow and try and find a good gift. She shared that by loving others how they feel most loved is the best possible way we could ever love them.

Say someone's love language was quality time. Do you really think buying them an expensive gift, and simply dropping it on their doorstep would be a better Christmas present to them than coming over and talking for a bit while doing something simple like making snowflakes??
Personally, I would definitely opt for making snowflakes and talking, over making someone spend money on something that I might not even like, or ever use.

I challenge you to think of the people you want to show love to this season, and perhaps you still get them presents, but try and give them the kind of love they deserve in the way that's best for them. :) And maybe you can change your own Christmas-Wish List to things that fit your love language.

May your Christmas season be filled with Christ's love, and may you be a reason others feel it too. :)