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#Prayer

I'm a super fan of the #LightTheWorld movement, and this week we're all encouraged to share an experience on social media when prayer helped us carry a burden.

Can I narrow it down to just one time?

Last year, in prayer, I pleaded for a loving God to fill me with His love when I struggled to care for a difficult student. God filled me with that perfect, eternal love for his child. Over the course of the school year, that student became one of my most beloved, and I will never forget him.

Five years ago, I was struggling and exhausted and felt very alone as I lived in a foreign country in South America. I was terribly homesick. In prayer, I thanked God for my family. He filled me with an endless string of the most vivid memories with each individual in my family--it seemed like our past conversations came alive in living color, playing on a movie reel in my mind like never before. Home no longer seemed so far away. I felt the love of God & my family members and found renewal and strength.

This month, I confided in prayer to my Heavenly Father that we didn't have the same amount of financial resources that we'd had in the past, but if I could have His help to still provide meaningful gifts for the people I care about. This Christmas was one of the most special, and while the presents were far less expensive, the receivers seemed just as delighted. And in turn, I received so much more than I could have anticipated in gifts of all kinds (temporal, emotional, and spiritual gifts among them).

At age twelve, through tears, I asked God if he could help guide my lost cat home. And He did before the prayer was over. I immediately went back to my knees and through more tears thanked him for helping her find her way.

At age seventeen, after the deaths of three dear classmates and friends, I could not form the words because my emotions had locked my throat tight with grief. On my bedroom floor, in pleas half-formed and unspoken, I asked God to help me understand. He led me to Alma 40:12. Amidst sorrow and confusion, I felt hope.

God is there. I know he is! And HE IS GOOD. He listens to prayers because He's a loving Father, and I see the reality of that in my life. I pray you do too :)

#LIGHTTHEWORLD

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