Prayer Works!

This is going to seem like a ridiculous little story to some, and I agree, there is some level of ridiculousness to it! :)

This is the background to the story.... I am the primary chorister in our ward and I had made some bookmarks for my kids.  On the bookmarks were heart shaped leaves I had found while on a hike up on Mt Graham.  It was something that would not be easy to duplicate due to having those leaves on the bookmark.  I had this whole music time about "Looking For the Good," planned out and then for several weeks I was unable to present this singing time.  So needless to say I misplaced the bookmarks in the mean time.

I knew I had put the bookmarks in a "good and safe spot," I just couldn't find that spot...hahaha!  Happens to me quite often really :)

So I looked for these bookmarks for a good week and a half....off and on.  I thought really hard about where I would have put them but I never could come across them.  I asked all my kids if they had seen them.  I spent a good deal of time looking for these silly bookmarks. I just could not find them.  Over the week and a half of looking for them, I kept thinking I should get down and kneel and ask Heavenly Father to help me find them.  But then I would think, oh I can find them.  I kept thinking that is what you tell your kids to do when you want them to learn the power of prayer.  "Go say a prayer to help you find it," you'd say.  I've told my kids that many of times because I wanted them to learn to go to Heavenly Father when they have problems.  I know this lesson myself, but in my adult mind this wasn't a big enough problem to bother my Heavenly Father about and so for a week and a half I didn't.  

Then one evening, tonight actually, I was frustrated that I still hadn't and couldn't seem to find the bookmarks.  And so I finally humbled myself and knelt down in Hunter's room and ask my Heavenly Father to please help me find the bookmarks I had made.  It was a short and simple prayer, but full of humility and faith.  I stood up from saying my prayer walked into the kids office and did like I had done a gazillion times before, I thought about where I would have put the bookmarks.  A minute hadn't passed when I had the thought that I had left them in a box I was going to use that Sunday, back a month ago, for my singing time.  I remembered right where the box was hidden in my closet behind my clothes.  It wasn't a place I would just run across at all.  I walked straight into my closet, looked behind my clothes and into the box and sure enough the BOOKMARKS WERE THERE!!!

I started to cry!  I was grateful to learn 2 things in that very moment....

I learned that prayers are answered, sometimes in 2 years and sometimes, like tonight, in two minutes.

The bigger lesson I believe was that Heavenly Father cares about the little things!  He really does!  He cares about me individually and he cares about silly little bookmarks.  Why does he care about the bookmarks, because they mattered to me and therefore they matter to him!

I immediately knelt by my bed and said a prayer thanking my Heavenly Father for teaching me this lesson.

I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I know that prayer works and that prayers are answered.  I am grateful to know that Heavenly Father is real and that he loves me.