No place like home

Today wasn't my best day. I had every intention to be that awesome mom who can get all her kids dressed and ready and on time to church. And I did just that, so score one point for me. But then my aspirations to have those well dressed and groomed children listen and behave went downhill. And then even farther and farther downhill until I ended up in a pile of tears on my bed this evening, trying for the third time to get the baby down to bed for the night.

 

Amidst the tears and the almost there tantrum I was about to have with Heaven, I got a Facetime call. It was my husband, who had just woken up and was going to start his Monday but wanted to see how my Sunday had gone. I tried not to tell him too much, but he saw right through it and made me fess up.

 

Just like Heaven, he always knows.

 

We exchanged news and events and expressions of encouragement. And lots of emotions, from both of us.

 

He was able to attend church yesterday, which was my today. He wasn't wrestling four kids, but his experience was just as unique if not more:

 

"I walked in there feeling so alone. I mean, I have no one here (he's not there with his unit, rather he met a unit over there replacing one of their Airmen), and then I looked up, and there it was. It was that one picture of the Savior, and I suddenly knew I wasn't alone. And I knew that everyone in that room knew what I was feeling. Immediately people started welcoming me. 'Hi, I'm Brother Smith,' 'Hey, I'm Brother Jones.' I wasn't just with my brothers, but also with my Brethren, and everything was all of a sudden familiar. The welcome, the opening song, I even gave the opening prayer. And then the sacrament, the speaker, everything. It was just like home.... except everyone had a weapon." (HAHAHAHHHAAA! Leave it to him to throw in that detail so we didn't end up a sappy mess during our little face to virtual face online chat.)

 

I love that he had that experience. I love that he got a piece of home, thousands and thousands of miles away in the hot dusty desert. That's what the gospel of Jesus Christ can do. That's what His church represents. Home. And instead of saying, "There's no place like it," I can honestly tell you that stretched out over all of those miles, there were thousands and thousands of gatherings just like it today. In beautiful chapels with soft benches, and dusty barracks with a row or two of folding chairs. In villages and cities and mountainsides and meadows, millions gathered today to hear and feel the same comforting message of faith and hope and good things to come. We gather to be reminded of home, and next week we will do it all over again, even I, with the same distracted children seated next to me. Only this time I will be more grateful for such a familiar, but hardly commonplace or mundane, opportunity.