Earnest Prayers

I had a good talk with Hannah about how hard it can be to be humble enough to seek and receive answers to prayers. She'd been missing a take-home library book for over 2 weeks. When Lydia "borrowed" the book I had a vague feeling that I shouldn't let her have it, but she loved the book so much, and it wasn't a battle I felt willing to fight at the time.

So yeah, it was my fault the book was missing. I had prayed nearly every day to find it, but I was pretty nonchalant about it, because I knew it was in a localized area and that I should search as hard as I could before asking God to solve my problems for me. It wasn't until last week that I really started looking and getting desperate to find it.

Well, Friday morning I woke up early and couldn't sleep, and amidst my sleep-deprived stupor I really talked out my heart via a sleepy prayer about how I was worried about late fines, and how I felt like I had failed Hannah for not listening to promptings in the first place, and I asked God to please help me find the book before school. Well, for what I think is the first (maybe second) time in my life, I actually saw an image of the answer in my mind, and it was a little brown box in the living room that was filled with toys.

I fell back asleep for an hour, eventually woke up and helped Hannah get ready for school. When I walked downstairs to make sure she had her coat, snowpants, backpack, etc. I saw the box and dumped it out, and right there, laying flat near the bottom of the box, was Hannah's missing library book.

How humbling, how amazing. I am blown away every time Heavenly Father sees fit to show myself and my children that there is no miracle too small. Hannah and Abigail I feel are beginning to understand why I have such a firm testimony of prayer, and I hope it's helping them get one too.