How it all started.

My sister made me do it.....

My sister, Diane, and I talk a lot. She lives in Ohio and I live in New Mexico. A few weeks ago, I read her a talk that I had given in church that morning. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and periodically the members are asked to give talks during sacrament meeting. A "talk" in my church is similar to a "sermon" in your church. January 17, 2021 was my turn. The Bishop (i.e. Minister/Pastor) left it up to me to come up with my topic. After much prayer and pondering, God gave me the topic and the talk that I was to give that Sunday: "God is in your story." After church I read it to my sister over the phone. When I finished she said, "Maria, you have so much to share with others. I told my friend Jamie about you, and she thinks you should start a blog. So do I." I balked at the idea at first, but she persisted. And that is how this blog started.

I hope that she is right and that I do have something relevant or inspirational to share with others. Because I know that God is in my story, He will help me develop the content for this blog. I look forward to this new and exciting journey. Please take this journey with me, and we can learn together to recognize God in our individual stories.

The talk I gave that Sunday is provided in full, below. I hope you enjoy it. But more than that, I pray that it causes you to stop and think about how God is in your story.

January 17, 2021

Good morning, Brothers and Sisters. Bishop Larson gave us (my husband and I) the assignment to talk today but left the topic to speak about up to us. I have to tell you that I have never struggled so much to write a talk, because I didn’t know where to start. What should I talk about? The range of gospel topics is endless. I took it to the Lord and over time and after much pondering, the Lord began to reveal it to me. So here it goes.

I like to listen to and learn from the Come Follow Me YouTube video series with Emily Belle Freeman and David Butler. Emily has often said that God will meet you in your story wherever you are. Every time she says that, it resonates with me. We see that very profoundly in Joseph Smith’s First Vision account. A young boy goes into a grove of trees seeking an answer from God because he lacks wisdom. Enter God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. They literally meet Joseph in his story where he was as a 14-year old boy. The journey for Joseph after that is both wonderful and difficult with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. But God is always in his story. Even when Joseph felt forsaken in Liberty jail, God was there.

I marvel at Joseph Smith and what the Lord was able to accomplish through him. Joseph once described himself as an obscure boy of no consequence to the world. He became a man foreordained by God to be the Prophet of this last dispensation; someone we’re still talking about and marveling at 200 years later, and whose life and work were truly consequential to the world, second only to Jesus Christ. As President Nelson has said about how the Lord works: “He uses the unlikely to accomplish the impossible.”

I am now at the age where I can look back on my life with 20-20 hindsight. So, I asked myself – when and where has God met me in my story? What has He been able to accomplish with me and through me? Looking back, I can tell you that He has been with me in my highest of highs and my lowest of lows. I can now see so clearly the times He entered into my story and I didn’t even know He was there. And at times, He has used me, an obscure woman of no consequence to the world, to accomplish the impossible. Of course, nothing as consequential as Joseph Smith did for the world, but consequential enough in my own sphere of influence – starting with myself and, at times, for others.

Let me tell you a few of the times that I distinctly know where God met me in my story.

He was with me when I was a young girl of about 6-7 years old attending the Catholic church with my dad and siblings. I would become emotional and cry just about every time the hymns were sung, especially the hymn Ave Maria. It became embarrassing for my dad when I would cry. It happened so often that my mom, who didn’t go to church with us, would ask my dad every time we got home, if I had cried that day. But that was God in my story, revealing Himself to me, but I was too young to understand. I just thought I was being a crybaby. I didn't understand, nor did my parents understand, how the Spirit of the Lord can work upon someone, even a young girl. Eventually I stopped crying.

Fast forward to when I was 32 years old. I was not going to church. Nor was I praying or reading scriptures at this time in my life. God wasn’t even in my rearview mirror. I was living in a beautiful home in a country club neighborhood in Orlando, FL. I had a great-paying job with Walt Disney World. Life looked good. But things were not as they appeared. I drank too much and had serious self-inflicted health issues. I had panic attacks on a regular basis. I was married to an alcoholic and adulterer. I worked a job that was the most stressful I have ever had. Constant deadlines and working long, long hours. So, what does a rational 32-year old woman do when her husband comes home one day and says he found a younger, prettier version and wants a divorce - she runs away from home. I quit my job and traveled for 6 weeks by myself throughout the southeast and southwest. During one of my stopovers, I stayed in the little town of Aztec, NM of all places and spent a few days seeing the sights. But my physical and emotional health were deteriorating, and I was trying to make it to my parents’ home in Ohio. I got as far as Indiana and ended up in the emergency room where a doctor asked me this question: “what are you running from?” I could only lower my eyes from his gaze, shake my head and cry. I was physically, emotionally and spiritually sick and felt betrayed by the people in my life. I was broken and humbled. I was at the lowest point that I had ever been in my life. But now I can look back and see it so clearly. God was in my story and met me where I was - broken. He had been on that trip with me. And little did I realize it at the time, but that was the turning point in my life that started my journey back to Him. My parents came and got me in Indiana and took me to Ohio where I healed somewhat, and then I went back to Florida to end that chapter of my life.

I knew that I couldn’t live in Florida anymore and didn’t feel inclined to return to Ohio. Of all the places I visited during that 6-week trip, I was drawn back to little Aztec, NM. I know now that was no coincidence because God was in my story and He had a plan for me. I met Vic Harrison and we eventually married. Shortly before our marriage he was diagnosed with cancer and then ensued two years of treatments, culminating in his death in Dallas, TX during a bone marrow transplant. It was there in Dallas for the first time in many, many years, that I began to pray. By the end of this two-year trial, I was exhausted, close to financial ruin, and asking myself some important questions. I had never been this close to seeing and experiencing death. The man I had loved and taken care of for two years was gone, and I began to wonder what happened to him. What was his fate? What really happens to us after we die? Why does life have to be so hard? But I also learned some things about myself. I am a survivor and I can do hard things. I was stronger than I thought I was. And all along, God was there walking with me on this journey step by step, trial upon trial, grace upon grace. Leading me and preparing me. I look back and I can see it so clearly now, but at the time, I still didn’t see Him in my story.

About a year after Vic’s death I can now see that God entered my story once again, and He revealed himself to me in such a way that I began to see and hear Him clearly. He brought Mark Hathcock into my story, and I will always be grateful that he was a wonderful member missionary who shared the gospel with me. But that was always part of the plan, wasn’t it? My journey to NM via Florida and Ohio was not a fluke. Going through that trial with Vic was not a fluke but was necessary for my growth. Meeting Mark was not a fluke. Hearing about the restored gospel and joining the Lord’s church and getting sealed in the temple with my sweetheart was always part of the plan for me, even if I had to travel a couple thousand miles of trials to be in the right place to do it.

I now have had so many times where I’ve seen God enter so clearly into my story that I began to keep a journal of His appearances. There have been times where God has allowed me to be the vessel for Him to enter into the lives of others. There was the time that I received a prompting to stop and help a homeless man I saw walking in Aztec. I can still remember his name – John Fisher. I may have given John $20 for a meal, but he gave me a priceless opportunity to be able to call a mother and a sister in Gainesville, Florida and let them know that a son and a brother they hadn’t seen or heard from in over ten years was still alive. I will never forget the conversation I had with those two women. God allowed me to glimpse into two women’s lives who opened up to me, a stranger, about what it was like to have a son and a brother who is schizophrenic. There was joy in knowing that he was still alive but there was still the pain of the past and of the long separation. When they thanked me for going out of my way to contact them, it was then that I was able to watch God enter into their stories. I told them that it was not me. It was God who prompted me to stop and check on John. It was God who was asking John questions about where he was from and about his family. It was God who helped me find them through a very convoluted search on the internet.

Like me, I am sure that they will never forget that experience. When God entered into our stories that day, He used the unlikely to accomplish the impossible. Another thing about this story is that it almost didn’t happen. I didn’t want to turn my car around and talk to a homeless man. It took 3 promptings by the Holy Ghost, each prompting given more sternly than the last, before I finally turned around. I cringe to think that my rebellion almost cost me that spiritual experience.

I am no longer that young woman almost ½ a lifetime ago, and I am no longer running away. I am right where I need to be. God has always entered my story at just the right time, and He always met me where I was. I feel his love for me. I have found joy in my life. Because of Him, I am whole – spiritually, emotionally and physically. But there is still that seven-year old girl who is a part of me who cries when I hear certain hymns. Now I know it’s the Spirit of the Lord talking to me through beautiful and touching music.

So, I challenge you to reflect upon the times that God entered your story. In what circumstances did He meet you? What kind of impact did that have on you and on others through you? You will see how He was and is still leading you step by step, trial upon trial and grace upon grace. You will see where He was using the unlikely to accomplish the impossible in your life and possibly in the lives of others. God is in my story. He’s in your story. Continue to watch for when he shows Himself and let Him do the impossible.

Just a last thought. God is in our individual stories but He’s also in our collective stories. For example, He is in the Aztec 2nd Ward story. We can see Him in our Bishop, our primary leaders, our RS leaders, in the young men as they bless and pass the sacrament, just to name a few. He’s in the collective story of this Church – past, present and future. I see Him all the time when our leaders speak to us – guiding us, counseling us and encouraging us.

I also see God in the story of this nation. He has been in our nation’s story from the beginning - in the past triumphs and in the losses; with Washington in the Revolutionary War, with Lincoln in the Civil War and with all of us on 9-11. He’s with us today as we continue the struggle to preserve our liberties. He’s with us, individually and collectively, and He will never forsake His people or this nation as long as a there are still righteous and God-loving people like us alive who still allow Him into our stories. He gives signs to His followers and helps us fight our righteous battles. We just need to be patient as we wait upon the Lord and look for Him when He enters the story. He will reveal himself in all His majesty. President Nelson has told us that we have much to look forward to and that our best days are still ahead of us. God is a God of miracles, and we will see wonderful and unimaginable miracles in these last days. That is one of His promises to the Believers and to Covenant Israel. When He reveals himself, it will be epic.

God met Joseph Smith in his story as a 14-year old in a grove of trees in upstate New York, and the world was never the same. If He can use Joseph to accomplish the impossible, He can do it with us as well. It is in these times when I see God most clearly in my story, and I pray that I will never lose sight of Him. May it be the same for you.