Last week we fall-breaked. Which meant games and "scary" movies every evening (tis the season). And late night runs to the store for supplies to make cheesecake and pumpkin pie just because they sounded good. Caleb and I worked on merit badges while the girls had sleepovers with their cousins and their dolls, and we ate dinner on the patio every night. David is nearly drowning at the hospital these days and arrived home late every night, but it didn't matter since bedtime had been suspended for the week.
On Friday we went camping and played games in the tent and cooked our meals on the campstove and s'mores over the fire.
It was a good week with my children.
Last night on our way to a meeting I told David, "I hate Sunday nights." He laughed and admitted the same thing. It's like being born again every Monday, ripped from heaven and thrown back into the lone and dreary world, blinking and blinded by reality and to-do lists. A feeling made worse last night by the fact that I had had my children home all week and knowing it would be another nine weeks until they were all mine again.
The meeting we were headed to was the dedication of our new stake center, as our old one had burned down nearly two years ago. I went to the meeting out of duty, aware only of my looming week and temporal worries. I left the meeting transfigured. I had no idea that it was going to be a gift from heaven. I have rarely felt such an outpouring of the spirit, and I have never heard such a beautiful, powerful prayer. As we rose at the end to sing "The Spirit of God" I was reminded of the rededication of the Manti temple that I attended as a child.
I felt like I was standing in front of the burning bush.
And I was on fire too.
David put his arm around me to prop me up in front of all that heat and love.
I was overwhelmed by the love of heaven, by the palpable presence of God and his angels, the truthfulness of his work, but mostly by the mercy and kindness of my Savior, Jesus Christ.
And that fire burned through all the choking anxieties and paralyzing demands of earth life, scorched my burdens and my fears, and left me joyful and stronger and brimming with faith.
I sobbed most of the way home, which wonderfully, did nothing to quench those flames. The fire is still burning this morning, as David noted with a smile as he kissed me goodbye and I smiled up at him. I don't think he's seen one of those on a Monday morning since school started.
Transfigured, indeed.