God does not forsake his children whether the children entered this earth years ago or recently. We read of biblical times when Christ was on the earth and performed miracles like healing the sick, the blind, the crippled, feeding thousands with only 2 loaves of bread and 5 fish, walking on water and so many more "everyday things' that came naturally to the Master. I believe Christ was able to perform all that he did not only because he was the perfect son on God the Father, and the chosen Savior of this world, but because those he interacted with to perform those miracles had the faith the believe those miracles could be performed.

I believe God loves all his children. The good as well as the bad. Of course, like any loving father, He is happy when we are doing as we should and following in the path of our Savior, and He is saddened when we are not. But, since he is the Father of our spirits and wants us to do good, He gives us direction and council through our faithful leaders and guidance through answers to personal prayer if we but try to do His will and be open to prompting and instruction. Decisions that we all personally make steer us in the paths our lives tend to go.

Have you ever had a choice to make and after making it, wonder what would have happened if the original choice would have been different? I think of this in different situations in my life and am sometimes glad I made that original choice and sometimes wish I had gone in a different direction. I think at some point we all can relate to that. Other times things happen to us that we have no idea why, and have to be strong and have faith that after doing all we can that situations will turn out ok.

Within the past few years we have had a couple of major things happen within our immediate family that fit into the category of "why did this have to happen". The first was when my husband and I were visiting our daughter and her family and loving being able to be with them and the grandchildren. Life was good. We had recently taken early retirement and were making the rounds visiting family. My husband was playing superman with our then youngest granddaughter who was about the age of one. He was flying her around the house and they both were having a grand ol' time. Well, newly polished hard wood floors and socks do not give the safety that is required for coming around a corner. My husband started to fall and realizing he was going down so clutched our granddaughter to him for her protection. After calming her down, our daughter only saw a small area on our granddaughter's cheek that would turn into a little bruise as the extent of her injuries. Of course without being able to break his fall, my husband landed with a full impact on his left side. Even though he just wanted to lay there for a while and get his bearings (because in his view he would be fine in a minute), I called on of our son who is a paramedic and he had me check some things out with is father laying on the hardwood floor several hundred miles away. When our son spoke to his father and the phone was handed back to me, our son told me to call 911. This was the beginning of an extended 6 month say with our daughter. With great pain, the x-rays showed that my husband had sustained a break of the femoral neck in his left hip as well as shattered his left elbow. That was a long day in the ER. Of course he was admitted to the hospital and the next day was operated on by the best orthopedic surgeon there is. The bones were "lassoed" and pulled together to try to establish some kind of elbow before the long pin was inserted, and the hip was restored for healing with a plate and several screws. Being moved from one hospital to another, and having lots and lots of therapy in the hospital as well as weeks of therapy out of he hospital, the healing was happening.

The above event was very simplified, but having gone through it, I consider a miracle happened with everything clicking into place from the time of the fall until we left 6 months after the event and all the faith, prayers, love, support, professional talent, help and determination that went into the whole process to achieve a positive end result. To this day our other daughter states, "I can't wait to ask the powers that be when we get to the hear after why our dad that is the most generous, faithful, good man around had to go through that." We do wonder sometimes why things that seem out of our control happen, but are so grateful when they, in the end, turn out positively. Maybe events like this and others are to test our faith and with eveything that has to be gone through makes us stronger.

The second miracle happened a couple years later when our oldest daughter felt a lump in her breast that was diagnosed as cancer while she was just starting the third trimester of her pregnancy with her fourth child. Since the cancer was growing at such an accelerated rate and the normal treatments could not be given to her with the pregnancy, there were teams working together from her gynecologist, to her oncology, and pediatric support teams to determine the best approach while not harming the unborn baby, but arresting the cancer and getting our daughter well at the same time. Lots and lots of fasting and prayers were coming to that special family. A very loving and supportive husband and children were about to go through months and months of challenges before it would have the positive outcome that happened. Our daughter was started on a type of chemo therapy that the doctors hoped would keep the tumor from growing until her baby was developed enough to be born. Then they could hit the cancer with two more different types of chemo, then radiation, and finally the herceptin treatment. When the baby was delivered by C-section, our daughter was as bald as could be, but our newest grandson was born with a head of beautiful dark hair. He did spend time in the ICU for babies with some complications which was hard especially for our daughter to handle, but after a while he was released to come home a few days after she had returned home. What dedication our daughter and son in law had to make the trips back and forth to the hospital to be with the new baby. With lots of help and organization, the months passed and the outcome today is both mother and baby are healthy and cancer free. What a scary road that was, but with the priesthood blessings and the faith and power of prayers, we know this was definitely a miracle as well.