First things first.  I cannot express the joy I felt as I saw your comments pouring into my inbox beginning yesterday.  I was so relieved that you actually found me.  A huge shout out to my little brother Steve, the expert in all things I choose to ignore.  (I dare you to read his blog… I have no idea what he’s talking about.)  Anyway, while I whined to him on the phone yesterday about my whole mess, he said, “Oh, I can fix that,” and within a few hours he did some kind of RSS feed forwarding trick that I believe somehow made my new blog show up in all your Readers and other feeds as if it were still coming from my old blog.  He’s a freaking genius.  Does anyone out there have any single sisters in Utah looking for the quiet and brilliant type (wink, wink)?  Moving on now . . .

Have you ever noticed how powerful a child’s prayer is?  My kids often blow me away with the goodness of their prayers.  Especially Grant, my kindergartener.

Elder James E. Faust said,

“What is a prayer?  … We sing, ‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed.’ Sincere prayers come from the heart.”

Well, Grant has prayed fish back to life, rain to stop, and the recovery of his lost brother at the mall.  I’m positive he’s the sole reason my parents were not robbed on their mission in South Africa because Grant prayed EVERY day, “Please don’t let the bad man steal Grandma and Grandpa’s stuff.”  If our family is driving down the road in a snowstorm and cars are sliding off the road all around us, we know we should ask Grant to pray.  He usually thinks of it first, though.  He’s good.

Unfortunately, he’s also sincere.  There are occasionally the meal prayers that say, “Please bless the dinner that it won’t be gross.”  Ha ha, very funny. Or “Bless Natalie that she won’t play with my toys.”  What a sweet little selfish guy.

So, this has not been my finest mothering week.  When my blog went down on Wednesday– the sad event that shall henceforth be called TDBD (The Day the Blog Died)– I spent the majority of the next two days either at the computer or thinking about the computer.  My children were not the recipients of much deserved attention from me, and the attention they did get was mostly grumpy and distracted.  I was frustrated.  I claimed the kids were naughtier than usual, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the real problem was.  Nevertheless, this is Grant’s dinner prayer one of those nights:

“Thank you for this wonderful day.  Sorry Clark and me made some sins.  Please help us.  And please bless the food.  Amen.”

Aaagh.  I hate it when they’re better than me!  So then I reflected (who are we kidding? It was a guilt trip) about my own behavior, and last night when I put them all to bed,  I apologized.  I explained to them that my blog got broken and erased and that’s why I was so grumpy and spent way too much time at the computer.  Rather than begrudge my obvious failings, they were earnestly concerned about my blog and began asking many questions about how my blog “got disappeared.”  Grant had many theories.  This one was my favorite:  “I know.  I know what happened.  Maybe your blog was just tired, and it got so tired that it just went to sleep, and while it was asleep the computer just started re’rasing it.”  Then he offered to say a prayer about it and told me that “you and daddy should probably say a prayer about that blog too.”

If I were really a smart woman, I would have consulted Grant before we even began the backing-up-data process.  My children are my prayer mentors.  And I’m learning that simply by virtue of the fact that I am babysitting their little souls for God, He wants me to talk to Him about them more often.  This quote by Elder Holland inspires me every time I read it:

“Be believing. Keep loving and keep testifying. Keep praying. Those prayers will be heard and answered in the most unexpected hour. God will send aid to no one more readily than He will send it to a child—and to the parent of a child.”

I need to learn to put as much faith in my own prayers as I do in Grant’s.  But if anyone needs any miracles or anything, let me know and I’ll pass it along to him . . . just in case.

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Forgive me as I include this announcement at the bottom of all my posts for the next little while. Thanks to TDBD, there have been a few technology-related changes around here.  To my readers who subscribe to this blog through any kind of RSS feed, including Google Reader:  As of April 1, (no, this is not a joke), this blog will be hosted solely at http://www.diapersanddivinity.com (wordpress will no longer appear in the URL).  When that change takes place, the old feed will be reset and you will need to go there yourself and subscribe again (for the LAST time, I promise.)  May this be the end of the transition….