Sunday night

Hannah got another pass for a few hours today and it was the best.  We went to Temple Square and walked around.  The flowers and trees are starting to bloom and everything was so beautiful.  She felt good and loved being outside.  I know she's getting stronger all the time.  Even a week ago she probably couldn't have done that.
Sometimes I get sad when I let myself think of the old Hannah.  I want that girl back!! But I know I need to change my focus from that to instead acknowledging how far she has come the last month.  All the time I see more and more of the old Hannah, but I am really just such an impatient person and sometimes I just want her to be all better RIGHT NOW!  We walked up to the Christus in the visitor's center today. Hannah was sitting in her wheelchair and I was behind her, watching her look at it.  I all the sudden got so emotional thinking how much I wished that the statue of Christ was not a statue at all, but really him.   And how much I would love to push her wheelchair up to him and have him heal her.  I would give anything for that.  But as I thought about it I realized he is healing her, but in His own way and His own time.
Today in church the speaker talked about the sanctifying power of trials.  I know it is true.  People have their free agency to determine how they will react to their difficult times.  Some will become bitter, while others become better. Some will be sanctified and others will not.  But the bottom line is that you have to go through the trial either way, so you might as well learn something from it so that the whole experience was not for nothing.   I remember listening to girl's' testimonies at camp a couple of years ago.  They were all so emotional talking about all the things they had learned at camp.  But I remember after hearing their testimonies, I got up and told them that they HAD learned so much, and they HAD had life changing experiences, but if the things they learned and the experiences they'd had didn't change something about them, then the experience was not very meaningful.  My words have been haunting me-ha ha (Words always come back to bite you in the butt).  Anyway, that thought has been in my mind this week as I have tried to come up with something meaningful and life changing that has come from this trial.   And I know if I was honest and could be more objective than emotional, I could come up with some.  But truthfully I wasn't admitting any answers because it goes against all I feel right now to think or feel grateful for this experience.  I hadn't talked about this with Hannah, but the other night when Bob and I said prayers with her she gave me my answers.  She began her prayer by expressing gratitude for all the things she had learned from this experience,  and then she went on to list them.  They were simple, but so profound!   I think God knows I'm not very sharp sometimes and so He has to give me the answers.  But I'm grateful he did, because I think the answers are changing all of us, for the better.