The Awakening. And I don't mean a lame book by Kate Chopin.

This morning I woke up. I didn't wake up in bed. Ok, well I did. But not the woke up that I am now refering to. I woke up in the shower.

We had Stake Conference today. We had Stake Conference around the same time last year. I didn't go that year. I was in the choir to wake up to an exceptionally sore throat. I felt bad for skipping out on going to choir, but I certainly didn't want to pass this on to someone else. So I didn't go, I rested and drank orange juice.

A few months later as I was sitting on the stand (my calling at the time was ward chorister) waiting for church to start, a High Counsel member who was visiting for the day came over to talk to me. I was kind of shocked. Not every day does a High Counsel member come to talk to you specifically, especially one that I didn't know very well. Not even well enough to remember his name.

(Don't worry, I'll get to the reason for my awakening soon enough...)

He talked to me about that Stake Conference that I missed. Wondering where I was. That confused me even more. Why would he notice the absence of one solitary member of the stake he serves out of the hundreds who were there? Here is why. One of the speakers was unable to make it for some unknown reason to me. Their first substitute? Me. Yes. Me. Little ol' me. They did see Rocket Scientist and Bug there, but they specifically wanted me.

Wha???? My mind was reeling at this point. What has happened so much in my life that would put me on such high standards? I specifically remembering this High Counsel member calling me a spiritual giant. Huh??? I don't exactly remember how this conversation panned out, but in any case I think he did also mention Little Angel. I don't know how I looked to everyone else after he died, but well, the Stake Presidency must have been impressed? Whatever.

Sad to say though, I let those words get to me. And not in a good way. Pride harbored in my heart and in my head. I won't go into any details of my thoughts since then, but suffice it to say that I got to be very proud.

Then. My last few posts. I couldn't stand being in chruch hearing all the babies without numbing myself. Every lesson I attended in Relief Society seemed to have some sort of connection to trials. The only one on my mind was losing my little baby. So I numbed myself. I spent every Sunday afternoon numb. Every. Single. One.

Yet today I woke up. Being Stake Conference again made me think about what happened last year. It was almost as if I was saying the words in my head I would have said a year ago had I been at Stake Conference. Remembering my conviction of the Plan of Salvation and that I would see my little one again. Not that I truly had lost my faith in it, my conviction is just too strong. I just didn't see things in the same prospective that I have my whole life. Death has never scared me. I have even longed for it. Wished for it. Just to escape the pain of this world. And I have had a lot. All my life I have almost felt as if I was (hesitates over keys not sure what the word was...... my train of thought derailed......) pesimistic?? Nah, that isn't the word... one sec... gonna go look for it. Ah. Cynical. There we go. Thank goodness for online dictionaries to tell me the synonyms of words. ^_^ Anyway, I always felt almost cynical about death and funerals. Wishing I was the one who had just joined his or her Father. Funerals never made me sad. But rather glad for the person and mad that it wasn't my turn to leave yet.

Because of this I hardly ever shared it with anyone. In any case. Lately I have been walking around in a haze. A numb fog. Not remembering my perspective of the Plan.

I remember now.

I felt my heart beating in Stake Conference.

I felt the spirit for the first real time in a long long time. (did I mention that numbness blocks the spirit too?)

I woke up.