A Mother's Spiritual Promptings

  A story from my book "Grandma's Stories."

A Mother’s Spiritual Promptings

I believe a mother is given an extra measure of the Holy Ghost so that she can protect and guide her children.  I have a few stories to tell about that.

The first story was one I don’t remember because I was just two-years-old.  But my mom told it to me a lot as I was growing up.  She said that late one night she felt a prompting to go and check my fingers.  It was late and she was tired, but she followed the prompting and went in where I was sleeping in my crib and checked my fingers.  Wrapped tightly around my thumb was an elastic band.  My thumb was blue.  She quickly unwrapped it.  Had it stayed that way all night, I would probably have lost my thumb.  I am so grateful my mother followed her spiritual prompting.

The second story was when Kristen was a baby.  We were living in Hurricane in Grandpa and Grandma Hinton’s house while they were on a mission to Kentucky.  We lived in their home for a few months while they were gone.  Kristen was about 13 or 14 months old.  We were fast asleep in bed when I suddenly awoke with a strong thought, “Kristen is very cold.”  I wasn’t cold myself.  Why is Kristen cold?  I got up and went to check on her.  She, indeed, was very cold.  These were the days before paper diapers.  She was in a cloth diaper and had completely soaked the diaper, her pajamas, and all the bedding.  She was freezing.  I changed her and the bedding and wrapped her up to be warm and held her until she went back to sleep.  Kristen wasn’t crying.  God awakened me so that I could help my baby.

The third story I want to tell was when Shonna was in fifth grade.  At the end of the school year, it was tradition at East Elementary school that each class had an end-of-year swimming party.   Parents had to sign a permission slip for their child to attend.  One of the children in Shonna’s class lived pretty close to the school and had a backyard swimming pool.  She invited the class to come to her pool.  I signed the paper for Shonna to go.  She was so excited.  A few days later, I was driving in the car.  I was on River Road, headed toward town.  I wasn’t even thinking about the swimming party, but suddenly I had a very distinct impression, “Tell Shonna not to dive.” I didn’t hear the words, but it was a strong feeling.  I told Shonna.  She obeyed.  End of story.  What do you think might have happened if she had not obeyed?

Another day, at around the time school let out, I had a very strong impression that I should go and pick Shonna up from school at East Elementary.  It didn’t make any sense.  Shonna rode the bus home from school.  Why did I need to pick her up?  It was almost as if I had no choice in the matter.  I was compelled to go get in the car and pick her up.  I drove to the school.  There was Shonna out in the front of the school in quite a bit of distress.  She had missed the bus and the secretary (she wasn’t very nice) wouldn’t let her call me.  She didn’t know what she was going to do and was so distressed. 

I know I will probably think of other times I have felt the spiritual impressions as a mom.  It happened all of the time.  But these are the ones I remember right now.