TJ Hirst

My Daily Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

When I ask this question of my children at the dinner table, sometimes they say, “I don’t have an answer.”

It is difficult to see how God has actually helped them in their life that day. They think of the good things that have happened, but when looking at the source of that good thing they may think, “Well that wasn’t a spiritual thing that happened, so it probably wasn’t Heavenly Father who helped in that.”

I, too, struggle to find blessings from God in just the temporal day-to-day living. However, an acquaintance at church taught me a lesson of gratitude.

This woman is a manager at the Pizza Hut where I took my daughters to dinner to redeem their Book It coupons. I actually didn’t want pizza, so I ordered the Boneless Buffalo Chicken Strips from the appetizer menu to be served with their dinner. When the server brought them, she acknowledged that the basket didn’t look as full as it should and that she requested another order that would be up soon. I appreciated her generosity and service and thanked her.

After finishing our dinner I paid at the cash register, spoke a bit to my friend from church who was working that night and I took the change back to our table for a tip. Happily, I encountered our server just passing the table at the same time. I looked directly at her and said, “Thank you.”

It wasn’t until my friend spoke at our church on Sunday about gratitude that I fully understood that the small blessing of a peaceful dinner came because a server quietly corrected a mistake. In her talk she said, “In the restaurant business, many do not say thank you anymore. They may say have a good day or something like that but do not express appreciation. When we thank other people we are thanking our Heavenly Father.”

Her phrase, “when we thank other people, we are thanking Heavenly Father” points to the source of all our blessings whether that connection is obvious or not. This experience reminded me that all good things come from God. Therefore, any answer to this daily question, by my children or myself, may include the seemingly routine efforts of others as blessings from God.

The Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

My “baby” is nine. The sweet smell of Baby Magic on her neck blurs beyond recall, like most of that time. I write to remember; yet words are not experiences. Occasionally, we are blessed with circumstances to help us remember—with real senses—the events in the past.

On a rainy weekend afternoon I wrapped myself in a blanket in my favorite recliner to read a book. I absorbed the story for a couple of hours and felt a tad guilty. But dinner was leftover calzone that just needed reheating, and no one needed me.

The phone rang. Thirty minutes later I brought a baby home from the hospital. A friend’s adult daughter was sick, and she asked me if I could watch her infant granddaughter. Telling our children we were going out for an errand, Paul and I met her at the hospital and then returned home with a baby sleeping in her car seat.

Her baby sleep noises—like the ones that used to keep me awake wondering and worrying—were now soothing to listening to while I finished my book. My “baby” sat by this new baby’s feet watching the waking up process. She hadn’t experienced little fingers grasping her finger or the close-up softness of a two-month-old infant in her own house.

“Does she want a toy? I can get her some blocks,” my daughter said.

“No, she will just want to look into your face and have you smile at her.”

But her needs were more. More than I had remembered. Awake and immediately hungry. I forgot how a baby cries and cries and words like, “I’ll be right there,” don’t halt the crying while you fix a bottle.

In those cries I pressed my mind to remember how to mix formula. Did I put the powder in the bottle first or after the water? I poured the powder in first then filled it to the top with water. It clumped together.

The baby cried. Oh, what was her name. I could not remember. Sue? Cindy Lou Who? I picked her up and tried to soothe her while mixing the clumping mess with the other hand. Cold water; I had used cold. Ugh.

I put her down in her car seat. “Will you watch her for a minute?” I said to my daughter. I tried to heat the bottle and shake it. I remember there used to be caps so the milk didn’t spray out while shaking the bottle and that they are usually at the bottom of a diaper bag.

But then I also recalled the eager slurping that replaces hunger cries and the satisfied milk mouth afterwards. I felt like a new mother, unsure in the moment, but an old one when the memories returned to remind me how.

The hours were not meant for me to reminisce but to serve a child. But the circumstances sharpened the memories of my own young motherhood. The question that lingered, “How did I ever do it?”

As President Henry B. Eyring, a leader in my church once said, “Trying to remember allowed God to show me what He had done.”

My recollection of that day was the kindness He had done for me many, many days before. And with that knowledge once again in my core, I can appreciate who my children and I have become all the more.

Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our family today?

The economic downturn we face in the United States may or may nor be termed a recession, but the financial pressure many families feel at this time is real. Our family relies on the construction industry for our livelihood, and we began to feel that pressure on our finances in the closing months of 2007.

The prospects felt bleak when we did not have a clear vision of what the future might bring for my husband’s small business. Right away, we turned to our faith as a means to gain some perspective and seek help. We did not just pray and expect God to do the rest. We did all that we could do. While I cannot say that we have enjoyed the experience, the situation has been an opportunity for us to learn and grow in several ways.

• Improved Communication in Marriage

We knew we would need to consider our short term cash flow and needs, as well as our longer term plans. Like most couples, we have never discussed finances very well. “The American Bar Association has indicated that 89 percent of all divorces can be traced to quarrels and accusations over money. Others have estimated that 75 percent of all divorces result from clashes over finances.” (see One for the Money, Guide to Family Finances) I wouldn’t say that we clash over finances, but communication is tense when we need to create a new budget or when we have unexpected financial obligations. But over the past six months we have created a new computerized budget, brought our banking up-to-date and learned to discuss and agree upon financial priorities as a couple.

The blessing: Confronting and resolving our most difficult communication issue has led us to communicate better in all aspects of our marriage.

• Differentiating Between Wants Versus Needs

We also have had the opportunity to counsel with our children about the financial and time commitments of our activities. Our 8-year-old daughter led us in charting each activity under one of three columns: good, better or best. We discovered that although some things we were doing were good, we needed to use our resources for those things that were better and the best. We also had to use the same mental chart with all of our discretionary expenditures like food, entertainment, clothing, and gifts to determine our most important needs and prioritize our wants.

The blessing: We spend our time and money on what we really value, and we are more conscious and appreciative of what we already have.

• Planning For the Future

While I would really love to be planning a vacation get-away when the economic picture improves, this experience has reminded us of the importance of paying off debt (including our mortgage) and saving for the future. That is probably one of the most difficult adjustments to make—changing habits to focus on the long term financial picture rather than the short term one.

The blessing: Our perspective of the financial goals we want to attain in the years to come has become more clearly defined in our minds.

Optimism is replacing pessimism in my life and not just because business has increased this spring. Ultimately, my hope comes from something deeper than money. The most important blessing of this downturn has been to remember that “In God We Trust,” is more than a symbolic statement on paper.

Snowball: v. to grow rapidly in significance, importance or size. n. 1. a. a mass of soft, wet snow, packed into a ball that can be thrown. 2. a small round cookie rolled in powdered sugar.

My parenting light bulb brightened with an experience that also answers the daily question that I ask myself, “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?”

Developing sisterhood between my daughters is a process—a process that some days seems more competitive than cooperative. The smallest disagreements can snowball into a flurry of emotions that we want to throw at each other.

I have been praying for answers about what to do in the moments when these “snowball fights” are beginning. But the answer came when it wasn’t even snowing, literally or figuraritvely. In fact, not much of anything was going on.

Each daughter came to me looking for something to do. Each was “bored.”

I said, “Let’s find something you two can do together.”

I gave them an assignment to come up with two or three things they could do together, then I left for a few minutes. When I came back, they reported that since they couldn’t find something to do alone, they certainly couldn’t find something to do together.

But then as we talked through it, I said, “Maybe you, eh, could do something with kh that she wants to do like play a game or play with dolls for 30 minutes. Then, kh, you can do something with eh that she wants to do for 30 minutes.”

They joked and laughed about eh, a teenager, playing dolls, but kh liked the idea of doing hair or doing nails. And eh wanted to bake something. They decided to make a dessert together and then give each other manicures.

The best part came when Paul walked in on them in their bathroom painting their nails. He was in shock. It was sheer surprise to him that they were doing that, in there, in the middle of the day, with each other.

And now we have some wonderful Lemon Snowball Cookies and a little bit more sisterly love.

Here’s the recipe from the Taste of Home’s 2005 Contest Winning Cookbook:

Lemon Snowballs
from Audrey Thibodeau, Fountain Hills, AZ

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel (we used orange peel)
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tarter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
Confectioner’s sugar

1. In a mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar, and egg until well blended. Add lemon juice and peel. Combine flour, baking soda, cream of tarter and salt; stir into creamed mixture. Add almonds. Cover and refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour or overnight.

2. Roll into 1-in. balls. Place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned (cookies will not brown on top).

3. Remove immediately to wire racks; cool for 5 minutes, then roll in confectioner’s sugar. Yield: about 3 dozen.

Guest Post: by eh, tj’s 13-year-old daughter

Each day I try to find an answer to this question:

“Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?”

The thing I like about doing this is that it’s more than the actual blessing that helps me—it’s the process. Let me clarify. It began when I had had a little trouble that had lowered my spirits significantly. My mom suggested I start writing down an answer to The Question every day.

So each day now, I sit down at the computer and type. Sometimes it isn’t an immediate answer, sometimes it requires a searching of my day. I think about everything that has happened, or what hasn’t. The process of asking helps me reflect on my life and see what has happened. I recognize that I’m not forgotten.