Your Happily Ever After

My Happily Ever After isn't Over

My youngest daughter just turned eight. She is now an official member of Activity Days. Something she's been looking forward to as much as her Baptism.  The first activity for her to attend was a mother daughter activity. She was invited to come in a princess dress and enjoy dinner at the church. I was invited to bring something that represented my Happily Ever After for the decorations.

I saw that request and my first thought was I can't lie to these sweet girls. I don't even know if I'm going to be married in the next few weeks, or months. So I'm supposed to go to an activity talking about Happily Ever After.

The Darkside was strong. this week. I wasn't afraid that my husband would take his life this week, those thoughts were not in his mind. We had a different problem.  My husband didn't care about anything-except the kids. He refused to hug me on more than one occasion. He couldn't talk to me when I walked in the door.  I was ready to contact someone to learn how to start a divorce. I made many covenants in the temple, and being ignored was not one of them.

My daughter insisted that we bring a decoration. The suggested items were family pictures, a wedding picture, or a picture of the temple. I couldn't bring any of those. That would be just like telling the girls a lie. We hunted around the house and saw a gift from my husband from Valentines Day a few years ago. He gave me a flower that is battery operated and when it opens says, "I love you."  This didn't feel like a lie.  The guy that gave me the flower loved me. And that guy was not the same guy sitting in the next room, even though they are the same person.

We ended up sitting with the moms that do not attend church, but their daughters attend Activity Days regularly. This was fun.I enjoyed laughing with these sweet sisters.

I was the only mom that didn't bring a picture. My daughter loved seeing all the wedding dresses outside the temple, and cute family pictures. She giggled when she saw our flower. She wasn't bothered that we were different.

The program was based around  President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk Your Happily Ever After.  https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/your-happily-ever-after?lang=eng . I don't know how to post the video of this yet, but when I do I'll come back and put the video in.

The Activity Day leader wrote individual parts for the girls to say as if they were a princess from a fairy tale and a small message tying the princess's story to The Gospel Standards. 

I was reminded that My Happily Ever After isn't over. If I do end up getting divorced my story isn't over. If I'm blessed to stay married (but in a healthy relationship) I'm still in the middle of this story.

I'm a daughter of God what better ending could I have than to return to Him.