17 Miracles

I finally watched 17 Miracles tonight and loved it of course, in spite of a strong dislike for crying (tears streaming down face) while watching movies. LOVED IT though. I'll be buying it and we'll revisit this in years to come for more than one July FHE ("We have a heritage" month). Tonight I looked up our Martin Company ancestors. They were William Barton and his 14-yr-old daughter, Mary Ann. William died on the plains. Mary Ann wrote an autobiography and shared this story:

"After pitching our tents we lay down on the ground to get some sleep and rest. In the night the tents all blew over. It was all ice and snow where I was lying, and when the tents blew off I didn’t wake up I was so tired. One man came and looked at me. He called some more men over saying, “I wonder if she is dead?” He patted me on the head and just then I opened my eyes. He jumped back. I tried to raise my head but found that my hair was frozen to the ground. They chopped the ice all around my hair, and I got up and went over to the fire and melted the large pieces of ice that were clinging to my hair. The men laughed to think that I could lie there all night with my hair frozen in the ice, but were very glad that I wasn’t dead."

It seems that this group of Saints lived a concentrated version of mortality with all its opportunities for sacrifice and suffering. I think they were unwise to have left when they did, but it's behind them now anyway, and they got a lot from the experience (so did we). They did the best they knew and deserve all the honor we can give them. We truly have a heritage, all of us as Latter-day Saints.

I often wonder about miracles and who's in charge of choosing how much help can be given and not given and how that all works out. One of the questions I plan to be asking in "Welcome to the Spirit World 101." I hadn't heard most of the stories of miracles shared in the movie. They were amazing and I believe them.

This movie definitely inspires me to give more of myself, to sacrifice better.