Hidden Miracles: Life After the Sandy Hook Tragedy

[Music] we met in school we don't know when can't remember we just have kind of always known each other it wasn't one of those like lightning bolt moments her older siblings and my older siblings were in the same grade so we just kind of always grew up knowing each other growing up I always wanted to be a dad I just never realized I was capable of loving as much as that and so when I became a mom my whole world was just opened up what are you doing you're playing with the marbles show me the marbles using colors colors okay sign red so I'm black [Music] what was you doing about Emily is that she lived life in rainbow colors everything was bright everything was loud and everything was fun and that embodied her completely so we joke around that she should be a sports broadcaster because she just constantly is commenting on everything that's at the plate she constantly gave you a play-by-play but I think what I love most about her personality was that she was so in tune with everyone around her and what they were feeling Emily tell me what your favorite color is pink will ever change yes it will never be a different color ever [Music] my dad passed away and we talked a lot about death and dying and Emily was the oldest and so those were things that she was very curious about she wanted to understand you know was she gonna see her grandpa again after Emily's grandpa died and we're having all these really kind of tough conversations and trying to help a six-year-old understand in a way that hadn't really been tested before and I remember having this conversation about where he is now and talking about the plan of salvation and where we came from and she was saying how much she misses her grandpa and then she pauses and she looks at me and she says so do you think Heavenly Father misses me since I used to be with him and now I'm down here I was like I guarantee he misses you the morning was you know just kind of like any other morning we joked around that I never had a set on alarm clock because Emily was very punctual with her alarm clock we finally had a teacher that she wasn't allowed to come into our room until seven o'clock I had gotten up and was getting ready for work and I was leaving before 7:00 before I left I just poked my head into her room she was awake and just sitting on the edge of her bed obediently waiting for seven o'clock when I opened the door she actually she looked at me and she looked at the clock and then I just got to go in and just sit down with her and just tell her that I loved her and give her a hug that wasn't something that I did every morning it felt normal our usual thing was we go to the bus stop and Emily would get on the bus and we've waved goodbye and that morning was the only morning and all the mornings that I took her to the bus stop where she got on the bus and didn't turn him away goodbye and I remember feeling so sad and thinking why did she not wake the bomb and I thought oh it's fine just once is okay I received an automated phone call from our school district informing us that there had been a shooting at one of the schools in Newtown it was after I called my husband who was at work where he turned on the news that he informed me that it was actually at Sandy Hook elementary school the school that my daughter was attending first grade and so at that point I remember my heart just dropping because I knew that it was easy for someone to gain access to her classroom when you first enter the school so my first reaction was just anxiety and I remember feeling adrenaline just rushed throughout my body and I got in the car and I immediately started towards the school when I got that phone call my initial reaction was to think that it was it was someplace else that it was that the high schooler or somebody had just done something stupid and there wasn't really a big deal when I approached the school I remember just being so caught off-guard by how many people were there and it was chaotic my only thought was what is Emily feeling right now all I kept visualizing was seeing Emily taking a picture and sending it out to all of our family and friends and saying she's okay and then just holding her in my arms and taking her home I remember trying to wrap my head around what was going on and it took hours before it was finally confirmed that Emily would not be coming home with us and it felt impossible I felt so confusing she was just with me and I was just with her she had been with me every day her whole life I have never missed Zoe's moments with her and all of a sudden this cop it's gone my connection was gone from her and I remember going to our car because I was in this large conference room with all of these people all day long I'd not been alone to have you know a moment for myself and I've been praying all day long that she would be okay we're quiet just stunned about what had just transpired and we agreed that we needed to say a prayer so at that point Robby began saying a prayer and this voice came in my mind and it's had Emily's okay this vision of Emily being embraced by her Savior came into my mouth and it wasn't just her it was all of his children and so when I heard those words that Emily is okay I thought about his loving arms around her and what he's in comfort that brought me because I thought to myself she's loved she's not scared she is being comforted because that's what I wanted to be doing and I couldn't do it and here I was given those gifts of comfort knowing that shoes around those who loved her [Music] what a miracle when I said that prayer the only feeling that I had it was just less than half a second long and it was just this feeling of I know I'm aware what is happening and I know what's going on and then and I'm here I know and I felt this almost like flicker of hope before everything to started crashing back down to help me again and looking back again I can see how important that that glimmer of hope was because I knew I had something that in the days going forward in the weeks and months that were so dark and painful that we had something that I could point back to and look out [Music] the day after Emily died I received a message that simply said so where was your God yesterday at 9:30 in the morning the feeling that I had in that moment was God was right where he needed to be that God was there with those children comforting those children and giving them the peace of mind that they were in a better place and that God was right where he needed to be and he was with me and he was with my daughter and he was with those other kids and with their families and to everybody that allowed that event to open up their heart or to soften their heart a little bit he was there for them too that's where he was it was mother I rely on the spirit to Pumped me on how to protect my children I can't tell you the number of times that I've prevented them from hurting themselves or prevented them from an experience that that would have been harmful to them because I realize how much on that intuition I did the partnership and I think the hardest thing for me was coming to terms with my failure as a mom to not protect my child I was given this beautiful angel to protect and that day I felt nothing to prevent me from sending her off to school and it takes a long time to understand what the bigger picture is that moment as painful and as terrible as it is does not define my family and it did not disconnect me from her forever you can't look around this earth or look up at the stars at night and not understand that you're witnessing a power that is beyond your ability to comprehend and through this life Heavenly Father gives us experiences where we get to see that and they're short and they might be fleeting but he gives us an opportunity to see his plan in action and that has been such a miraculous thing for me to witness and to feel and to bring into my life that his plan for me and for my family is ongoing and it is a work in progress and that he has committed himself to me and is asking for me to commit myself to him so we had this experience with the girls I was reading them this bedtime story about fairy tales and when I was talking to my girls about happily ever afters I asked them in fairy tales someone almost always dies what does that look like to you guys Samantha said oh my gosh mom we're just like them in the story we had someone in our family die and we have a happily ever after and that was when I asked her why do you think we have a happily ever after and I remember she actually looked at me kind of like mom how do you not know she goes because we're happy that was just a learning moment for me that we don't have to over complicate it but if we find those moments to let that happiness in and for me that is a miracle a miracle is not a life without pain a miracle is learning to deal with pain and finding the happiness with the pay when I hear people talk about do miracles still exist today I think about all of the amazing moments that we have felt our daughter and that we have felt connected to her and those small little miracles provide me with the insight that they do exist we think of miracles is being grand and being large and overt and they're not they can be but we're missing out seeing the rest and I think that for me this experience has taught me to slow down and see all of those beautiful things all those miracles that are around us that we take for granted while it is good to pray for and work for physical protection and healing during our mortal existence our supreme focus should be on the spiritual miracles that are available to all of God's children [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Views: 617,560

Keywords: sandy hook, emilie parker, miracles, children, faith, despair, happiness, grief, surviving, tragedy, pain, grace of god, spiritual miracles, mormon channel, elementary, death, lds, mormon messages, 2012

Id: b2BtFWBCVYw

Length: 13min 14sec (794 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 18 2019