"By small and simple things..."

With a week left before Christmas, I wanted to find something that I could share that would help bring about the Spirit of Christ.

I was sitting at a Christmas party when this memory came back strong, so I thought I would share it along with a number of others that I remember when I felt the Spirit strong in my life. These few stories are just a small glimpse into why I know that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, are real.

This first story proves that not only does God answer prayers, but that he is aware of each of us.

While living in warm, sunny St. George, Utah, people could do anything outdoors most days of the year. When I was younger (probably about 12 years old), my family's house faced towards a cul-de-sac where some kids had made a ramp for when they skateboarded.

The kids that skateboarded were actually pretty good at it and were a year older than me, so I didn't really hang out with them. Every once in awhile we could see them skateboarding and they were fun to watch.

One day, I was hanging out with my friend, Austin Baird, and we were heading to the movies or something, but waiting for someone to pick us up. We stepped outside for just a moment to see if whoever it was picking us up was there, but they weren't.

Here is Austin now. I stole this from his and his wife's Facebook page.

Down the street in the cul-de-sac, Tyler Cozzens fell from his skateboard and immediately started writhing on the ground. Even from the distance Austin and I were from them, we knew he had hit his head and was having a seizure. His friends and family started scrambling, making immediate decisions.

"What should we do?" I asked Austin as we both seemed breathless and terrified of what we just witnessed.

"We could say a prayer," Austin offered as we stepped inside the house and as we did so, the driver pulled up to pick us up.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," I replied, still in shock about what was just seen.

"Ok, do you want to say it?" He asked, obviously not as distressed as I felt.

"No. You should say it," I responded.

Austin said a prayer, asking that Tyler would be ok. I immediately felt a calm wash over me.

We stepped outside and saw Tyler getting up from his seizure. He was fine. I was even more relieved than I was from Austin's prayer. We went wherever we were headed and thought no more of it. Tyler was fine after some slight recovering I believe.

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Looking back on this now, I realize the power of prayer. We were two punk kids that luckily had been brought up well to the point that we thought prayer was an appropriate response to a critical moment. Maybe our prayer didn't have any effect on the outcome of the seizure, but it wasn't as much about that as it was about the Spirit of Christ that was felt and recognized that day.

As for the Lord being aware of each of us, the Lord knew that this could be a teaching/defining moment in our lives, so he prepared us to have the opportunity to say the prayer.