Transcript from talk presented by Julie L. Spencer on 1/10/2021 at the Mt. Pleasant, Michigan Ward.
 
What would Jesus do? That’s a great question to ask yourself when considering how to handle particular situations in life. The scriptures give an accurate account of the good and bad things that people did and said to Jesus and how he reacted to those good and bad things. We can use the scriptures as a way of learning what would Jesus do.
 
Have you ever asked yourself, What would Joseph Smith do?
 
Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He literally spoke to Jesus and Jesus spoke to him. Joseph didn’t need to consider, What would Jesus do? Because he was able to ask Jesus, What would you have me do? How can I be of service? How should I handle situations where people are saying and doing good and bad things to me?
 
Joseph wrote down the answers that Jesus gave him and we have those answers in the book called the Doctrine and Covenants. Just like in the Bible where prophets wrote down what Jesus did and said, in the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph wrote down the things that Jesus did and said to him. So when we ask ourselves, What would Joseph Smith do? We can read the Doctrine and Covenants.
 
The cool thing about the Doctrine and Covenants is that Joseph Smith wasn’t just writing down what he would do, but what Jesus wanted him to do. So, just like we turn to the Bible to answer the question, What would Jesus do? We can also get those same answers by reading the Doctrine and Covenants.
 
What a gift we have in the scriptures, especially during times when our lives are in turmoil. When the world all seems to be wrong, look to the scriptures. Interestingly enough, almost everything going wrong in today’s world has happened before. Wars, plagues, disease, famines, sinful behavior. These things aren’t new. They’re not even surprising. God has even said in the scriptures that he would allow these bad things to happen so that his children might be tested to see how well we will obey his commandments.
 
Although God has promised to test us, he has told us that we don’t have to do this alone. God hears and answers our prayers. In a moment I’ll tell you about the first time that Joseph Smith asked God for answers and the very cool experience he had that day. But I want to ask you, When was there a time when you asked God for something and he answered you. Not just little things like asking God to bless your food to be nourishing and strengthening to your body, but really big things, What do you want me to do with my life? Sometimes a little closer to home, What do you want me to do today?
 
I have actually shared this story before but I’m going to paraphrase and tell you a shortened version of something really significant that happened last summer when God answered a prayer in a way that was so shocking to me that it changed the direction of my life.
 
I had been having a really bad day. I think I’d been struggling with a few things for months and even years. I started crying that morning and kind of got mad at God because he didn’t seem to be answering my prayers and I cried out to him, What do you want from me? What do you want me to do?
 
The answer was as clear as if he had been standing there in front of me and he told me to devote my day to a particular nonprofit organization that I’d started helping with. I won’t go into details about the organization because that’s not really the point I’m trying to make. The point I’m trying to make is that I stopped what I’d planned to do that day. I took the day off work and focused 100% of my time that day helping with a social media campaign that prior to that morning I didn’t even know existed.
 
I found out the following day that my friend Shannon, who lives in Oregon, who I hadn’t talked to in several days, had planned to spend her entire day that Wednesday working on this social media campaign. But that she got called into work unexpectedly. She felt guilty the whole day that she wasn’t helping this nonprofit organization after she’d told them she would. She prayed that she’d be comforted, and that the organization would have a successful campaign that day. When she found out later that evening that I’d spent my whole day helping, she burst into tears with gratitude and happiness that God had answered her prayer. I had no idea she needed my help, and she had no idea I had asked God what he needed me to do. But in that instance, he answered both of our prayers at the same time because I asked God, What do you want me to do?
 
Joseph Smith asked a similar question 200 years ago and had a similar experience. He asked God what church he should join and the answer he got was totally unexpected. God didn’t tell him which church to join; he told Joseph not to join any of the churches. Then God told Joseph, I need you to become my prophet, oh and take countless hours of your life translating 270,280 words worth of scripture called the Book of Mormon. Oh and when you’re done, I need you to take upon yourself my priesthood and organize my church on the earth again. I’ve got a whole bunch of other things I need you to do, but let’s not overwhelm you. We’ll just start with that. Easy, right?
 
In answering Joseph’s prayer that morning, God provided answers to millions of other people’s prayers as well. Other people also wanted to know which church to join. That was the question I asked right before the missionaries knocked on my door. I was at the bottom of my rope in life and the knot was slipping through my fingers. I was going through a horrible divorce at the time, I was failing every college class I was taking that semester, my little daughter had been hurt by someone she loved and I couldn’t help her. I had no where else to go but to turn to God. I asked God for help and the answer I got was to join a church. I thought, okay. What church? The next day two sister missionaries knocked on my door and told me about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joining this church changed my life for the better in so many ways if I told you all of them my talk would go into next week. Suffice it to say that if Joseph hadn’t asked God which church to join and God hadn’t asked him to organize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints then those two sister missionaries wouldn’t have knocked on my door inviting me to church. I could have slipped off the end of that rope. Our church helped me hold on.
 
I’m so thankful that Joseph Smith asked God which church he should join and I’m really thankful that God answered Joseph Smith’s prayer 200 years ago so that the work God asked Joseph to do was the answer to my prayer 200 years later. I’m glad he wrote down the things God told him in the book we have today called the Doctrine and Covenants so that I can read Joseph’s words. And Joseph’s words were God’s words.
 
So coming back to the question I asked at the beginning: what would Jesus do? Here are the books that provide my answers:

• The Bible (Old Testament)
• The Bible (New Testament)
• The Book of Mormon
• The Doctrine and Covenants
• The Pearl of Great Price

As we study the Doctrine and Covenants this year, 2021, through the Come Follow Me program, ask yourself, what would Jesus do? And see if you can find the answers.
I testify that the answers are here. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. -Julie L. Spencer

​This little baggie could save my life someday, or at the very least keep me out of the hospital.

My biggest fear in life is that I will be stranded somewhere without my bipolar medication. Not because I’d go crazy, although that is a good possibility.

Because my body is addicted to this medication. Maybe someday science will figure out a cure for bipolar disorder and if anyone knows of something, please let me know. Until then, Lamictal is a miracle drug and the only thing keeping me functioning in society. Unfortunately, my body (my brain specifically) is physically addicted to this medication.

Before I tell you the rest of that story, let me say this: I have a huge amount of compassion for anyone addicted to any drug, legal or illegal. If you have any substance that your body is physically addicted to, follow my advice here. There is no law enforcement agency in the world who is going to send you to jail for what I’m about to encourage. They might send you to rehab, but if this is the case maybe it’s time for you to look into getting help. For now, take this bit of advice.

My advice to anyone physically addicted to any substance: count out exactly a three day supply of that medication, put that in some sort of pill container (or a plastic baggie if that’s all you have) and keep that with you all the time.

With the number of catastrophic disasters our world faces, there may come a time when you will have to evacuate your home or office and not have a way to get to your medication.
​
Think about that for a minute. Missing one dose will probably be tolerable. Missing two doses, eh, personally I’d start to feel the effects. Missing three doses, I’d be pacing the floor and possibly in a corner crying uncontrollably. Missing four doses, I would probably need to be hospitalized.

During a crises or disaster there may not be a hospital.
​
I am responsible to make sure I have my medication with me. I am responsible to make sure I take my medication on time. I am responsible to make sure the loved ones who are with me know enough about me that they would be able to step in on my behalf if I am incapacitated.

In this little three-day supply include a note that says:
​
​911 Emergency
This bag contains a 3-day supply of emergency medication for {Your Name} {Your Phone #}.

Note to Emergency Care Provider: My body is addicted to this medication and I may require hospitalization if I miss even a few doses.

{Name of Medication} prescribed by {Name of Doctor} {Phone # of Doctor} {Dose} {Time of Day}
​
Emergency Contact: {Name of Person to Call in an Emergency}
Phone: {Phone # of Name of Person to Call in an Emergency}

(Note: if the medication you are carrying is an illegal substance be honest about what the drug is, why you are taking the medication, and what will happen if you stop taking it. No law enforcement officer wants to be in charge of a drug addict and not know what drug they are addicted to, how long they’ve been taking that drug, when was the last time they took the drug, or what will happen to their body if they don’t take the drug. The officer will get you help rather than put you in a jail cell and have you start into withdrawal.)
​
​Also, put a note on your driver's license on a sticky note (so it's easily removable if you have to use your driver's license for something that's not an emergency) that says: Emergency Medicine in my purse/bag.

​Now, the rest of my story: a few years ago our insurance company changed to a system where they now ship our medication from an external pharmacy rather than us walking into our local pharmacy and refilling our prescriptions. Due to a misunderstanding (my own fault) I did not get my bipolar medications in time and I ran out. I thought I’d be okay for a day or two. I was wrong. My brain did something I can barely describe with words. The feeling was somewhere between heart palpitations (except in my brain) and electrocution. For those few hours until I was able to get my medication, I would have done anything to make that feeling go away.

That is why I have such compassion for anyone addicted to anything. That is why I will keep my medication with me every day from now until eternity.

I strongly suggest keeping a three-day supply of all your medications in a safe place in your home (perhaps locked in a safe place if you have children) where that supply can be carried with you in the event of an emergency or evacuation. But for any essential medication that you’re addicted to, keep the medication with you all the time.
​
Please share this message. It could save someone’s life. God bless you, my friends. Sincerely, Julie L. Spencer

You know you love your job (and your babies) when...
Me: (5:00 a.m. alarm rings, mumbling almost incoherently) "What day is it?"
Clayton: "Friday. You can sleep in tomorrow."
Me: "No, last cheerleading competition."
Clayton: "Are you volunteering at the scoring table again?"
Me: "Yeah."
Clayton: "Will you be glad when it's over?"
Me: "Kinda."
We're all sort of tired of the season, the ice bags for injured ankles, the reorganization or cancellation of practices and competitions due to illnesses, broken noses, and concussions, the catty girls who love each other one minute and hate each other the next, the coach who puts her heart and soul into a thankless job, the parents who have sore rumps from sitting on hard bleachers for hours on end.
But the last competition EVER means my baby girl is graduating high school. I ordered her cap and gown yesterday. It's getting real. I've been saying for years, "I have X number of years (now months, soon-to-be weeks) to go to cheerleading competitions, track meets, choir concerts, and the rest of my life to go to my office. In a few weeks I’ll be to that point where I’ll have enough time in my day to invest in my job.
​Good thing I love my job.

​Think of marketing like sharing pictures and stories about your kids! You wouldn’t hesitate to say “My son made the Varsity basketball team! And he’s only a Freshman!” or “Check out this picture of my daughter’s ballet class. She’s so adorable!” and people comment and ‘Like’ your posts.
 
You love your books almost as much as you love your kids (sometimes more, depending on whether they’re going through the terrible twos or pre-teen years!), so share tidbits about your books and your WIPs similar to how you share stories about your kids. After all, you created those stories just like you created those kids! It may have taken longer and may not have been quite as much fun! ;)
 
Sometimes when I’m writing or editing my ‘favorite’ scene in one of my WIPs, I share excerpts or quotes, or funny things about my book. These are the posts that get the most traffic, and they show me my target market! If someone comments with “I can’t wait to read that book!” you know they are probably going to love the whole book.
 
Pictures have been shown to draw way bigger traffic than just text. Whenever I have a photo that ‘goes’ with one of my books, I share them. “Check out this picture of the view from my mom’s front porch! This is the lake that inspired my novel The Cove!” or “This picture of Ashton Irvin from the rock band Five Seconds of Summer is how I imagine my character Ian Taylor would look like (if he was real!).”
 
I don’t expect to be the next Stephanie Meyer or Nicholas Sparks, but I also realize that neither of them could have predicted they would be as big of a bestseller as they turned out to be. It could happen. It probably won’t, but it could!
 
You can’t sell something that doesn’t exist, so my main focus right now is writing. I have quite a few stories in my head right now and I’m writing and editing as fast as I can to get them out of my head! I publish them as fast as I can, but edit the heck out of them beforehand.
 
Learn all you can about marketing, but don’t start marketing until you’re ready and have a plan in place. Think of it like going to college. You wouldn’t read one book about nursing and then go to a doctor’s office and apply for a nursing job. You would go to college for several years and learn how to be a nurse before you go and apply for a job. You also would need to get a ‘starter’ job rather than apply for the position of head nurse at a prestigious hospital.
 
Recognize that you may not be as good of a writer as you think you are. That may sound harsh, but it’s true. Use beta readers and editors and LEARN FROM THEM! Get off your high horse, be humble and malleable. Just like the nursing analogy. You will not be the head nurse at a hospital before years of practice as a nurse. Don’t expect to be the best writer you can be without a lot of years of practice and continuing education.
 
Everything in life is ‘selling’ and it’s not a bad thing. That’s why you get dressed and put on makeup and do your hair every day. You put your best self forward as a means of making a good impression to those around you. Whether you’re bringing a plate of cookies to a potluck, hoping to be hired for that job, or sharing stories about your kids, you are selling yourself, your thoughts, your cookies. You hope you don’t come home from the potluck with a full plate of cookies. You want that plate to be empty and people asking for your recipe. You want validation. If you do come home with a full plate of cookies, you might be selling them wrong (are they a funny color or misplaced on the plate?) or you added too much salt and word got around pretty quickly that those cookies tasted horrible! It’s the same thing with your books. You need a good cover and good content.
 
Ask for help! That’s what we’re here from! We can be your validation. Everything comes down to the Home Depot advertisement: You can do it. We can help! –Julie

​After reading the Twilight series I started writing fiction again for the first time since my early twenties. I now have over 30 publications. I was obsessed with Twilight and I can divide my life into pre-Twilight and post-Twilight. I was going through a dark time in my life with my father in the hospital at the same time that my step-father had a massive heart attack and died. I had a stressful job and young children and money challenges and Twilight was my escape. The music, the story, the romance, the teen angst, the simplicity to the writing and the storyline, the clean language. I could escape into Bella's world for a few minutes or hours and the real world could fall apart around me. THAT was what I want my readers to experience. I want my readers to escape into Ian Taylor's world and become the girlfriend of a rock star when they read my Buxton Peak/Rock Star Redemption series, and fly on a private jet to far off lands with Prince Marcos and his advisor, Alexander to meet princesses and wear fancy crowns and fancy clothes and become part of the royal family in my Sayid Family Saga series. Stories wrap themselves around us and protect us from the big, bad world if only for a few minutes or hours. And then we can come back to earth and face our day.

​What is the New Adult (NA) Clean genre all about, and why am I embracing it? To say ‘I found my niche’ is an understatement! I’ve been writing in this category for years but just didn’t know it existed. Then I found out that it didn’t exist prior to about 2012, and still barely exists!
 
When people ask me what genre my novels fall into, I have always struggled: Well, they’re at a Young Adult (YA) reading level with a very mature theme and college-age characters. To add to the confusion, they’re also very Christian-themed books. They don’t really fit into the YA genre because they involve adult physical relationships. You can pretend to be shocked if you want, but (newsflash) even Christians have sex! Preferably after marriage, but that too brings up real-life struggles of the difficulty of staying chaste prior to marriage, especially in a world that criticizes that very pretense. It’s not the easiest thing to accomplish, and I address that in several of my stories, possibly all of them. I believe that physical relationships are very sacred and very special. Lovemaking between a husband and wife is almost an extension of God’s love. Anything less than that is demeaning. Sorry, that’s my opinion.
 
A few months ago I asked a question on one of my online communities (on Facebook) about how to get a book published in that general description, and someone pointed out that my book probably falls into the category of New Adult (NA) rather than YA. I didn’t know such a thing existed, so I started doing some research. It turns out that my stories fit the category almost perfectly!
 
By the way, the readers of NA fiction are not necessarily in the new adult age range. I’ll explore that later in this blog post, but first let’s examine what makes a novel fit into this category. These are according to Deborah Halverson in her book Writing New Adult Fiction.
 
Here are the nine traits that distinguish NA fiction from teen fiction or fiction for adults:
(Those of you who already read my novels will be nodding your head reading each of these!)
 
Main characters between the ages of eighteen to twenty-five (although some online communities claim 18-30 is the age range)
Themes related to identity establishment (characters learning who they are and what they want out of life)
Independence as a story driver (characters learning to take responsibility for themselves, their own actions, and their problems)
A self-focused perspective (new adults are often focused on their own needs, wants, dreams, and interests)
Heightened sense of change and instability (this stage in life is naturally full of change)
Clash of high expectations and harsh reality (optimistic characters who aim big and mess up even bigger!)
Peer-heavy social circles (parents are nearly out of the story, peers become the new ‘family’)
Significant romances (beyond the ‘first kiss’ of teen years, these relationships are intense, often include marriage and sex)
New adult relevant circumstances (may include temporary living arrangements, short-term jobs, fluid social circles, unfamiliar activities and settings, and financial stress)
 
If you’ve read my books, you are probably already aware that they are indeed New Adult novels! But, from where did this NA category originate?
 
Crossover readers became writers! What is a crossover reader, you ask? Basically, the same group of readers who propelled the Twilight series and Harry Potter series into superstardom.
 
Crossover readers, as defined by publishing market research firm Bowker in September of 2012 were 18 years or older, purchasing YA books for themselves, not to give as a gift to a teen. The largest segment of these readers were thirty- to forty-four-year-olds. Simple escapism is cited as the reason for their choosing these stories, as well as nostalgia for a simpler time in their lives.
 
When crossover readers ran out of Twilight novels (the series ended, I know, we’re all still crying!) they started writing stories they wanted to read. That’s exactly what happened to me! I wrote The Cove in the summer of 2011, before this genre even existed! No wonder I couldn’t define its genre or convince a publishing company to embrace it!
 
The largest group of readers of NA fiction are that same crossover audience that took YA to the top of the industry, with college-age readers coming in second, and some advanced teen readers bringing up the rear. My readership includes all of those and more. I have a lot of teens who love my stories, several people who are old enough to be my mother who love my stories, and everything in between.
 
What about the Christian aspect? Pretty much all of my novels include my church! It’s as simple as that. You write about what you know and it’s difficult to separate yourself from your core values. My core values include my walk with Christ, and my membership in my church. Take it or leave it. I am who I am.
 
I love it when people read my books, but I will not change my stories to fit a genre or to engage a particular market or audience. I write the stories that come from my heart and mind. That being said, it’s good to know my stories have found their square-peg home in the round-peg publishing world.
 
Have you embraced New Adult fiction? What’s your opinion? - Julie L. Spencer
  

​I don’t like to give bad reviews (so I’m not going to mention names or even the dealership at which this occurred), and the following story had a relatively happy (exhilarating) ending, but…
 
Yesterday I went to buy ‘my’ new Subaru Outback. I had picked it out on the dealer’s website and clicked the button to ‘schedule a test drive’ and heard back from the assigned salesperson within 24 hours, and set up an appointment for Friday, September 14th at 2:00. We knew we were coming into the city that day anyway, and we knew we wanted to buy ‘that’ car (2017 Subaru Outback with only 6,700 mile), so it was just all going to work out.
 
We hurried to get to the appointment after our son’s cross country meet, rushing through our lunch, showing up in our college t-shirts and jeans instead of the nice clothes I was planning to wear, drenched in sweat from standing out at a cross country meet in 80 degrees and sunshine and humidity, probably looking like we couldn’t afford the car we wanted to buy.
 
The guy didn’t have us on his schedule, like, at all. Didn’t remember we were coming, looked baffled that we were there and interrupting his lunch (that he had just grabbed from the breakroom). I pulled up the email, which had his picture on it, and the words, “I’ll put you on my schedule for Friday, September 14th at 2:00.” Once he found it on his email he was like, “Oh, okay, I remember now. You had a Town & Country you were going to trade in.” I said, “No, we sold it last night. We’ll just be putting cash down.”
 
Okay, so we all got settled in his office and he said, “You’re wanting to see some Subaru Outbacks, right?” I said, “No, we already picked out the car we wanted. We just wanted to give it a quick test drive and then buy it.” (I’m thinking: easiest sale you ever made, buddy) So, he says, “I’ll go find your car and bring it around front.”
 
He came back flustered saying, “I’ve walked the whole perimeter of this lot and I can’t find it.” So, he pulled it up in the computer, mumbling, “I wonder if it was that one that sold on Wednesday.” I’m like, “WHAT??? We drove all the way down here, had an appointment, reserved THAT car, and you SOLD it? And you couldn’t have called us to let us know???” Well it’s obvious why he didn’t call us because he didn’t have us on his schedule.
 
So, he starts listing off the other Subaru Outbacks he has on the lot and there were a couple of 2017s, but they were all in the 20,000 range in mileage for approximately the same price as the one we had picked out that had 6,900 miles on it. I said, “No, that’s not acceptable. I want a low-mileage vehicle that’s going to last forever.” I had just sold a car on Thursday that had 231,000 miles on it, so I take good care of my cars.
 
So, he did some more checking in his computer and said, “Well, since it was my fault… I can get you into a 2019 for $2,000 more than you were going to buy the 2017 for. We’ve got a blue one right over there in the showroom if you like that color.” We tried to keep a straight face and I said, “That would be acceptable.” We walked over to the blue one, still trying to keep a straight face. It was IN-CRED-I-BLE.
 
Although it has been ingrained in me since birth that you NEVER buy a brand-new car… ever, we somehow left the Subaru dealership yesterday afternoon with a car that had 130 miles on it. My daughter said, “This is the newest car you’ve ever owned.” I said, “This is possibly the newest car I’ve ever SAT IN.” I’m still in complete shock even though I drove it for about three hours yesterday to go to Novi and back to visit my daughter and her husband.
 
I still haven’t figured out how to turn on the cruise control…

​Oh my gosh! I'm so excited to see this. One of my friends found a copy of our 8th grade yearbook where my very first published work was located.

This was published in 1988 in our Flushing (Michigan) Junior High yearbook. Yeah, good times.

Those last few verses about high school must have been added after the fact because my original poem ended with "If ever there should be an end."

The frustrating thing is that my name is not even listed as the author. Maybe that’s not a bad thing since this is the cheesiest poem ever written.

My best friend, Amy and I remember when I wrote this. I was on an airplane flying to Florida to spend the summer with my grandma. Amy and I were inseparable back then, and I knew I was going to miss her somethin' fierce, so I wrote this poem!

I wonder if anyone remembers the novel I wrote that year? I know Amy remembers because we’ve talked about it in recent years. I scrawled the story as fast as I could on notebook paper, ripped the sheet out of my notebook, barely looking up from my writing, and passed the page to the person next to me, and they would read it and pass it on and on and on. I wonder if any of the teachers remember that? Or why they didn’t put a stop to it? And how on earth did I pass eighth grade? And (gulp) why did I throw that manuscript away?

The Kindle app on my phone sure makes reading easier now! Oh, and thank the maker for word processors! When I first started using Microsoft Works (yes, Works, for those of you who are too young to know, that was the predecessor to Word), I thought it was a gift from the writing gods. I now probably spend more time with Microsoft Word than I do with my husband. He should probably be jealous…

Somebody needs to do something about this problem!
 
I’ve heard that sentence so many times I could gag. Who is this elusive ‘somebody’ and what ‘something’ are they going to do?
 
I’ve heard ‘We need to talk to our legislators and demand that they do something.’ What is it you think they should do? Do you have the answers to give them? Or are you just going to stand on the Capitol steps and demand they ‘do something’?
 
How about if we look at each problem individually? What is the problem? Why is this a problem? What is causing the problem? What is/are the solution(s) to the problem? What steps need to be taken in order to solve that problem?
 
Is it that simple? No.
 
For most problems in life there are many problems causing the visible problem. Keep digging beneath the visible problem and find all the problems causing the visible problem. Then keep digging. What are the problems causing those problems? And what are the problems causing those problems?
 
We can’t solve the visible problem until we dig so far down that we find the roots of the problems. Then we have to tackle each of those roots individually.
 
Start with a focus group and a large white board. Write the visible problem in the center and put a circle around it. Then start brainstorming. At this stage in the planning don’t focus on solutions. Just focus on identifying the problems. Keep digging and digging and digging until you find the roots of each problem that is causing the problems that are causing the visible problem.
 
Then, find the solutions to the roots. Who is most qualified to tackle each of those roots? When you say it takes a village to solve a problem, you’re right. It takes a lot of people focusing on the one root for which they are most qualified.
 
It might take hundreds of people all tackling the same root, at the same time, in order to heal that root. Keep healing root after root after root until you suddenly look up and realize in solving the roots, you’ve solved the visible problems.
 
One more big suggestion, and you can start throwing your proverbial daggers at me. Let’s get on our knees, as a community, say on that beautiful football field we pay taxes for, and pray for our community, for our kids, for our schools, for our state, for our country, and dare I sound cliché when I say ‘for world peace.’
 
You can pray to whomever you think is listening. I personally believe that Heavenly Father is real. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ to be our Savior. He sent His Spirit, often referred to as the Holy Ghost, to be our comforter. God sends angels to help us here on this beautiful earth He created. Those angels are waiting for us to ask for their help. Let’s ask for help!
 
Would it hurt anything, or anyone, for us to pray together as a community? If anyone doesn’t want to come and pray with us, they can stay home. But could it help? We don’t know until we try. I, for one, am willing to try. I have faith that a whole community on their knees, uniting in prayer, will get God’s attention.
 
Get on your knees as if it’s all in God’s hands, then stand up and go to work as if it’s all in your hands. Find your roots and go heal them!