Something kept waking me from the hours on midnight to 2 o’clock in the morning.  I tossed and turned going in and out of sleep.  Every time I would wake up, I would have that good dream feeling, the feeling where you don’t want to wake up but continue in the dream because you feel so good and don’t want it to stop.  I never fully woke up, but as I felt myself rising up out of the sleeping state I felt consciousness, of what my dream was, about fade until I had no memory of specifics, just the over powering knowledge that it was about Joseph Smith and I understood his mission. The final time that I woke up I lay in bed and knew that it was obvious that the work Joseph started immediately concluded upon his death.  I knew that once a work was stopped that it was only a matter of time, and usually a very short amount of time, before what was established became lost and corrupted.  I understood that Joseph was an example.  Not a perfect example, like Christ, but was a pattern of what we should do to see Christ.  I knew that we had killed, or crucified, him just as the Hebrews had done to the Savior.  I knew that we, meaning the LDS church and the generation that is dying off, would have crucified our Lord if we had lived during the time of Christ. I understood these things and it was all so clear.

I felt very peaceful.  I was quietly confident in my new knowledge.

JMB, who sleeps in our room in his crib, must have sensed that I was awake for he woke up too and fussed for me.  I followed my usual routine of going to the bathroom first, as I always need to, before getting him and nursing him back to sleep.  I also followed the routine of not turning on the bathroom light but doing things in the dark.  We have a motion sensor night light that has broken so, whatever, I go in the dark!  Well, as I went to use the bathroom I was suddenly terribly frightened by the awful fear that has plagued me for years, but that I have thought I had overcome some several years ago.  I was sure that my fear was real and felt very afraid.  I tried to reason with myself and tell myself that as a grown adult woman I KNEW the fear was not real and that I was fine.  It didn’t work.  I was afraid.  I turned quickly and turned on the light. 

The fear was gone.

I finished, nursed JMB, and went back to sleep.

So with the good, positive experience, also comes the dark negative.  I will face the dark with light and truth.  I will overcome the dark.

 

The interesting thing about all of this is that I have not been pondering Joseph Smith.  I have been praying about my confusion with Martha and Mary—that I want to be Mary and partake of the better part, but that someone has to feed and take care of the children!  How can I find time to learn and study with the "around the clock" demands of so many little people?