Turn off the Thunder

The other night, it had started to rain at our house. Along with the rain, there came the thunder and lightening. Jon and I were both very excited by this. As it started to really come down, We heard Brett upstairs screaming. We ran upstairs to see what was the matter, and I rocked him for a little bit. He was so scared of the lightening, that I could not pry him off of me. I kept telling him that it was ok, but nothing I said could convince him. He just kept crying, "Turn off the Thunder Mama!" I felt so helpless, I had no idea what to do. Then I remembered the conference talk by Elder Bednar, that he gave this last conference. He said this:

I pray for the guidance of the Holy Ghost as I describe a spiritual early warning system that can help parents in Zion to be watchful and discerning concerning their children. This early warning system applies to children of all ages and contains three basic components: (1) reading and talking about the Book of Mormon with your children, (2) bearing testimony of gospel truths spontaneously with your children, and (3) inviting children as gospel learners to act and not merely be acted upon. Parents who do these things faithfully will be blessed to recognize early signals of spiritual growth in or challenges with their children and be better prepared to receive inspiration to strengthen and help those children.

I had this prompting that I should bear testimony that God hears our prayers. I dismissed the thought, I convinced myself that Brett would have no idea what I was talking about. The prompting came again, so I thought, "what the heck, I'll try it." So I held him tight and told him that there was no way that mommy could turn off the thunder. I told him that only Heavenly Father could turn it off. I also told him that I knew that if we prayed to Heavenly Father, He would turn off the thunder. I told him that the reason I knew this was, because Heavenly Father hears and answers my prayers. Brett immediatly looked up at me and folded his arms, the spirit was SO strong. We prayed and then we went down stairs to wait out the thunder. I was kicking myself, all I kept thinking was, "Why did I tell Brett it would stop?" What if it doesn't stop?" Then I just said a little prayer, "Please Heavenly Father, turn off the thunder." With every strike of lightening, I would cringe. Finally after 30 minutes (we were watching a movie), Brett looka up at me and exclaims, "It stopped Mama!" I listened, but heard nothing. I was relieved and very thankful. I thought that he would forget the whole episode by morning, but was proved wrong, very wrong. This incident touched my son so much that it was all he cold talk about for a week. He told everyone that we talked to that Heavenly Father turned off the thunder.