I think everyone should have a Dallin in their life. Homeschooling him these past two weeks has had me on my knees and in tears a lot! I have questioned this personal revelation more times than I would like to admit.  It’s funny how I know something is right, then I go to do it and it’s superduper hard and I feel like yelling “retreat!” Each time I’ve prayed, I have had the same peaceful feeling come over me and I’ve heard a faint whisper that says “yes you’re doing the right thing.” (even when I’m hoping I’ll hear, “there’s another, easier way!”) Then I get excited and the next morning comes and it’s hard again.  I’m always glad he’s here with me and he tries so hard, one night he even wrote out his own schedule for the next day. But staying on top of all the other things I need to do as a wife, homemaker, mother, and a teacher to a child with special needs is a little overwhelming.

I love and feel so grateful that I know about priesthood blessings. I know that just  as righteous fathers from the old testament long ago blessed  their children, my children have received a similar fathers blessing each year before they start school. This year Dallin was told of the great purpose he had on the earth, that God sent him here to accomplish something very important. Maybe that blessing was  more for me to hear. Every day as I go forth  to teach him I remember those promises that I get to be a part of. I remember that I am training him now for the great mission he will fulfill. I can’t see the future, or even know what tomorrow brings, but I do believe in the law of the harvest. I believed it when Elder Maxwell said,  “No where is this law more evident than in parenting.” I know that each act of kindness and service I give helps my little ones to grow strong. Because of  each one of them there is a depth and breath to my being that wasn’t there before.

Because of Dallin’s sensitivity to everything around him I have to be more careful in how I act and what I say. I have to be so, so patient and never react to a situation. I must always remain calm and kind. I must always try to see beyond his behavior in the moment and be wise as to what has caused it or how  to extinguish a difficult situation. Most times I have not known what to do, or how to help him and this has required a constant dependency on my Father in heaven. Because of the enabling power of the atonement, I have been  entrusted with this purpose. There is no way I could’ve done it on my own!! One of Dallin’s greatest gifts is his capacity to love and his spirituality.  He feels others pain like no one I’ve seen before, it affects him deeply, he never wants to see anyone get hurt.

I have been stretched over the past 11 years with Dallin to the point I felt I would surely break. Until I was so physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted that I didn’t know at times if I could get up and do it again. On those nights as I tucked him into bed I would sing to him through tears and hold him close. Then he would say, ” you’re my angel”, and “you’re the perfect mother for me.”  I have learned through priesthood power that I made a covenant before this life to help Dallin through the very difficult challenges he would be born with. I have promised myself that I will not shrink from that promise, that I will give all I have to keep it. When we no longer see as Paul describes “through a glass darkly… but then face to face I will see”,  I believe I will see in full measure the giant of a man I call Dallin who God entrusted me to mother. I believe he was better than me when we lived as spirit brothers and sisters, he was stronger than me. I’ve come to believe, in a small portion…  I need him here on earth more than he will ever need me .