Tender Mercies

My heart is so full and I am feeling so blessed right now.  It's been one of those days and moments where I can feel Heavenly Father's love for me and His hand evident in my life. 

We are all given spiritual gifts.  We all receive personal revelation.  We are all different and and receive these things in different ways.  For me, it is through dreams.  I've been very blessed in my life to have some very special and sacred dreams.  Many of them of my mom and those that have passed away.  Now, I do have some silly dreams about them, dreams that I know are just dreams and sometimes they are bad/sad dreams...but, sometimes I have those dreams where I know they are not just silly dreams.  They are different, real, and messages or things that I need at that particular time.

Within this last week I have had two of those dreams.Salt Lake City hosted the Golden Gloves National tournament last week, May 15-21, and it was a very busy and fun week.  We had memorial display booth of the three Fullmer brothers.  It was such a cool thing to see all of their robes, shoes, shorts, pictures, video etc of them.  It was also hard.  I was so emotional that week, just missing dad so much.  There were lots of tears. Thursday I stayed up at the hotel with Chet.  That night I had a really cool dream of dad.  We were at the Nationals, which was being held outdoors for some reason, and I was reading him articles out of the newspaper about the fights because he couldn't touch them.  I couldn't touch him, either.  It was like I knew he was only there in spirit, but I could see him fully.  We began talking about Mom and everything going on with her.  He was aware of everything. He then told me, "I am very proud of Shareen.  I am so proud of all my kids and everything they are doing for Marilyn."  He then glanced at something behind me and said, "Hey, I can see myself!"  I turned around then, and there was a metal booth behind us, in which I could see our reflection of us standing next to each other on the side of the booth. Dad said, "It's so good to see us standing here together."  At that point I was crying and woke up crying.  I could not stop crying all morning. It was so real, and I felt so strongly that it wasn't just a silly dream, and that he wanted his kids to know how proud he was of them.  After a moment of laying there crying after I woke up,  I knelt down and said a prayer of gratitude for that experience. I also expressed how I have not had a dream of mom in such a long time and how much I missed her.

 I used to dream of my mom a lot...sometimes they were silly dreams, but I would take whatever I could get just to see her.  It's been a very long time since I've had a dream of her, like 2 years or more, and I have wondered if maybe I was doing something wrong. 

Early this morning I had a really incredible experience.  I had a dream that Chet and I and the family as well as others were in a large passenger van.  We pulled into a convenient store for gas and other things.  I stayed in the van with Hunter and the door next to me was left open. I then saw Chet's sisters, Shareen and Shellie come out of the store. Among them, was my mom.  She looked just as I remember her with feathered and curled hair.  I called out to her, "Mom! Mom!", she looked to me and said, "Kimmie!", which I love that she used the name that she called me by growing up.  She ran to me and just hugged me. We just hugged for such a long time and I was crying and crying.  I could feel her..I began to squeeze her arms and I could really feel her, her skin was so soft and I just thought, "I can feel her. She's really here."  I woke up after that, cheeks wet from crying.  It was such a simple dream, yet so powerful.

Now, here is the REALLY cool part!  I immediately called my big brother, Tracy, to tell him about it.  When I told him that I had a dream of her, he said, "Really? I did too!".  What???  He asked what my dream was, I told him it was simple and began to share it with him.  It turns out that his dream was very similar.  He was talking to her for a bit and then they just hugged.  He, too, woke up crying.  Tracy had not dreamed of her in well over a year, as well.  Again, I don't think this was just a silly dream, it was just so real and what I needed.  Not to mention that Tracy had one of her, too....

I just think, how cool it is that we both had very similar dreams of her at the same time?  It has been another experience that just strengthens my testimony about the power of prayer.  How much Heavenly Father is aware of us and really knows us and so does our family on the other side of the veil.  How His hand is in all things and we are given these tender mercies.  My heart is so full.  I am so grateful for these experiences, and so thankful for a Heavenly Father who loves me!