Start from Scratch

Ten Dresses

The love of our Heavenly Father and the Savior’s tender mercies are evident even in the smallest details of our lives.

My mother loves to shop. It is her weakness, but that weakness brings such joy to my little ones, when they receive special packages from their “Moma”. It isn’t easy for my Moma to get out and organize a little package but when she does, we know it’s going to be perfectly thought out and beautifully prepared. This time it wasn’t any different. She quickly alerted me that she would be sending a package for my girls and that it would be arriving in a couple of days, so I needed to make sure that I let her know if it had arrived. 

The day was Thursday, so by Saturday I should have received it. Saturday was a pretty busy day for our family. That morning we left early to be  at a cousin’s baptism in Ventura, California, which was going to be at the beach! What a lifetime opportunity for the girls to witness such a marvelous occasion. We made the two hour trek to be there; the challenge was that the baptism in Ventura  was at one, which was almost two hours away, and we needed to be home by four for a young woman’s baptism in our Branch. Normally, we would have cut our losses and not have made the sacrifice, but this particular young woman was the daughter of my visiting teaching sister and well, I’m married to the Branch President; so without a doubt, we needed to be there.

It was a fun filled day and four hours in the car with a one, three and five year old. Nonetheless, Saturday came and went. Sunday we received a phone call from Moma. “Did you get my package?” She was eager to see if the girls had opened it and seen the dresses that she had been collecting for them from the last few months. “No Moma, I didn’t see a package”, I started to panick. I do live in a big city. Los Angeles, California  is not exactly Kansas. I asked my husband if he had seen anything in either entry to the house. “Moma, don’t worry, I’ll ask the mailman tomorrow.” I prayed that night that maybe the package was overlooked and that it was left in the little mail truck. Monday morning I heard the mailman, I ran downstairs and to my dismay, NO PACKAGE! My heart sank because I figured that because we weren’t here to receive the package on Saturday that it had been swiped from our front steps. After all, we were gone for seven hours that day. I didn’t want to call Moma. I knew the pain and frustration that her heart would feel because she put so much time into preparing that package. It had been months in the making. I called her and asked her to track the package; yes, it had been delivered on Saturday at eleven o two in the morning. “No!” I have never received such words with such pain. I felt Moma’s disappointment and anger. “How could someone have taken my Moma’s little package that she neatly wrapped in purple paper with drawings on the outside? For the first time I felt completely unsafe in my home. I didn’t know how to feel. I don’t exactly live in paradise, but I’ve never felt unsafe in my neighborhood. Now I doubted. I knelt down and pleaded with Heavenly Father to allow me to forgive the action and to take better precautions when receiving packages to my home. More than anything I just wanted Him to send the Spirit to my mother so she wouldn’t bear the burden of disappointment. 

Monday was a sad day but it was over. I was pretty distraught. Tuesday was garbage day. I was enraged. I knew that whoever took that package would have dumped the box and the garbage bins and I felt like I wanted to find the perpetrator and confront them and let them have a piece of my mind. “It is a federal offence to steal other people’s mail!” I rehearsed it in my mind several times. But alas, I needed to prepare to go to the Farmer’s Market and I didn’t have time to go dumpster diving. Again, in a heartfelt prayer I asked to be forgiven for my anger over worldly things, but it wasn’t about the dresses. It was about my Moma’s time, those ten little dresses meant everything to my Moma but not anyone else. I also noted in my prayer that those dresses would serve someone well as they were carefully chosen for my girls with love. I decided to call the post office that morning on my way to the Farmer’s Market and asked them if I could note to change the location where my packages were being delivered, and all was well. My mind was definitely elsewhere. 

As I pulled up to the Farmer’s Market, much later than usual because I wanted to wait for the mailman, I realized that my purse wasn’t there. Now really... I guess in the morning hustle, I forgot to grab my purse! On my way back,I called my mother in law to tell her about the weekend's activities and to vent some of my frustrations, however, the conversation was interrupted as I pulled up to a stop sign at the corner of my house. “The mail man!” I yelled out into the phone, “I’ll call you right back!” I alerted her. I chased him down and asked him about the package, and in mid sentence he said, “You haven’t been home? I just dropped that package off. I didn’t work on Saturday and my replacement had delivered it to the neighbor's house. I am so sorry.” My eyes swelled with tears and my spirit rejoiced. I pulled up to the house, ran up the stairs and called my mother as quickly as possible. “Moma, your package is here!” I exclaimed. I am so grateful for a loving Father. My Moma very calmly stated, “I had to ask for forgiveness today for my rage and that those dresses bless the lives of the person that took them.” I paused. I was so overwhelmed with the Spirit and the love I felt that day. I have a Father in Heaven that knows me and my Moma. He loved us so much that he let us have those ten little dresses. I had to ask to be forgiven and for my lack of gratitude because everything that I’ve been given has been given to me because of His plan and His Son and because I’ve been obedient to His promptings. Today, I know now more than ever how God’s grace transcends all of our experiences and that he gave us a much greater gift than the ten little dresses my mother sent my children. He gave us eternal life through the Atonement of Christ, and that as we strive to live according to His will, he will protect us and bless us infinitely.