He's prepared the way

 Change has a way of sneaking up on you, sure you know it's coming, you're preparing for it even, then you wake up one morning and realize the thing you've been waiting for your whole life is here and you are facing all sorts of everything. I'm facing lasts, firsts, still trying to finish planning things as well as making all the arrangements you don't realize you need to make until people start asking questions and you realize that a shoulder shrug is not an adequate response. Then add into that school starting tomorrow, is this really happening? I've watched countless others start back, but I've been so caught up in planning, I didn't even buy notebooks until Saturday night and that's only because I was buying towels for the apartment, wow I'm just a bit out of the normal loop.

 As I think about all the things that need to happen this week and then add school on top I really just want to stay under my blankets tomorrow and wait 'til Saturday. And at this moment I don't even have any conclusions or good moral of the stories to take away from this. In fact some of you are probably even wondering why I'm taking the time to write this, yes I'm stressed and I'm sure many before me and many after have been or will be stressed, I guess it is just part of the human condition. So I guess what I'm trying to learn this week is that yes stress comes and causes us to lose perspective, we focus on all the details that need to get done and miss the meaning of what we are doing, we forget the why. No matter what happens this weekend, we don't buy bridge mix, we are late getting cake out to guests, the boutineers droop a little bit or we have one extra person at the luncheon, it doesn't matter, we are getting married and sealed in the temple of our God, we are making covenants that will bless us into eternity, can anything really compare to that? Our Heavenly Father is inviting us into his home to receive blessings and make a covenant with Him. The ultimate power in the universe wants us to get married and will help us in this endeavor because He actually understands all of the blessings He's promised us and so He'll help us.

God's gift of grace can make me (and each of us) more than we are ourselves. So all the details in the world pale in comparison to what He can accomplish when we let Him have the lead.

A Point along the Road

Contrary to what the world would tell us we have a choice, we are not controlled by our emotions nor should we allow them to make us become a raging nor weeping anyone. The world tells us we have a right to feel certain ways or act in certain ways based on different circumstances, this is also a lie. We are here to learn how to harness our emotions, to control them so that not only do we not say hurtful things, but also avoid thinking hurtful things.

I'm afraid that for the past week or two I have bought into that lie. Because of certain events in my life I thought I deserved certain attention and certain consideration that due to the circumstances of others just wasn't feasible. This morning I realized just how unfair that is. Sometimes we get so focused on an event or our expectations of how something should work out that when it doesn't we become down hearted and frustrated. I was blessed this weekend to be reminded by my sister that just because something matters so much to me, doesn't mean life stops for everyone else, they still have their struggles and issues and this is the perfect opportunity for me to reach out to them in love and support. Asking myself how I can help and encourage them will bring me much more joy then spending three hours trying to figure out the best nut mix. We are called to bear one another's burdens, not just when we have time on our hands or see an obvious need, we become like Christ when no matter what is going on for us we still seek to serve others, I hope I can better see and respond to the needs of others.



Now this brings me back to the original point, we have a choice, our circumstances don't control our mood, we do. Now I realize there are certain moments in our lives when we just react and only realize later what happened or we feel so weighted down that the next thing to come breaks the camels back, I have had plenty moments like those and all you can do is pray and hope that eventually the sun will come out again. But then there are those moments when you can feel the emotion building and you know you have a choice whether to feed and encourage it or to take a step back and see a bigger picture. I had one of those moments when I found out the apartment we'd fallen in love with, felt good about and anxiously waited for fell through. Oh how I wanted to cry in that moment and ask Heavenly Father why it felt like the thing to focus and wait for, when it didn't come. (Now anyone who has looked for apartments before could tell me that was a crazy plan, but it felt right, so I waited.) Anyhow I could feel those emotions and frustrations building, but I remembered that if it feels right do it, it felt right so we did it, that doesn't make it wrong, it was simply one step in the journey and now we work and pray for the next one.

Mind you, I'll be reminding myself this all week as we wonder and work to find a place to live, but that doesn't make it any less true. The thing is, I don't know where I'm supposed to end up yet, but Heavenly Father does.

You matter to Him

So tonight I feel like I have plenty to say, but I have no idea how to organize it and how much I should really share, so who knows, because life goes in contraries because I know I have so much, this post might be really short...or not we'll see ;-). I do know that a lot of what I think and feel is based on this premise. Because I matter to Him, everything else will work out, I will end up just where I'm supposed to be.

Tonight I'd like to talk about faith, I know I've covered this topic liberally in the past months we've been together, but faith is not a topic that you learn and move on from, it is a principle and virtue that you keep learning throughout your life. Faith and this life in general is like an ever ascending spiral, after you master one virtue, principle or life skill you move up to the next level in which you try to apply what you have learned and learn just how much there is for you to learn. After two years of being engaged and running through three or four hoped for, but never planned out wedding dates it is weird to think that I really have one this time and my fiance is the one doing a large amount of the planning and preparing. Even with a date at the temple scheduled, the church reserved and announcements printed just waiting to be sent out, I still feel nervous that I'll wake up one morning and find it all gone. Mind you, it is different this time, my fiancee came to me with a date, I didn't go to him hoping for one, he's making all sorts of wedding and post wedding preparations that I've never seen before and this time the Spirit came to me saying it was time. Yet even with all of these extra assurances there is still some corner of me that wonders if this is really going to happen. Not doubt whether it is a good thing, but just doubt that the time has actually come and now I get to become more fully an adult, ahhh.

I'm so exhausted of that little niggling of doubt, I'm still making plans: flowers, cakes, pictures and dresses. There comes a point where you simply have to choose to believe and that came for me last night. I was tired of second guessing and questioning and wondering if things really would come together. But once I gave it to the Lord and let Him take care of it I've known such peace. We each have things that cause that little niggling doubt rise up in us, in my case it happens to be planning a wedding, for others choices for school, preparing for the future, taking a job offer or trying to find an apartment. Whatever it is in your life, let Heavenly Father do the work for you, if it feels right, do it, you will never regret it, sometimes you do end up just where you hoped you would and sometimes you don't end up where you thought you would, but you end up in a place much better. Allow God to do something great in your life, He has hold of the entire universe and he can move mountains, change hearts, break the cycle of addictions and change the world and sometimes if we allow our hearts open to those opportunities we even get to be part of the process :-).

Do not turn back

I've been in what feels like a holding pattern for two years, not daring to look to far in advance for fear of what I would see or even worse what I wouldn't see. I learned how to focus on the next paper due, the next Sunday School lesson or the next big date night activity, but never much farther than that. Mind you I learned to appreciate life one day at a time, to take the value and joy from each day, record it in my journal and be interested in what new thing would happen tomorrow.

Now all of a sudden tomorrow came, the time to look to the future, plan ahead and realize my life will change, what a delightful and scary thought. What I have accepted as my reality will change and I will once more learn to adapt to the life right before me. With this coming change many have asked "why so suddenly, are you sure?" Sometimes those questions have cause me to question. Now that this moment of decision has come, am I ready to follow through and commit, I've gotten to used to how life was, am I ready for it to be something new. That is a terrifying question to ask yourself. I'm so thankful for the wonderful advice my sister sent me from Elder Holland:

"Beware the temptation to retreat from a good thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now."  "With any major decision there are cautions and considerations to make, but once there has been illumination, beware the temptation to retreat from a good thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived for it, it is right now. Don’t give up when the pressure mounts. Certainly don’t give in to that being who is bent on the destruction of your happiness. Face your doubts. Master your fears. “Cast not away therefore your confidence.” Stay the course and see the beauty of life unfold for you."

If it was right when I prayed about it and lived two years for it, it still is correct right now, it still is a good thing. So don't shirk from the good because someone asks if you are sure, because they haven't felt what you have felt and they aren't entitled to the same direction as you are. Have faith that what the Lord promised He will fulfill and as long as you are on his side, working on His will you will be blessed and helped, not matter what temporal concerns may appear. Trust the peace when it comes and hold to it when fears seem to overwhelm you, the peace is stronger than the fear.

Blessings

Life is weird, it is full of ups and downs, joys and pains and I'm quite sure all of us have felt at one time or another that the ups don't last near as long as the downs. Pres Henry B. Eyring said that the very nature of adversity seems to make clocks slow down and sometimes even stop, thus making adversity require the heavenly virtue of patience. But I don't know that I necessarily want to talk about patience, instead I think I want to simply share that when the good comes enjoy it and remember those peaceful joyful feelings when the next not so joyful experience comes.

As I sat in my choir seat vibrating with excitement over my current up moment I thought about all the downs that seemed to surround me in the last little while and I realized just how ungrateful I am. In the moments of ups I can see all the good things, all the times Heavenly Father has sent tender mercies to make my life better in so many ways. After such a powerful, exciting morning I found myself with worries crowding back in, worrying that things really won't work out as I'm hoping they will, just hours after praising my Father for all the gifts He's given now I'm doubting because some dynamic changed some tiny little bit. How changable we humans are, it drives me nuts. So tonight, probably more for me than for anyone else I want to say "Heavenly Father loves me, loves you and loves that person that might be driving you nuts." Sometimes traffic lights do turn green and sometimes that thing you've worked and prayed for really does come, despite the odds or opposition Heavenly Father performs miracles, just because He loves you. He wants the world for you, but sometimes getting the world means understanding what it's worth and that education can take some time. In that moment when you feel yourself gearing up for the next down and not seeing where sunlight could be hold on to that moment the day before when you saw a glimpse of being on top of the world, that moment will come again and what a journey you will go on of learning and of trust.