What if today really was the day?

   There's a story told sometimes at church, sometimes in young women's,  about a shoe cobbler who was visited by an angel one night and told that the next day he would be visited by the Lord. So of course the man cleaned his shop, trimmed his hair and positioned a chair in front of the window. Through the course of the day people in need cross his path and he moves from his chair to help each one. At the end of the day, having never seen Christ he kneels by his bed and asked how he had missed the Lord. As those who know the story can tell the Lord then appears and tells him he was there. In each act of the least of these his brethren the shoe maker served the Lord.  This of course is a parable to remind us to serve all who come into our path, but what if an angel, a holy messenger came to you and said Christ will visit you on the morrow, would you believe it? Would you believe Christ could and would visit you the next day? Or would you knowing your faults and shortcomings think you weren't good enough and ask for more time.
   My dear brothers and sisters I think we do this everyday, we see our shortcomings and think I could never see the Lord I am too fallen, too human and too far from his goodness and his grace. We see our limited self and limit the Lord,  we think because we see our short comingstories that the Lord doesn't or he would change his mind.  But He always sees us, he already knows own our limitations, he can heal us, he can 'fix' us, he would see us whole, but first we must believe him. In the Neworld Testament when the father bringsaid his ailing son to Christ, Christ asks if he has faith, the father says yes he does, but then says, Lord help thou mine unbelief. We have faith we will see Christ someday, we have faith he will heal us one day, somewhere in the future. But how wouled your life be different if you had the belief Christ will visit you tomorrow?  Would you trust a little more when life got dark because it is just one more opportunity to show faith in the God who loves you, would you love more because now you see how God extends love and mercy to we wee mortals? Would you trust His word and hold to his promises because you want to be just as ready as you can to see him again? What if today really is the day when you see him again? Would we seek after his presence more often in our lives so when the day comes we recognize him the minute he enters the room because we've been striving to become like him, in whatever way we could...

Christ Alone Reigns Here

All week long I've been wishing that we could have fast and testimony meeting on Christmas. Wouldn't that be such a powerful way to celebrate the birth of Jesus christ is to bear testimony of Him? So today I bear testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ, I know He lives and I know He very literally bore our burdens and that He still seeks to aid us, to bear our sorrows and become acquainted with us in our grief. Even now he stands at the door and knocks asking to be let into our lives, it requires a very conscious effort on our part. But once we make that effort we will have a constant friend and ally. Life not inherently become easier, in fact with all that added light added into your life it might even get a bit harder, but you will now have someone's shoulders who is infinitely able to bear you and your pain.

Isaiah 53:-5

 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 4 ¶Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

I know we are known and we are loved and by no one more than Christ for he truly knows us so He can truly love us. In a coming day I hope each of us can truly say Christ Alone Reigns Here. Because in the end it is who we desire to serve and be near to that will make all the difference in the world.

He will move heaven and earth for you

Last week I ended with the idea that we should be who God intends us to be, at the time I knew that involved letting go of the past and stepping into the present knowing God has a plan for us and trusting Him no matter what He asks, our path doesn't look like anyone else's. God's chosen people have always covenanted to be a peculiar people, that means we will look different, act differently and expect miraculous things in our lives. We promised God that we would take His Son's name upon us, that we would stand as a witness of Jesus Christ at all times, in all things and in all places. That means we expect to be different and act differently than we did before, as Emma Smith said "we expect extraordinary occasions and pressing calls..." We live in a day and age when we must expect of ourselves extraordinary opportunities to call down the powers of heaven to assist and aid us in doing the work of the Lord.

As children of God we have a divine nature and with that divine nature comes blessings that Heavenly Father wants to give to us. Many times as we read in the scriptures we think that the miraculous experiences came only to prophets, to men called of God to be special witnesses of Jesus Christ, but in Jacob 4:6 Jacob says " Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea." Jacob was a prophet, but the people he spoke of were not, they were average Saints who read the words of the prophets, sought for faith in Jesus Christ, sought to follow his example and received power from heaven.

I am here to say tonight that as we live faithful to the covenants we have made and as we seek for the spirit in our lives and desire to be taught and tutored by that spirit the Holy Ghost can teach us to use the power of Jesus Christ in our lives, we can command in the name of Jesus Christ and if it be according to the will of Heavenly Father we will see results. Heavenly Father will put extraordinary experiences in our path to teach us to do extra-ordinary things. He doesn't mean to crush us or discourage us, but as His children He wants us to learn to use His power. In Moroni 7 he says that when a generation no longer sees miracles it is because of unbelief. Now unbelief and faithlessness are two different things. Faithlessness means you don't believe in Christ or don't believe he'll do what he's said he will do. Unbelief is that he can do it and he will do it, but only for everyone else not for you. Moroni says that God never changes, he wants to give the same blessings to us today that he has given to his children throughout the ages, but first we must believe that He will show us the miracles He has shown in ages past. Heavenly Father wants us to do His work in the presence of angels, He wants us to have the help of heaven each day of our lives, but we have to seek it. We have to believe that it can and will happen for us.

This week I challenge you to take a problem to the Lord, a problem only the Lord can fix and ask Him to help and assist you, then, (this next step is important) expect Him to actually assist you. Expect that as a loved child of God He will bless and help you. It might not be in the manner you expect, but I promise you He will bless you and answer your prayer. Then your faith will grow and you can begin to believe that God can and will do wonders in your life. You are His loved child and He seeks to bless you, but because of agency He can only bless you with what you ask for. This Christmas please give Christ the gift of belief. Belief that not only can He help you, but that He will, He will heal your wounded heart, He will send angels to be round about you, He will enter into your life and assist you day to day. You are known, you are loved, and you are cared for by the very creator of the Universe when you seek by the Spirit He will move heaven and earth to assist you and in the process He might even teach you how to do the same thing.

Be exactly what God intends you to be

So a few weeks ago I talked about forgiving ourselves and allowing ourselves to put down the rope so that Satan can no longer torture us with past regret and guilt of things we've done wrong in the past, tonight after a weekend of confusion I'd like to talk a little bit about forgiving ourselves for things we didn't do and letting things go we aren't guilty of.

So about four years ago during the Christmas season one little sister missionary in Cambodia got sick for a few weeks, her head pounded, she felt weary and she and her companion couldn't go tracting for a few weeks. Then Christmas Eve came and it was a Christmas miracle she was able to sing at the mission conference, paint at the orphanage and felt like a missionary again. She also learned about being exact in her prayers, she prayed to be well for Christmas and she was, but things went haywire after that.

Soon she couldn't bike around her area as well as she used to, then she and her companion could only work three of the seven days and eventually one or two if she was lucky. At first she thought this was a passing thing, that it was a weird Cambodia bug or even a previous medical problem rearing its ugly head, but then it didn't go away. She was sent to Thailand for an MRI or at least that is what the doctors and mission president thought, she really went to Thailand because her companion needed someone to talk to and debrief about her experiences so far. The MRI came out beautifully and she was told she had a beautiful brain.

Soon this sister couldn't even ride around her area anymore and she and president had a talk.

I wanted so badly to stay, I hadn't had much conventional success up to that point in my mission, my whole mission I wanted to be obedient to the stated rules, but more importantly I wanted to follow the Spirit. It was following the Spirit that sent me to Cambodia and it was God's plan I wanted to follow for me. He asked me to do some unconventional things, but He is God and sees a bigger plan and I wanted to follow a plan even if I didn't see where it would lead. Eventually that plan led to Newton, Utah about nine months earlier than expected. I came home early at peace, but as Satan always does doubts crept in, fear that I wasn't a good enough missionary came in, fear that somehow I had done something wrong and this was my punishment. Satan will always lie, he'll often add a grain of truth to make it more convincing. We both knew my mission didn't look conventional, but the point was and still is, it wasn't supposed to.

When we do what God asks it won't look conventional, it won't look like what the world or other members of the church think that it will. It might look weird, it might even look messy in the here and now, but ultimately it will be exactly what Heavenly Father intended, not because we did it perfectly, but because Christ is enough and our desire to follow him and follow our God will get us where we need to go.

So tonight I say to my previous self, my young, sad, scared self, let it go, you are forgiven of your past imperfections and you are loved for wanting to do Heavenly Father's will, it has not always taken you where you thought you needed to be,  but it has always taken you where God needed you to be. You wanted Him and that was and is enough.

I say to all of us tonight, let go of the past, say no to Satan's lies, you are forgiven of any past mistake, misstep or unsure footing. Because of your righteous desires you are forgiven and the Lord can make exactly of you what you are to be. When you follow Him you won't look like anybody else because He knows how to use you in His work, you are unique, you have individual gifts and talents, power and even authority that no one else has, stop expecting it to look like anybody else. When you do what He asks you may not understand it, but it will be good. Stop expecting to look like anybody else. They are they and you are you, be exactly what God intends you to be.

We Invite Him to Be

I was rather inspired by the talks during the Christmas Devotional tonight. It seems like in years past each member of the presidency would share a favorite Christmas memory or anecdote that was an example of the love and service we can share at Christmas time. I loved hearing their stories and getting know the brethren better. Yet tonight and in the devotional from last year I noticed a change. Most speakers focused on prophecies of Christ's birth and prophecies of His second coming. Pres Eyring mentioned how Christmas is a time to remember His time on earth and a reminder of the time He will come again. I loved the reminder that because of Easter we have Christmas and that because of the Holy Ghost we can see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again.

I thought that was a rather interesting thing to think about at Christmas time, Christmas is about giving and receiving and the Holy Ghost is one of the greatest gifts, next to the Atonement and agency we have in this life. If we are seeking to become like Christ, to come to know Him, the Holy Ghost is the best tool at our disposal to do so. The Spirit enlightens our minds, imparts knowledge, increases our capacity to gain knowledge and can tutor us in how to become like Christ. Tonight I believe that Elder Christensen said that too often we are content to use this gift only occasionally, in times of danger or need. Yet in doing so we live below our privilege of children of God and as recipients of this gift. Tonight we were encouraged to feast upon the words of Christ, to be obedient and allow this first comforter to be an active and meaningful influence in our lives as we do so we prepare to meet our Savior Jesus Christ.

This Christmas season is a time for giving, for sharing, for serving and for loving, in essence this is the season especially created to help us become more like the Savior, the very reason for this Christmas time. I hope that each of us, myself included, will take time to give a little extra to cultivate a relationship with the Spirit. I realized today that tv is one of the adversary's most effective tools of distraction. We live in a day and time that we cannot afford to be distracted, to live in a world of oh tomorrow we'll do that. I hope we will use our agency to invite the Spirit and ask Heavenly Father for the Spirit to teach us today how we can become like our Savior and then be obedient when that tutoring comes for our Heavenly Father wants to be near us, but He can only come as near as we invite Him to be.

Bound No Longer

If you're at all familiar with the Book of Mormon you've probably heard (read) the phrase "bound down by the chains of hell" and "dragged down speedily to hell". Now as I read these verses I've always been very certain that I didn't want these verses to apply to me and hopefully this isn't prideful, but I sort of never figured that they did apply to me. My young women's teachers would give the lesson about flaxen cords and illustrate it by showing giving us each a thread and telling us to break it. I always struggled a bit, but I still knew one string was much easier to break than a bundle of them. The take away was that we needed to repent of the small things so we never got bound down by the big things that were much more difficult to break. This is so very true, the more quickly we repent of the small things the easier it is to keep the Spirit and be protected from the influence of the adversary and avoid the chains of hell.

But that isn't what I really wanted to talk about tonight, I really wanted to talk about the ropes of hell, those ropes that anchor us away from the Savior even though we have worked to repent and become clean again. So if you'll follow me in this analogy, chains of hell are those sins or addictions that we actively seek, that for whatever reason we still think we need or deserve in our lives. On the other hand ropes of hell are past regrets, acts or addictions that we have sought to leave behind that still haunt us and Satan uses to shame us and guilt us away from Christ.

When we sin, going contrary to the commandments of God or simply a sin of omission we are bound to that sinful act with a flaxen cord, if we choose to repent Christ can sever that cord that goes to the sin through forgiveness, but we can still choose to hold on to that cord, we can use it to beat ourselves up and to keep going back thinking we aren't really clean and whole. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ means that once we have completed the repentance process and felt a confirmation from the Spirit we Need to let it go, we must release the rope and trust that Jesus Christ has made us clean and that we once more can stand before our Father and feel His love in our lives. When we doubt and hold on to that rope we allow Satan to tug on that rope, to keep taking us back to that sin or regret and living in that moment. We are anchored back to regret and pain and remove ourselves from the peace the Atonement brings into our lives.

Now this principle does not only apply to sin, it also applies to pain and sadness in our lives. Heavenly Father understands that this life can be painful, that even doing our very best won't always mean the sun shines, that things will go as planned and that we won't feel disappointment or sorrow. All of these emotions can bind us to a certain moment in time and can stop our development and growth. As we give these things to Christ and give him the rope we can move forward, we find peace and realize those moments were important for helping us become who Heavenly Father wants us to be. Sure the moment wasn't pleasant, but it was needed and we have become better for it. However if we keep hold of that rope the other end is flying loose and allows Satan the opportunity to yank the rope and anchor us to pain and haunting sadness. Please choose to forgive yourself, please give Christ the rope so that you can find peace and purpose in the life God has given us here in this mortal sphere.

He Employs No Other Gatekeeper There

When I was younger and Christmas time would roll around invariably there would be a lesson asking us what gift we would give to the baby Jesus. Now as a child in primary I loved writing it down and putting it in a box to place under the Christmas tree, but as I got older I didn't quite see why the baby Jesus would need something from me, He already received frankincense, gold and myrrh so being nice to my siblings didn't really seem like that big of a deal, or saying I'd be obedient to my parents seemed like a small given thing.

So now I want to ask an updated question, a question the spirit whispered to me yesterday as I thought of Christ as the gatekeeper to the thinness of the veil. At the end of our lives we will face the gate to the next life and as scripture tells us Christ is the gatekeeper and employs no other watcher at the gate. So when we reach the end of this life we will face Him as we enter the next. But I would possit the idea that He is also the gate keeper to the veil. Our access to the spirit world is as thick or thin as we choose for it to be. The more we invite Christ to walk our journey with us the thinner the veil becomes and the more familiar the gatekeeper becomes to us. There may even come the point we will walk to that gate together and He will simply take one step ahead, turn to face us and say "well done my good and faithful friend, having walked with you I know you are ready to enter the presence of my Father." But this is dependent on our request of His presence in our lives. We do this two ways, first by actually requesting for Him to walk with us daily, to tutor us in His way, to live His example in our own lives and second to live according to the direction He gives us, to be obedient to the Spirit and to seek to make the Spirit the priority in our lives.

So now you have the background here is the question: What would you give the adult, post Gethsemane Christ? If you were to enter a room one day and see Christ there, what would you offer to Him? As I've asked this question I've received many good answers, tears and a hug, ice cream (which makes total sense, we are asked to be child like, as a child we want to give him our favorite thing and I know I love ice cream) and us, we want to give Him us. All of these things are our offerings from the heart and show our love for Christ's offering to us. As I have pondered this question I related it to the gate keeper thought and knew I did want to give Him me, I want to walk with Him and have His presence in my life as we walk together. I also wondered what fears could I offer Him, what forgiveness could I offer to myself that I have been withholding because somehow I didn't think the Atonement could extend so far, what pain, confusion or anger could I give to Him that I just haven't given up yet because I wasn't ready to. Our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ walks each day with us, in the Garden He saw us and walked with us and still walks with us, but we have to acknowledge Him and we must prepare ourselves to walk in concert with Him. Laying those fears, concerns, hurt and anger at His feet free us, they allow us to remove the veil of sin and selfishness from before our face and allows the Spirit of the Lord to enter in.

What offering can you give Christ this day and every day? What gift can you offer Him for His gift to you and that will keep Him always near by?

God's Right hand Man

What does it take to be someone's right hand man? I would say that it requires us to be loyal, to be trustworthy, to be dependable, to be willing to sacrifice for the benefit of another, to be willing to do anything that is asked of us, to give up wealth and power if needed. Heavenly Father has asked us to be his right hand man (or woman), when we were baptized we took Christ's name upon us, we promised to always remember him and to become like him. In the temple we offer our lives for his kingdom and even harder for mortals we offer Him all that he has given us, we offer our stuff to Him. In the temple we promise that when the going gets tough we won't get going or run away, that we will stay firmly planted like a well placed screw, that no matter what comes we will stay true.

   Are we the right hand man or woman of the Lord ? Are we willing to give up all that he has given us if he asks? Are we willing to soften our heart, give up anger, frustration or fear and give it to the Lord so he can bear the burden? When   the going gets tough are we willing to stick it out and stand with the captain of our soul, even the Savior Jesus Christ? He is calling us to love to forgiveness to joy and relief, He is calling us to give and to serve, He is asking us to live for Him, He needs a generation of souls who will give all in His defense, are we that generation?  Will we give up us for something greater, at one purpose with our eternal Father and Savior Jesus Christ? They need our individual and unique gifts and talents and they need them given freely. 

   Our Heavenly Father understands we are mortals, perfection is the end commandment, and we are loved where we are. He has the most realistic expectations for us, He desires perfection for us because of the blessings but is overjoyed with each step nearer we make. Don't allow the adversary to take away or cloud the small victories for those are the victories that are cheered the most. each day find ways to be that sure person in the right place and the Lord will do wonders among you.

He loves us so much and will help us in becoming who we are to be.

Light to Offer

 Sometimes I wish like Alma that I were an angel, that I could trumpet the truth from the roof-tops, that I could give hell-fire and damnation speeches calling the world to repentance, that I would always know what to say and when to say it, that I could have words that instantly change lives. But like Alma I sin in my wish, for I am a woman and do sin in my wish to take too much upon myself. More often than not I forget that I am simply an instrument in the hands of the Lord. It is not my job to pass judgment or call to repentance, my role is to extend love, to extend the mercy of the Lord to all I meet and to be a light for Christ in a darkening world. We truly are lights on a hill. The Lord has sent us here to this world at this time to prepare for His coming. We are to be ambassadors, to be sharers of His light. This means we read our scriptures, we have quiet time to ponder the works of the Lord on the earth and that we diligently seek His spirit and direction so that we have light to offer. In a world of darkness, frustration and division ours is to offer love, joy, peace and light, we are the people to prepare to build Zion, what are we doing each day to prepare to live that law in that sacred land?

Chains that bind, trading our mass of pottage

We live in a very troubled world, with hate, divisions along racial lines, hatred building over a political race, fears about ISIS and Syrian refugees, tv shows promoting violence, demeaning the family and preparing a new generation to embrace a world that was unheard of just ten years ago. We live in a time when Babylon wants to train our children for us, they want to feed them full of lies that they can do whatever they want without consequence and are entitled to the best this world has to offer, never learning that hard work is required, that it is okay to sit still and listen and that laws and rules are what gives us power. In the council before coming to this earth Heavenly Father set forth a plan with laws given and obedience required and exaltation hanging in the balance if we choose to obey. Satan stepped forward offering to lead us, not to be obedient, but to eliminate laws, he didn't want God's power because God's power comes through obedience to eternal laws, he wanted to eliminate law so that we could be free to do whatever we want. This sounds delightful to our world trained minds, ooh we can do whatever we want whenever we want, but there's a catch, we never learn, we never grow, we never become like God, because God was forged in a fire of law and order, our spirits are forged in a fire of obedience and love.

Because Satan gave up his power he seeks to have us give up our power. Our power comes when we chose to enact the power of God in our lives when we release the things of this world because we remember that we came from a better one. The so called pleasures of this world pale in comparison to the joys of the world to come, yet Satan would have us believe that eternal blessings are so far away and that if God really loved us He'd bless us more and give us what we want. By tempting us to question God he moves us away from our divine birth right. In the New Testament when Satan comes to Christ tempting him, the temptation wasn't to have Christ turn stones into bread, the temptation came with the word "if", if thou art the Son of God. Satan wanted Christ to doubt His divine role and potential. Satan comes to us in much the same way, if he can cause us to doubt our role in God's plan, to doubt that we are heir's to the Celestial Kingdom, if he can cause us to think God has forsaken us, then he takes away our power and brings us closer to him. That is not the place we want to be, trust me, because once Satan binds you and draws you down to hell he forsakes and forgets you, he no longer cares about your  struggles, pains or regrets, he simply cares that he has taken some other person from their divine gifts and birth rights. Heavenly Father weeps when we leave His protective care, He hurts when we question His power and His love of us. Even after we are bound by Satan's chains our loving Father seeks after us, He sends the power of the Atonement to draw us back to our loving Savior to make us clean and renew our strength. Our Heavenly Mother will move heaven and earth to help us know how loved we are.*

We are loved, Satan will do all he can to discourage us, to have us feel alone, unwanted, un-needed and uncared for. But we are so very loved, we are so very needed, cared for and wanted. Our Heavenly Parents gave their only begotten Son to save all of us. Our Savior gave himself because of His love for each of us. We lived with them before coming to this earth, we knew them intimately and they tutored and helped us to learn, grow and prepare for this earth life. Please don't let Satan win, don't let him convince you to sell your birth rite, to give up that what is most precious because of doubt or fear. Heavenly Father can cure those doubts, He can, He might not answer every question or give us instant gratification, but He will be there, He will send His angels, He will send those we love more than life to succor us and help us through. We are promised heaven and earth, please hold on, hope on and don't let Satan trade your Godly power for something that only looks good in the moment.

*LDS Hymn 292

Because we said we would, One of the Greatest Gifts from God

We live in an instant gratification and reciprocation world. I want what I want when I want it and if you scratch my back I'll scratch yours, if we're explaining this phenomenon in common cliches. This phenomenon can be very dangerous to our spiritual growth, especially when we assume that Heavenly Father works the same way. It is true that a covenant is a two way agreement between ourselves and Heavenly Father and that Him being able to bless us is dependent upon our obedience, but this is because Heavenly Father is bound by eternal laws and natural consequences. He can't bless us when we do not live up to the laws those blessings are predicated upon.

Yet just because we are obedient we cannot expect that we will be immediately blessed in every circumstance. Often the Lord does bless us because He loves us and does want to give us every blessing we qualify for. But sometimes the greater blessing is having us wait because then our faith can grow. Sometimes blessings don't come until the last watch of the night, the Lord waits until we have put His words to the test and waited simply on our faith that He will keep his word, only then do the blessings come, plus some extra blessings because we trusted the Lord. But sometimes our faith needs to go even deeper, sometimes we need to keep our covenants just because we said we would.

As Sis Joy D. Jones taught sometimes we keep our covenants because we said we would. Shadrach, Meshach and Obednego kept their covenants because they said they would, even when the king threatened to throw them into a furnace if they would not bow to his idol, they told him no, that they had covenanted to have no other gods before the God of Israel and that their God would save them, but if not they would still be obedient. So many times the world would tell us that we can break our word, that we can let something slide "no one will know" they say "does it really make that big of a difference" they ask. The answer is yes, when we let things slide we lose our character of doing what we said we'd do and it becomes easier to only be obedient when we expect a blessing. Sis Jones taught that key to raising a sinless generation is teaching them to keep small promises so that when they make covenants their very nature is used to keeping promises, so that when it really matters we can keep our promise for the sole reason that we gave our word. Satan wants to cloud our eyes so that we only see the here and now, we see all of our hard work, but do not see the tender mercies in our lives and God seems to have forgotten us and His promises to us. So if we are only keeping our promises to get His promises it is easier for Satan to distract and discourage us. If on the other hand we are obedient because we said we would be that is what really matters, our integrity matters that much to us.

Pres Monson taught that "when God speaks and we obey we will always be right". He didn't say we would be immediately blessed, but he did say we would be right. Too often in the last few months I have wondered where my blessings were, I have been trying to be obedient, been trying to be better each day, but those things I really wanted have remained elusive. For years I have clung to Hebrew 11:11, Sarah received strength to conceive because she judged him faithful who had promised, I held to the knowledge God keeps his promises and I know that He does, but sometimes those blessings take time and if we are waiting to take the next step in obedience until God reciprocates we could be waiting for a very long time. If instead we choose to be obedient because we said we would and will continue being obedient even if those blessings don't come, we have grown our faith and our strength and ultimately have been given strength to resist sin and at the end of the day that is one of the greatest gifts our Heavenly Father can give us in this life. 

Kicking Against the Pricks

I have been given the very special opportunity to watch a nine/ten month old since the beginning of the semester. It is extra wonderful because I get to learn about babies at that age without getting overwhelmed, although all the graham cracker goo at the beginning of the semester almost did me in before I learned to cope and to let things go.

As I have chased this little crawler around the Institute, kept him from doing headers off of chairs, tried to keep him from choking on crackers and from sliding backward off cushions with my hand on his back I wondered if Heavenly Father ever feels that way with us. He sees the danger we're in, knows that He has offered us protection, knows how close we are to a danger we don't understand and that it is still up to our agency whether we will take his protection or not.

In Acts 26:14 Christ tells Saul that it is hard to kick against the pricks. In the ancient world a prick was a rod with a metal point used to goad an ox in the right direction while ploughing. By directing the ox to plough a straight line it makes the planted furrow more productive with a better harvest yield. Sometimes however the ox didn't want to go in a straight line and would rebel against the prick, kicking it and driving the pointed stick deeper into its leg. (1) We sometimes are like this animal, we decide that we don't want to go in the direction we are being prodded to go, we kick out against the direction from the Lord and find a heap full of discontent and unrest. The Lord is simply trying to help us to be as productive as we can and instead we lash out at Him complaining He doesn't know what is going on.

I've been struggling this week with kicking against the pricks. A few weeks ago I decided I wanted the Holy Ghost as a more constant companion in my life. My friend gave me some really good advice, do whatever He says no matter how silly or frustrating. So I've been trying to put it to the test, of course the adversary is aware of this desire and wants to muddy the waters as much as possible, cause upset and distraction. So of course enter temptation and frustration, whether my favorite tv show going naughty and knowing I need to give it up if I really want the spirit as a companion. What we give up is so small compared to what the Lord offers us, yet Satan works to make it seem so big and so trivial. He says things like "if Heavenly Father really loves you He'll let you keep doing what you want and still get blessings" he says "if your spouse really loved you he'd do this for you" or "that doesn't really matter just keep doing it, it isn't a problem" or my personal favorite "you deserve to get this one your way". These lies from Satan can cause us to forget that the Lord is in control, He sees the danger, He loves us and wants the best for us. He just wants us to be our best selves and asks things of us accordingly and he says to us as he said to Saul "it is hard for you to kick against the pricks". It is hard for us because as much as Heavenly Father wants to bless us he cannot do so if we are not obedient. His spirit cannot be with us if we are actively denying the direction He gave us, because the Spirit is not present with untruth and the adversary pounces upon this stirring up emotions while the spirit is not present to offer peace. We live in a non-neutral world, if we are not actively engaging with the Spirit and inviting the Lord into our lives then the adversary is sneaking in his lies, negativity and darkness when we kick against the pricks show to Satan we want our own way and he loves a good show of pride. Yet as the story of Paul shows us, even after kicking at the pricks we can become tools in the hands of the Lord and do wonders we never thought possible.



(1) https://gotquestions.org/kick-against-the-pricks.html

Satan minimizes your efforts, God maximizes them

In their January World Wide Devotional both Sis and Elder Nelson talked about becoming our best selves, Elder Nelson encouraged us to learn Heavenly Father's definition of millennial and apply it in our lives. Heavenly Father knows who we are because He knew us before we came to this earth, He chose us to come to earth at this time because He knew that we were to be the ones to meet our Savior when He comes back to earth. We are to be the true millennials those who are willing to stand against the crowd if necessary to stand for truth and righteousness, to see through lies and deceit, to not settle for what the world has to offer, but seek what the Lord has to offer. In order to do this we need to be desperate to become more than we currently are, to become desperate to have the Holy Ghost as our constant companion, to become a disciple of Jesus Christ in word and deed. To be a disciple is a personal thing, when we read of disciples in the New Testament they were those who walked with Christ, who sat at His feet, who heard His voice and witnessed His miracles. They were those with ears to hear His parables and asked for understanding. Some of these disciples became the original 12 apostles, special witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ, others left Him when questions and concerns arose. Christ wants to do wonders among us, He wants us to be those who witnesses the miracles in our lives, tender mercies yes, but more than that He wants to do wondrous miracles in our lives. He wants to be a friend and companion, to tutor us in His ways and His love. He wants us to go with Him every step of the way, because in the Garden of Gethsemane He already went every step of the way with us.

Sis Nelson talked of this desperation in her talk; she reminded us that good things can happen when we are desperate to lose weight, to get a good grade on a test..in her words

"When we’re desperate to be guided by heaven, we work harder than ever to tune in to heaven. When we’re desperate to be physically healthy, we eat and exercise accordingly. No excuses! When we’re desperate to have more money, we eagerly follow the Lord’s law of finances—which is, of course, tithing!" ..."When we’re desperate to become the people we were born to be, our vision changes. We wake up from the spiritual amnesia the adversary so cleverly administers, and suddenly we see things about ourselves, others, and our lives we’ve never seen before. The world’s “fun” and “entertainment” start to look almost ridiculous, perhaps even spiritually dangerous. We begin to see the adversary’s tricks and traps for what they really are—temptations to make us forget our true identity and our destination."..."When we’re desperate to be the true disciples of Jesus Christ we were born to be, we suddenly find the courage and determination to remove anything and everything from our lives that is unholy and impure. Our willingness to follow the advice of our leaders changes. We seek counsel and are eager to follow it. Humility pushes pride and arrogance aside. The scriptures become our “go-to source” for answers and for the comfort we may realize we’ve often been seeking online."

We are entering a phase on this earth in which we can no longer afford to be passive, to allow ourselves to be fed a steady diet of what feels good, but not seek for anything more. We need to be desperate for a close relationship with our Savior to know He knows us and more importantly that we know Him and know what He will do not just can do for us. Our Savior already knows our burdens and bore them in a garden, but unless we consciously give Him the burdens we face each day, we are both doomed to repeat the pain of being alone. Go to Christ lay at His feet concern, worry, fear, unbelief and loneliness for only He can heal and bless and brighten, Satan will send his distractions, but only Christ has peace and wholeness, only He can make us new with a desire to leave behind those things that hold us back, whether it be always wanting one more slice of cake, needing to seek forgiveness for things in our past or a propensity to reach for annoyance instead of love. Satan will minimize your efforts, God will maximize them, He offers grace, find peace and strength in that grace.

 https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/archive/worldwide-devotionals/2016/01?lang=eng

Just Because He doesn't explain it doesn't mean it isn't there

So I've been praying for two weeks to be able to hear what the Lord wanted me to know. A part of me is afraid that I was so focused on hearing something profound just for me that I missed a whole lot of good messages that apply to me and to everybody else. I am so thankful for the opportunity I have to listen to these talks again and study them over the coming days and weeks so that I can ponder and apply them in my life. I loved that in the final prayer of conference he promised the Lord, for all of us, that we would study the words in the coming days and apply them in our life. Though I was not voice for that prayer, I most definitely want to be bound by that promise.

  What a magnificent blessing it is to hear the words of prophets, seers and revelators for our day, those who see around corners, our watchman on the towers, those who see what is coming and have told us what we need to make it. In years past they have talked about the temple, family home evening, family history and improving our sacrament experience. This weekend, at least to my mind, the patterns I found focused on the plan of salvation, having faith in and developing a personal relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, repenting daily so that we can have the spirit with us and become sanctified, finding joy in our circumstances because we have faith in Christ and increasing the power of the Atonement in our lives through the sacrament.

Now I could be going a bit off the wall and this could just be for me, but I find it interesting that the focused changed so much, it isn't about the programs of the church or what to do in groups, but it is what can we do as individuals to improve our relationship with Christ, what can we do to find His peace, His love and His strength. It would seem to me that there is a day coming that will require a personal relationship with the Lord, when the infrastructure of the church won't be enough, our obedience to commandments, our keeping covenants and valuing the ordinances of God will make the difference in our lives. Now is truly the time to prepare to meet God, prepare now, establish that most sacred and special individual relationship with Heavenly Father and don't wait for circumstances to force it upon you.

If there was one other message that I saw and felt in my heart is that we are known, bills may mount, teeth may crumble, isolation may seem ever building, but we are not left alone. Somehow we find peace, not because everything is explained and made right, but because we know that the most high God has us in his hands and in his sight, He has prepared a way, just because He doesn't explain it doesn't mean it isn't there.

Course Correct When Necessary

Life can be very crazy, fast paced, busy and overwhelming at times, during those blurs of activity have you ever slowed down and taken stock of where you are? I've had a bit of a cold for the last couple weeks, had a quilting project I was trying to finish in a very short time table, had a lot of books on my reading list, trying to meet my goal of cooking from scratch more often and wanting to be available to encourage my spouse with school pursuits, all of these things have come together in a bit of a perfect storm of feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from the Spirit. In trying to accomplish so much of what I wanted while having limited bodily energy I let the wrong things slide. Prayers were fuzzy from a headachy brain and scripture study was shortened for more sleep after late nights. All of a sudden about three days ago, once I started feeling better, I realized I had moved from the Lord and in doing so allowed limiting beliefs about Him to influence what I thought He could or would do in my life.

Now I realize that sometimes colds just happen, I realize that sometimes things outside our control will cause us to perhaps slacken our best efforts, or just make them not possible, but I realized something, we need to still check in and see where we are, because if we don't we can leave the Lord far behind and not even realize that we left. Course corrections are a natural part of driving, sometimes there is a bump in the road, sometimes the road curves or a car sneaks closer to our lane so we turn the wheel by degrees to keep going in the line we want to be in. Why should life be any different? The adversary sends us bumps in the road, busyness that distracts, illnesses to confuse tired minds, tasks to overwhelm; all of these things can cause us to slacken our obedience or forget to prioritize our study and devotion with the Lord. After those times when we feel the Lord is so far away remember that He wasn't the one who moved and He understands mortality, He welcomes us back as we realize that we aren't where we want to be. He doesn't love us less for having left, He just anxiously waits for our return, we are all the Prodigal Son at some point in our lives and He never wants us to stay away.

I'm so grateful for the words of prophets and leaders who speak the love of God and of His Son to all of us. I have been under a lot of stress lately, but instead of taking that stress to Heavenly Father I was trying to tell myself it wasn't a big deal, Women's Conference last night reminded that there is no stress, pain or fear too small or insignificant to the Lord, He loves us and He knows what is coming to each of us, His love extends past our own fears and He wants to comfort us, but He will not compromise our agency and He cannot and will not force us to do those things to invite His spirit to be in our lives. What He will do is wait anxiously to realize a course correction is in order, He will wait anxiously for us to remember that He is a God of miracles and only our own limiting beliefs limit Him. It is our privilege to ask for miracles in faith and then our duty to build our faith for the miracles to come, but the first step is realizing He wants to give us miracles and the second step to ask, from there He will help build our faith. He loves us so much and wants so much to bless us and bring us to eternity, but we need to stay close by and course correct when needed so we see eternity in our view. Check in with yourself often, know that mortality can mean moments of laxness, but by checking in often those periods can be shorter and we can stay more where we want to be.

Remembering Lot's Wife

  In posts past I have talked about not getting caught in bitterness and not falling prey to the trap that today will be tomorrow and the next day in a never ending stream of stuckness. Today I've been thinking about something similar, but a bit different, clinging to days that are past. Okay, that makes me sound so very clingy and I don't necessarily mean it like that, but I mean looking at days behind me with a wistful smile. Looking back to that "perfect" day, that one day or a string of days when life seemed so calm, beautiful, peaceful and happy and wishing to have that day back again. It is so easy to get caught in a cycle of wanting what was instead of hoping for what can be. Elder Holland's talk reminded me how dangerous it can be to only look to the past, dangerous may sound a bit extreme, but anytime we limit the Lord we can end up on dangerous ground because we limit our faith and the adversary can use that against us.

When we wish only for days that have gone before we begin to lose hope for good things that can still come to us in the future. We limit the Lord because as our hope fades our faith becomes weaker. The adversary plays on our fears and makes the memory of good days behind sweeter than what might still come before. In my mind the Savior asks us to remember Lot's wife because He wants us to trust Him, to long for His will and trusts in many good things to come in the future and not to always be looking behind.

I know that memories are so sweet and they should be something that brings us joy, but I also know that the Lord has so many beautiful things before us, even if at the moment things don't look so sweet, but trusting the Lord allows us to grow in a way that simply pining won't bring.

Elder Jeffrey R Holland's "Remember Lot's Wife"

"Luke 17:32, where the Savior cautions, “Remember Lot’s wife.”
Hmmm. What did He mean by such an enigmatic little phrase? To find out, I suppose we need to do as He suggested. Let’s recall who Lot’s wife was.
The original story, of course, comes to us out of the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, when the Lord, having had as much as He could stand of the worst that men and women could do, told Lot and his family to flee because those cities were about to be destroyed. “Escape for thy life,” the Lord said, “look not behind thee . . . ; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed” (Genesis 19:17; emphasis added).
With less than immediate obedience and more than a little negotiation, Lot and his family ultimately did leave town, but just in the nick of time. The scriptures tell us what happened at daybreak the morning following their escape:
The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
And he overthrew those cities. [Genesis 19:24–25]
Then our theme today comes in the next verse. Surely, surely, with the Lord’s counsel “look not behind thee” ringing clearly in her ears, Lot’s wife, the record says, “looked back,” and she was turned into a pillar of salt.
In the time we have this morning, I am not going to talk to you about the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, nor of the comparison the Lord Himself has made to those days and our own time. I am not even going to talk about obedience and disobedience. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes about looking back and looking ahead.
One of the purposes of history is to teach us the lessons of life. George Santayana, who should be more widely read than he is on a college campus, is best known for saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (Reason in Common Sense, vol. 1 of The Life of Reason [1905–1906]).
So, if history is this important—and it surely is—what did Lot’s wife do that was so wrong? As something of a student of history, I have thought about that and offer this as a partial answer. Apparently what was wrong with Lot’s wife was that she wasn’t just looking back; in her heart she wanted to go back. It would appear that even before they were past the city limits, she was already missing what Sodom and Gomorrah had offered her. As Elder Maxwell once said, such people know they should have their primary residence in Zion, but they still hope to keep a summer cottage in Babylon (see Larry W. Gibbons, “Wherefore, Settle This in Your Hearts,” Ensign, November 2006, 102; also Neal A. Maxwell, A Wonderful Flood of Light [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1990], 47).
It is possible that Lot’s wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking her to leave behind. We certainly know that Laman and Lemuel were resentful when Lehi and his family were commanded to leave Jerusalem. So it isn’t just that she looked back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin.
So, as a new year starts and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had. Apparently she thought—fatally, as it turned out—that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind."

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-holland_remember-lots-wife/

Thoughts from Sunday School

I was sitting in Sunday school today feeling a bit miserable with a headache so I was having a hard time focusing on the lesson and on any thoughts I could share, other than the fact that I really really wanted to point out that our current political options reminded me a little bit too much of Hel 2:4-5 and I felt like our teacher was doing everything possible to avoid that conversation. Sometimes it frustrates me that we can't talk about truth and parallels in the scriptures, we live in a world of judges being killed on the judgment seat and of leaders lying and working in darkness, yet because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or create contention we just talk about the importance of praying, reading our scriptures and going to church and the importance of talking about things that bug us so they don't cause contention in our own hearts (that last one though I think is really important, the first chapters of Helaman show that when we let contention grow we become distracted from what is really important and we stop progressing, like the Nephites we let our guard down and a whole army of Lamanites come marching in with breast plates, head plates and shields. This struck me very powerfully because this was something new for the Lamanites, if we go back to the book of Alma we see Moroni introducing protective clothing to the Nephites, up to that point both Nephites and Lamanites just had loin clothes, battle meant bleeding to death or sun stroke from too much exposed skin. Yet as Moroni introduced this armor more and more Nephites survived battle and the Lamanites still wore their loin clothes and died in large numbers. Now in the Book of Helaman we have a huge army of Lamanites marching upon Zarahemla, the heart of Nephitedom with defensive shielding and the Nephites don't even have guards in the land to protect their city.

This parable shows us a couple things, first because the Nephites were distracted by contentions in the city, namely in-fighting trying to determine who should be the chief judge and judges being assasinated on the judgment seat they didn't think to keep an eye out for Lamanites, they were so distracted by their own little problems (little in the sense it was just a Nephite problem) they forgot there was a blood thirsty army camped on the borders of the land. Second because they were distracted they were not progressing, they let the fortifications fall into dis-repair, they forgot that their enemy the Lamanites were learning from previous battles and would be better prepared to fight. Instead of preparing for the next time they would have to fight the Lamanites and getting new techniques they succumbed to inner contention and opened the door for a war.

Satan does this to us all the time, he brings up little things for us to nit-pick about that we forget the bigger picture. He gets us so focused on inner battles that we forget he is still out there devising new strategies to discourage and tempt us. He encourages us to focus on where we are right now, we forget where we can be and where we are still needed. So this week was our first year anniversary and needless to say I've been looking forward to it for about a year. We didn't go on any trip, we didn't go to a hotel we just gave each other our undivided attention and it was a very good day. Yet somewhere during the next 12 hrs Satan tried to sour that precious day, he reminded me of the many people around me and all the cool things they did and all of a sudden I couldn't seem to remember all the beauty I had seen just hours before. Then he went one better (in his mind) the next day my husband disappeared emotionally and I was left wondering where he went and why. I spent the next days focusing on feeling like I was left high and dry and picked on and poor me and drawing closer and closer in on myself. Instead of addressing the problem I let it eat me alive. Then there was my husband again saying he loved me and spending time with me and saying it had been a hard couple days for him. Then all of a sudden I could look back and see how my selfish concerns and allowing the adversary to distract me took me from where I could be most useful, instead of being a help mete I had just been plain grumpy. I allowed myself to be taken away from my purpose and in stormed armored Lamanites with the intent to hurt my marriage. Instead of finding new ways to express my love and encouragement my silence became a tool the adversary could use against my spouse. The adversary loves using contention and pride to mess with our marriages and relationships, even when we tell ourselves we won't say anything about something that is bugging us he uses that too, because we let what is bugging us eat us alive. I am the first person to say don't say things in haste because then unwanted bitterness comes out, but at some point when you've thought things through you've got to share or you might just go nuts.

As I was sitting on the couch with my beloved yesterday I told him I was so glad I get to keep him for eternity and in that moment it hit me, it really hit me, a thousand years down the road we can still be together (dependent upon covenants of course), 10 thousand years we can still be together, an eternity. That is why marriage is so important, that is why taking time to find the right person is so important, why having the help and guidance of the Lord is so very extra important. You know those couples you see that just seem like power couples, they support each other and help each other do amazing things because they work together? Heavenly Father intends each of us to be those power couples He knows that we can do amazing things together, that is why Satan works so hard to separate and distract us, because if one power couple makes him tremble than an eternity full of them make him weep. We need to be willing to let distractions go, to find safety in the Lord and to always be working to progress instead of stagnate, life is too important to let Lamanites in armor take over what matters most to us. I know there are some circumstances outside of our control, there are things we wish could be different, Heavenly Father will work with those things in His time, in the mean time we seek His will and allow ourselves to find peace in the infinite power, strength and love of the Atonement.

Overcoming Walls

A few weeks ago I talked about the voice that lies and thinking about what voice I want to feed. So of course that voice that we don't want to feed has been getting louder and louder the last little bit. Maybe louder isn't quite the right word, more persistent might describe it better. It seems like for every unspoken word, every missed expectation, every crumb on the floor, every unsure moment, every thoughtless word there is this little voice coming nearer and nearer to the front of my mind encouraging self-pity, frustration, sadness, loneliness and jumping to conclusions about motives. That voice encourages isolation, encourages your voice to not ask questions, to not seek clarification and if clarification is not possible to assume the worst. This voice is a cousin to the voice from a few weeks ago, but this one isn't so much about anger or frustration, this one feeds on loneliness and hurt, it wants to grow bitterness and isolation. I've been feeling very dark inside lately, feeling like trees growing over a garden path and the farther I walk down the path the trees grow closer and closer together blocking out sunlight...now these aren't happy spring time trees with blossoms and green leaves, these are like grumpy trees without leaves and are blocking out light by sheer force of branchy will.

It amazes me just how quickly that voice when we feed it can obscure light in our lives. We begin to think that sunshine is a myth, that life has always been lonely or sad and always will be. We can become so caught up in our hurt that we withdraw within ourselves and don't even try to fix it. The voice tells us we're stuck and we're hurt and we should just run away.

Yet all the while the Lord is sending us tender mercies, parking spots just before the end of the road, your mom gives you two delightful surprises in one day (man I love onion rings), you get a raise at work, the Spirit shows you how to fix your car so you don't have to take it to the shop and spend more money. We have to make the conscious effort to see the blessings. There comes a time when we have to decide we don't want to be the victim, we don't want to be grumpy, we don't want to be stuck anymore and then we go to the Lord and even if all we can say is "Father I'm just so tired and don't know what to do" he fixes it. No, what made us sad in the beginning doesn't magically disappear, but we realize the dark trees growing over head are being pulled back, that there is still sunlight and we see the tender mercies as God's hand actively working in our lives. So many verses in scripture say ask and ye shall receive, draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you.

If we focus on the bitterness, the sadness, the isolation, the things that frustrate us, we build a wall the Lord will not scale, because our agency built that wall. When we use our agency and invite him into that wall He enters in and all of a sudden the walls that seemed so insurmountable have cracks in them and bigger cracks so that as we continue choosing light and continue asking the Lord for eyes to see tender mercies we find that though the circumstance has not changed the trees of bitterness that had taken root in our lives and blocked out the sun have been uprooted. But for the trees to stay gone we must rely on the Lord, trust his forgiveness of us and in turn we offer that forgiveness and love to others because bitterness is best combated with love to ourselves and others.

Do our actions match the company we keep?

When I was in young women's we did a 14  day walk with Christ. Each day as part of a daily devotional we read experiences or stories reminding us the savior wants to be part of our lives. If the savior stood beside me would I do the things I do? It is a good question, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed that he the savior of the universe has time for me.

 However as I work up to that I completely believe elder Holland when he says angels on  both sides of the veil rush to our aid. As I prayed for the help of those heavenly beings today, then started looking for something to listen to while I worked I wondered if my music matched the goodness and vibration of their presence, had my choices of entertainment sent them away right after inviting them to come or could they stay with me. In that moment I realized anew I hope I live in such a way I can be comfortable in their presence and more importantly they can be comfortable in mine.

That is a Very Good Thing Indeed

So I have this sneaky suspicion that what I'll be talking about tonight I have already talked about. Although I have a sneaky suspicion that most of my posts are about things I've already brought up. But we learn through repetition and I needed the reminder this week.

I wanted to bring up two things tonight, the first is that we have a choice in what emotions we feel and in what emotions we feed. Second, what is true of life tonight, will not necessarily be true tomorrow or the next day.

First, we have a choice in what we feel. The world tells us that we have the right to vent our spleen on anybody and everybody, what ever we feel it is our right to share with everyone. We live in a world of twits and tweets, facebook posts and bitter tirades, what comes into our heads should come out of our mouths. This is the cunning work of the adversary, if he gets us so focused and caught up in our emotions and sharing them whether right or wrong we forget to use our minds, analyse our emotions, figure out what is causing them and how to appropriately work through them. Yes I understand that sometimes we can be caught by surprise and we start feeling all sorts of things, but in that moment we have a choice to stop, check ourselves, check why we feel what we feel and choose to be calm and allow the Spirit to direct to truth, to charity, to hope, to kindness. I would be willing to throw out there that the Lord is willing and able to grant us so much more peace than we are willing to grant ourselves. I got some interesting news this week that I had no idea what to do with, I started out a little scared, a little worried, very confused and sort of concerned, yet as I processed all those things peace came into my heart. The Lord sent the Spirit to speak peace and assurance that it would be okay, that things would work out. I was so grateful that the Lord would send His comforter to be with me. But this morning as I thought I about the changes coming to my life, wondering what would come, how we needed to adjust, what would come I scared myself right out of that peace. We do need to be agents unto ourselves, we need to make decisions and act, but sometimes we need to rest in the Lord, let His comfort resonate within ourselves so that we can trust Him that He is in control, He knows where I am and He knows what I need. As humans limited by mortality and time itself we want to be in control and we want a plan, what we need to remember instead is that the Creator of the Universe is in control and has a plan, trusting Him will get us much farther.

Second, another tool of the adversary is to get us stuck in the moment, so stuck that we think the circumstance of today will be the circumstance of tomorrow and the next day and the next. We get so overwhelmed because we think if we are barely holding on today how will we survive the next day, let alone the days and weeks to follow. But though eternal truths are eternal and we can trust them to infinity and beyond, today is not meant to last through eternity, it is just one drop in a bucket full of drops full of days. Today might last a couple days, but the Lord sends His tender mercies, what almost breaks us today, will be just normal tomorrow or might simply fade from our lives all together. The Lord's yoke can raise us beyond our abilities and will bring us to joys it also reminds that dark nights can't last forever and that tomorrow will have some brightness in it and that as life goes on we all learn and grow, progress and improve and tomorrow will be better, even by just a degree it will be better and that is a very good thing indeed.

The Voice that Lies

 You know your personal dialogue, that inner voice in your head that influences your perspective, that makes judgments about your desires, what you think you're worth, how you think you look, how you feel you are being treated and how you feel others should treat you. That inner voice that people tell you you should find and need to listen to, it is your compass and directer. Now I don't mean the Holy Ghost, He will always tell us the truth and is always an excellent guide and we should strive to help our inner voice learn from his voice. What I'm talking about is our spirit and inner self, that voice in our head that we recognize as us, that colors all of our perspective, that makes us who we are and supposedly has our best interest at heart. Well I am here tonight to say that sometimes that voice is wrong, sometimes our inner selves were fed the wrong information. We each have a choice everyday of our lives to choose the good, that which is uplifting, encouraging, hope filled, peaceful and that which brings stillness or to choose the not so good, that which gratifies the natural man inside of us, the side that seeks for that which we think we deserve, that which focuses on what we don't have and that which stirs up hurt and frustration in our relationships. Often these decisions happen in a blink of an eye, we are faced with something we didn't expect, the plans we made and looked forward to fell through without fault on anyone's part, you are browsing Facebook and see that someone you grew up with is really "going places" and in that moment you feel like you aren't, you say something at church that didn't come out right and you instantly feel embarrassed, you react angrily to someone you love and feel ashamed. These are all incredibly human emotions, they come to all of us and are just part of this life we call mortality, but it is what we choose after that instant that determines which voice we feed, are we feeding our inner spirit that longs to commune with the Holy Ghost and receive light and truth or are we feeding that voice that sounds a lot like our voice, but feeds on our insecurities and seems to multiply the injustices and frustrations in our lives, that takes us farther from the Holy Ghost, farther from our divine attributes and deeper down a well of self-pity.


I think a large part of the Lord giving us His Sabbath day every seven days is because it is so easy to listen to that other voice that sounds so much like our own, but takes us so far away from who we truly are.  The Sacrament can strip away the lies we've heard all week and sometimes told ourselves, it can strip away our pain and frustration and help us see with clearer eyes. Because as we come before the Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ and remember His example and the gift He gave to each of us, as we remember that before we came to this life we lived in His presence and in the presence of our Heavenly Father and we chose them, we chose to have faith in their plan, a plan that would involve growing pains, feeling lost, feeling frustrated and ultimately becoming like them. The more we spend time in their spirit we learn to hear more of the divine nature of our spirit. We learn to say no to the voice that sounds like our voice, but isn't quite us, it appeals to us because that voice is the adversary and he knows us very well, he was there with us as we learned and grew in the spirit world, he knows our weaknesses and our desires, both righteous and slightly less righteous, he knows how keenly we feel our inadequacies and where we feel we fall short he knows all of these things and he knows how to play upon them, that's why those voices inside us can sound so similar. But there is a third voice in the mix, the voice of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, inviting us to look past the limitations that loom so large before us and remind us that we are bought with a price, that we are loved beyond measure, that we are beautiful to Him, that the very people here that can cause so much pain or frustration are also so very loved. The Sabbath day is a day apart, where we can be tutored by the love of our Savior Jesus Christ, where our spirits can be renewed and reminded of the powerful beings we are inside, that we are divine spirit children of the most high, we are in fact children of the creator of the universe and that our lives are purchased with the blood of the Son of God because He thinks we're worth it, mothers think of what you would do for child and the love that drives that desire, then remember Christ did that for you because of love even greater than that.

There is a voice that sometimes sneaks up inside us, that wants us to feed our frustration, our anger, our self pity, that tries to convince us that we are vindicated in our spite and sadness; these emotions are part of being human, but it is one thing to feel them, it is another to get a hotel room and stay a long while. The Sabbath day can anchor us to the light, can anchor us to truth, to who we are and who purchased us with a price. It can help us shun the voice that would drown out the light and instead help us find the divine voice that tells us we matter, we are worth it and we have power. I hope we can use the Sabbath and daily devotion to learn to heed the voice that helps us focus on the light, that we will choose to heed the voice that shuns the natural man and helps us look past what is holding us back and see instead who we can be.

this post is for my sister, whose quote and post earlier in the week got me thinking

It is not yet the End

It's been a bit of a week, one of those weeks that went by so fast and seemed like it took forever. Vulnerability is a hard thing to tackle in a public sphere, that's why you have lots of comments in

Relief Society that are really vague, not because sisters don't have insights to share but because personal experiences that shape our insights and perspectives are just that, personal and usually involve other people. It is hard to find that balance between what is yours to share and how much to say without making other people awkward.

So today I'm trying for vulnerable, I hope that I do not share what is not mine to share and I hope I don't hit all new levels of awkward.

 Its been a tough week, one where I've usually spent every night trying not to crumple into a ball because I feel so isolated, confused, lonely and having no idea what to do in my life and what direction I should take. Being so frustrated because I felt so unvindicated, that no matter my efforts what I did didn't really matter and that I was all alone. Looking back from today I have a feeling I was really just murmuring and as Elder Renlund says murmuring is really just childish whining we do when we feel distant from God. I was so caught up in unfulfilled expectations and hopes I thought for sure that things would never be okay. I let myself count up every unreceived effort, every slight real or imagined and let myself focus on all I didn't get and I let it brew in silence. I let my dissatisfaction grow and let my emotions grow. Then one night I couldn't take it anymore, I went to the Lord and instead of laying out why I was feeling bad and explaining why I was vindicated in those feelings I instead said "Father I am so miserable, please help me figure out what I should do instead." Things weren't miraculously better, but I woke up the next morning feeling much better equipped for life and I learned two things, one sleep does wonders and two having gratitude allows me to see the good and pushes the adversary's influence farther away from the  heart. The more we focus on the negative, the more the adversary feeds us the negative and excludes our view from the positive.

Today I decided that I didn't want to be a whiny little child always complaining at what I didn't think I had or those supposed slights that gave me an excuse for poor attitude, I realized anew today that it isn't just poor behavior that draws us away from the spirit, it is what we choose to focus on. There is a quote I heard from a fun indie movie this week that hit me like a ton of bricks this morning "it will all be alright in the end, if it isn't alright then it is not yet the end." I was so focused on what I thought I deserved and that life wasn't fair that I forgot it wasn't the end and this week was just another step in my progress in this life. Elder Renlund says he is glad that this life is not fair for if it was then we would not return to our father, but because life isn't fair and our sins were paid for by our Savior we can return to our Father in Heaven. The adversary gets us so focused on what we don't have or what is happening in the moment that we can forget that the current experience is teaching us skills for Godhood. This life is meant for learning and growing, we don't grow in our comfort zone and we don't have comfort in a growth zone. It is the discomfort that forces us beyond ourselves. When we focus on the Lord we allow Him to expand our efforts and desires and His desires for us beyond our own capacity.

It is so easy to focus on what isn't alright and what isn't fair and to distance ourselves from Heavenly Father, the adversary uses that tendency against us. But perhaps we just need to focus more on the fact that it is not yet the end so it is okay that it isn't alright just yet.

It will change just when it is supposed to

Sometimes obedience doesn't make sense, we are going along in life doing our best to follow the spirit and be an all around good person. On our way we find ourselves getting tired with where our current circumstance is. We grow tired of what seems very limiting circumstances and we want to expand ourselves, find a new job, go back to school or find a new hobby, yet when we pray for direction the Lord simply says no. Now sometimes that no has a "not yet" attached to it and sometimes for reasons we don't know it is simply a no. We in our mortal circumstances only see what is before us, our boredom, our frustration, our anxiety or our helplessness. All that we see is that we feel like we can't go on any longer. Our endurance feels as if we have reached our limit and we cannot go on any longer.

I've been reading C.S Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" in which the uncle Screwtape is writing to his nephew explaining that as a tempter all you have to do is convince a mortal that they can endure anything for a time, but only for a designated amount of time and usually that mortal's time limit is just short of the heavenly time table. Screwtape even says that it is much more humorous if the limit the mortal sets for themselves is just barely short of the heavenly progress designated time, thus the tempter finds great humor in seeing the despair of the human falling short just as they were about to find a reprieve. Now remember we are the mortals, we are the ones facing what seems our own limited view of our endurance, we tell ourselves that if we can just make it through til the end of the day that tomorrow will be better and we've so got this. But then we make it to tomorrow and find that it isn't any better, in fact it might even be worse. As this pattern continues we find ourselves more and more frustrated and feeling very alone and despair starts setting in. The adversary puts in our minds a vision of days stretching endlessly before us in this exact same pattern. We focus so much on what we feel we can't do that we forget that we can do a great many things.

In the church we are always being taught to see things through an eternal perspective, to see the long view, yet it is a matter of having the right kind of long view. The despairing pattern of always seeing things staying the same causes us to feel overwhelmed and nigh onto giving up, in these moments we need to remember that Heavenly Father, the ultimate power in our universe holds this earth and our lives in his hands, He is a God of miracles and can change things at a drop in the hat. So instead of focusing on all that is wrong remember that Heavenly Father truly does wonders among us, He does the miracles and we do the enduring. Now this may seem affair, and I don't know about you, but I know I don't want to be the reason that the minions of the adversary are laughing because I just missed out on the opportunity of a life time to learn something I couldn't learn any other way.

If this post doesn't make any sense I apologize in advance, I think this post is for me. I've been staring at something for a couple weeks that feels like it will go on forever, I feel so powerless, helpless and frustrated. I've fallen into the trap of only seeing what is negative and focusing on my own lack of control and helplessness. What I need to keep in mind is that my God is a god of miracles and what may seem like eternal misery today truly can change and will change just when it is supposed to.