We Always Have the Day After

Have you ever felt that desire to run away? You feel overwhelmed with bills, work, relationships, schoolwork, paying for gas, paying for groceries and finding balance. You bury yourself in music, a book, tv shows, a movie, you do all of these things trying to hide from or crowd out the guilt you feel of doing things wrong. You just want to run away, take a vacation, get away from the situation and hope that it will all go away. You think that if you can just hide long enough or get away for long enough then it won't hurt so much, that actions or non actions that hurt will simply disappear. When in reality no amount of running or hiding or burying will make it go away. You tell yourself that facing it head on, will only make it worse, that you will only be pouring salt into an open wound. Hiding is better than being rejected. Throwing up walls or distracting yourself is better than facing the emptiness inside. But that is a lie, leaving things unresolved, only leaves things unresolved. No amount of running, no amount of hiding, no amount of distractions can fill that emptiness and I would say we need to be running away from the distractions, we need to be shunning the music, the book, the tv show that is helping us avoid, because it is those things that only weigh us down more. Instead, no matter what aspect of life is feeling empty or overwhelming we need to be taking it to the Lord. The media we are going to for distraction will only taking deeper down a path that is harder to get back from. Burying ourselves in things that dull our senses just means the hurt will be greater when the pain comes back. The media we go to can be just as icky as what we are avoiding, but because it is in the name of avoidance we don't care. At all stages of our lives we should be looking at the best within us, and the best outside ourselves, only our Savior Jesus Christ can heal the hurt. There will still be ouches and their will still be moments of heartache, but as we face them we will find that more and more often that heartache will be in the past. And that we have a brighter perspective because we faced the darkness.

People who are optimistic aren't cheerful because they've only known darkness, they are hopeful because they have seen the darkness and choose the light instead.

That darkness might come into our lives because of our own choices, a moment of selfishness when we really should have kept our mouth closed or a moment without thought on your part or on someone else's, what ever the case the only way forward is to face it, to do the best to make recompense and try again. Each week, each day is a new beginning. We are not forced to live in misery or to always be stuck being less than we are. Each day we have the choice to try again tomorrow and if tomorrow doesn't work the way we planned, we always have the day after.

Because He Lives

Throughout the day I have seen many posts celebrating the day and rightly so, this is a powerful day to be reminded of the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ and the love of our Heavenly Father who would give a perfect son for all of his very imperfect children. No matter our history and no matter our future we all fall short of the glory of God. Yet because of Jesus Christ we have his glory to make up the difference in our lives. Because of his sacrifice we can enter the doors of the temple and make covenants and receive blessings which will help us along the path of returning to our Father. Because of Him we become sons and daughters in the sense that we can truly become like our Father. Because of Christ we have hope and there will be a brighter tomorrow.

The Future is Bright, as Bright as Our Faith

The future is as bright as your faith. I've never realized before just how important those words are to live by. If faith and fear cannot coincide together and we feel fear our future is rather bleak, yet if we choose faith then our future can be bright. The adversary, Satan, wants us to feel fear and despair because the more we feel fear the darker our perspective and the less able we are to feel the mercy and love of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Today at the temple dedication I felt so much love, I needed the messages of renewal and do-overs we received. I needed the reminder that temples heal broken hearts and show us the love our Heavenly Father has for us. We can be endowed with power and receive all we need to pass the angels in order to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father means for us to return to Him, He wants it so badly and His forgiveness is infinite.

This week I have chastised myself so many times, I feel like I am not living up to my potential as a wife and as a latter-day saint. So many nights dishes go undone or meals come off half done because I need to do homework. So many nights I feel like I am falling short on getting school work done, being a supportive scout leader, feeling unable to see the positive before me and instead feeling as if I'm always falling short in prayer, scripture study and service. I often find myself wondering if I will find myself on the right hand of God.

The world is changing, it is a theme I have brought up often in the last weeks because it spends so much time on my mind. I feel a bit like Galadriel, the world is changing, the water and earth tell me the world is changing. I don't know how to explain it, but I know that things will not long continue on as they are. I also know that Satan is increasing his attacks upon the children of God, that is all of us. He wants to cripple us with fear and make us think that we will never accomplish anything, that we will always fall short of the glory of God and that we will never measure up. In days such as these we need  to remember that when we feel stunted and weighted down this is not the spirit and it is not from the Lord. Our Savior seeks to always buoy us up, to remind us of our power and to help us become what we can be. He suffered in a garden for us so that he could understand what makes us ache, to understand our fears and to feel what we feel when we feel so far from God. He felt everyone of those things so that we would not feel them alone, so that He would know how to succor us. The message of this Easter season is that we are not alone, that the future can be bright and beautiful, no matter what may happen in the world, no matter how far we feel we are falling short we can rise again and that ultimately we aren't near as far gone as we think we are. We have a power within us to do great things, all we need to do is to find our purpose and keep moving forward, keep trying and keep that fire of courage burning that each new day we have a voice saying I'll try again today and every night we'll say "I'll try again tomorrow."

Your Voice Just Might Change the World

This week has just been rough, I think I'm much more of a routine oriented person than I give myself credit for, one week of Spring Break and I was a puddle of woobliness. But I wasn't woobly just because I was missing having school and work and homework, I quite enjoyed having days with my family, going to the temple, taking naps and reading books for fun. All of these were good week off from school kinds of things, but what wasn't good was the heaviness in my heart. I see candidates mudslinging like crazy (that in and of itself isn't new, but how many people support it, believe and enjoy it is new and that scares me, the hearts of men are growing cold) I see states passing laws which support a tiny minority while placing thousands of women and children at risk, I see a generation of people who feel that they are entitled to every luxury and who have fallen prey to politicians who could care less for the health and stability of the state and only want to be famous and have power. I see a nation who has sold its freedom for gimmicks and fads and hatred, it would seem we now prefer division and hatred to love and unity. I see the wickedness of the world and feel the earth cry out asking the Lord how long this wickedness shall last.

With all of these thoughts in my head I have felt so weighed down in my heart, I see the stories of 3 Nephi playing out in the world around me and I feel brought down, I wonder what little old me can do when the events around me feel so huge and overwhelming and I feel so small and insignificant. What part can I play in the work of the Lord to make a difference. Then I met for a dinner with my grandmothers and I felt their love, I felt their caring and their confidence in me and I was reminded that the love of one person can make a difference.  I entered the House of the Lord and helped in doing work for the dead and I felt Heavenly Father's caring.

We are entering the days prophets have foretold for thousands of years, these are the days when we prepare to see the face of our Savior Jesus Christ we are entering the days when the hearts of men will fail and we are called to be His witness, we are called to stand strong against the forces of the devil, we are called to stand up for the standards of the church and to hold to and share our testimony. The love of one person can change the life of another, the more we strengthen the relationships that really matter the more the spirit of the Lord will enter into our homes and strengthen us against the storms. Love has the power to change the world, not through programs, but through lives. We were chosen to come to the world at this because we have a purpose, that purpose is unique and won't be just like anyone else's, that does not lessen its potency, it should empower us. With the spirit in our lives we can learn our individual purpose and know how we can push the work of the Lord forward. I have a feeling a lot of that work is loving, loving those who are important parts of our lives. Strong relationships will come to mean more and more in the days to come ask the Lord to show you how to share that love and help those around you to share His Gospel and His love.

Be you, your voice just might change the world.

He wasn't the One who Moved

I think that because last week's post struck me so powerfully that this week just had to be weird to keep me guessing. The week has gone by so quickly, it seems like just yesterday it was Sunday and I was prepping my brain for classes and looking forward to Spring Break, well Spring Break is upon us and that last week went by very quickly.

With the speed of daily life in which we now live in it can become difficult to keep our priorities in the right order. With more tv shows than we can shake a stick at, multiple music options, home work to do, family to be with and noise constantly blasting at us it can be easy to allow our priorities to slip out of whack, even when we have set time for scripture study and prayer we might find ourselves simply going through the motions and not coming to the table thirsting and desiring to feast on the words of the Lord and come to Him in supplication desiring to truly communicate. I found myself in that position this week, having had such a full spiritual day last Sunday I guess a part of me just thought it would carry through the week with me, I was stressed about getting through the week, arranging family time, doing homework, and staying up much later than was good for me with all of these things I ended up in a fog of habit, not necessarily of true commitment. This morning I woke up and realized it had been about a week since I'd had a fulfilling conversation with my father in heaven, each night and morning I'd try, but I'd usually be too tired or too distracted, so this morning I took the time to share my angsty feelings, my fears, concerns and frustrations and I felt pretty empty for my troubles. I felt disconnected and weary of trying. I know the Pres Young quote that when you don't feel like praying that is when you need to stay on your needs longer, but after 20 mins I didn't feel much progress. So I did the only thing I could, I started my day, got ready for church and sat in Fast and Testimony meeting wondering if I had anything to contribute. As I pondered the spirit said just go up there. I wasn't feeling particularly warm and fuzzy at the moment, but knew I should. And as I stood at the pulpit I felt just how much the Lord did love, how much my Father in Heaven does want a relationship with me and just how much they care for each of us.

The sister who shared her testimony after me said what I felt in my heart when she shared a poem written on a wall on a concentration camp "I believe in the sun, even when it isn't shining, I believe in love even when someone isn't there, I believe in God even when He is silent." My purpose today was to believe even when God was silent, I hadn't been giving Him the attention all week, so when I all of a sudden wanted Him my heart wasn't ready to feel His presence again, it took an act of my on my part, standing and testifying of what I knew to be true, even if I didn't feel it in the moment allowed me to feel it.

We live in a world so chaotic and concerning with so many contradictory voices and times when we don't feel like the Savior is near, those are the moments when we need to made the sacrifice to get closer to Him, for I testify, He wasn't the one who moved.

In those moments when we feel forsaken or forgotten neither is true, our Heavenly Father is waiting for us to act in faith so that we can greater feel the gifts and love He has for us.