No Shoe Droppage

 Most of my life I've been a pretty optimistic person, mind you other than minor heartaches of growing up I didn't have much not to be optimistic about, then as I grew older and faced self-esteem issues about my weight, pessimism from the world around me and loneliness I still decided optimism was better. Good things were still in my future and with faith anything was possible.

   Then I met a young man whose life was very unlike my own. He'd suffered heartache, struggled with depression and had pain he'd carried through most of his life. Where as my perception went through rose colored lenses, his could occasionally look pretty dark. Despite our different perspectives on the world I knew he had an amazing heart and I felt we could be amazing for each other. About this time a phrase or idea came into my life, the idea of ocean swells or more commonly known as "when is the other shoe going to drop" syndrome. {1} We faced our struggles, sometimes I'd even feel we had more than our fair share of struggles, it began to feel that just as soon as we'd find an equilibrium, we'd find a new happy place for us something would go wrong. It seemed like we'd have a week of good things happening and then two weeks of things going hay-wire. I began almost dreading the good times because I was sure something sad or bad was around the corner.

    As time passed I kind of forgot the phrase and moved on, my young man and I did make it through the sad and the bad and I forgot the phrase. I just sort of figured life went on in a negative positive pattern. I took Elder Holland's discussion of Moses 1 to heart, first Moses saw the face of the Lord and then Satan came. Elder Holland explains that after moments of great light and knowledge we can then be visited by darkness and obstacle to test our new knowledge and see if we will hold to the light we have just received. Moses held to that knowledge, rebuked the adversary, sent him on his way and then Moses received even more light and knowledge.

  My problem with the shoe drop theory is that I only ever stopped at light came, so then darkness...I forgot to get to the part where greater comes after. It is true we live in a fallen world, opposition is all around us, Satan wants to distract us or intimidate us away from the light. Sometimes further light and knowledge will be followed by darkness, but it doesn't have to stay that way.

  This week was amazing, so many wonderful things that I had been praying and hoping for, just sort of appeared out of the blue in my life. Heavenly Father had told me to wait, so I did and this week His moment had arrived and what He had been preparing me for came. So of course by the end of the week, after many precious and beautiful experiences, after confirmations by the Spirit and lots of good feelings I began to wonder when things would go wrong...so of course they went wrong. Hiccups and bumps in the road seemed to appear magically out of nowhere and I started freaking out. Thankfully I like Oliver Cowdry was reminded to think back on the night Heavenly Father witnessed this was His path for me and I continued with the gift and direction He gave me. And then further light and knowledge came. As I took what He taught me and applied it He was able to give me more. The problem with thinking the shoe will drop is we then limit Heavenly Father...as a friend told me "the shoe doesn't have to drop" no shoe droppage! Just because there is opposition doesn't mean the shoe dropped, it just means that Satan wants his say too, we don't have to listen, we don't have to invite negative energy into our lives, we can just keep learning, keep hoping and keep expecting good things to come. We are divine children of an eternal Father, the creator of the universe, we can do, be, have and become so much, but we need to expect good things to come. When good things come, keep expecting good things to come. Heavenly Father intends to bless and enrich us our whole life, but we have to let Him, we must believe good things are just going to keep coming. Even in the midst of trial or obstacle He can and will keep blessing you, let Him. Be like Moses who moved through the darkness to the next great thing, trust you will keep ascending to greater and greater things and don't stay down because you think a shoe is about to drop.

   Heavenly Father wants to help us refine our nature, the more we invite His spirit, the more we spend time in His home (temple), the more we take the marvelous gifts and blessings He sends us, the more we can keep moving forward, become more than we are right now and the more we ascend to be like Him, the more we see who we really are. When good things come don't be looking around corners expecting bad things on the horizon, be looking for more good things because they are on their way.

{1} https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wait_for_the_other_shoe_to_drop

We're all looking for the same thing

I'm struggling tonight, I'm struggling a lot with the hate I see all around me. Facebook is ripe with it and every news station talks of riots in the street, property damage, death threats, and a world where safe places to talk are necessary because it would seem we have forgotten how to listen for understanding instead of listening to react. We live in  a world of vast experience, some know poverty,  some know wealth, some know violence,  some know peace, some know fear,  some know plenty, but we all know hope, we all know pain, we all know what it is to want the most out of life, to dream, to want the best for our family.  We all want to be safe.


Perhaps this is why Christ taught to comfort those who stand in need of comfort, to mourn with those who mourn and to bear one another's burdens. He knew that we would come to a world that would teach us division,  He knew that Satan would teach us entitlement, teach us that because we are special no one else can be special (we are all special to Heavenly Father because we are His, we all have a special role to fill and a work to do).  Satan teaches us to knit pick, find fault and prove wrong, instead of uplift, encourage and find common ground. So many times I have grown frustrated with the irony I see all around me and been saddened by the hate flowing through the streets.  Even now I'd love to point out the difference between speaking out against hate and actually showing love, about being an ensign for truth and righteousness,  that which endures, versus following the fads that come and go. But I have a feeling that I would simply be preaching to the choir.

So instead I'll talk about what we can do, because that is all we control,  we can only govern ourselves.  How do we do this? By living our covenants! When we were baptized we promised to be a witness of Christ, we promised to try to love as He loves, to comfort those in need of comfort and to look for the best in others. When we entered the doors of the Holy temple we promised to not speak badly of the Lord's annointed. That means standing with the prophets who speak Christ's words and who have seen His face and seek to teach us how to see His face. We are called to live by faith, to live a higher love, not governed by popular opinion or tradition, but to live by every word that comes from our Lord. Sometimes what we will be called to do won't make sense, sometimes it won't be easy and sometimes it means reaching for love and kindness when we want to reach for irony. He asks us to reach for love from the people closest in our lives who we are usually shortest with.

Heavenly Father loves each of us in our foibles and shortcomings. He understands human pain and sadness, He also invites us to love as He loves. In a time when all around us shows anger, outrage, fear and protest perhaps we can offer love, perhaps we can put covenants first, to wish the best for others and invite the spirit of love and love instead of negative division.
 We are all seeking for the same thing at the root of it, we all want our vine and fig tree....a place to feel safe and a place to find our true selves. It may look different to each of us, but it's still the same thing.

Ready for all Our Father has for us

As I was preparing to return home from Cambodia at what became the end of my mission I asked for a blessing because I was entering unknown territory and I was scared. My brother had come home early from his mission due to medical reasons and I knew how my parents hurt for him and didn't know how to help and support him, when my own health problems started cropping up I had that fear in the back of my mind, the fear of disappointing everyone and coming home. Then it actually happened, I met with Pres Moon and knew it was time, I knew by the spirit it was time for the next chapter of life (and as my post from a couple weeks ago shows I'm still learning to find joy in my own story and not making it look like anyone else's) but I was still scared about what this new life would entail. For nine months I had focused completely on wanting to do the work of the Lord and all of a sudden that work was changing and I didn't know what would come next. Sure I had high hopes of a young man in my future, but that was over a thousand miles away and I still had no idea what was wrong with my health and feeling unsure of where my life would go.

So back to the blessing, I don't remember the words ( I do have it written down in my mission journal and should probably go find it) but I do remember what I saw. As I sat with elders hands upon my head and eyes closed I saw a mountain rising in front of me with a hand rail going up a jagged trail on the side of the mountain with clouds, thunder, lightning and rain. I do remember that I was promised faith to part mountains and split seas, to have faith that there was a plan and purpose and that though it would be hard it would be okay.

As I came home and faced life, school, love and patience I thought often of that blessing and many times I thought it applied to each situation and in truth it probably did and still does. Yet as I thought of these last two weeks, thought of what I've learned and a rough edge or two that got rubbed off a bit more I saw that mountain again in my mind and I realized what I thought was the mountain before was just the trail to get to the mountain.

There is a false belief in the church that we don't teach it just seems to hang around, that if you are obedient you will be blessed with an easy life. Because God will open the windows of heaven this must mean life will be good. It is true that life will be good, not because trials will magically disappear, but because we will have added perspective and help through the Spirit and we will have the help of heaven to assist us.

In fact I will tender the thought that as we are obedient and seeking for further light and knowledge life will actually get harder, more temporal questions will arise, more temptation, more frustrations will arise because this life is meant to test us, this life is meant to present mountains to our view because this life is meant to knock off rough edges and to refine us, the Lord wants to give us everything, but first we must be tried in everything. This life presents mountains because on those climbs we learn who we are and we learn who Heavenly Father is, on those climbs we learn the stern stuff we are made of, on those climbs we become softer, kinder and more loving as we invite our Savior to walk with us and help us see others as He sees each of us.

There will come moments in our lives that seem to test us to the limit, but just hold on, stay close to our Father and remember you can and will make it and in six more months something knew will come to try and test you, not because life is unfair or we are unloved, but because Heavenly Father has a universe for us and we need to be ready. It is a greater disservice to us to let our lives be easy and never learn than to allow life to be life and help us be ready for all that our Father has for us.

We chose this fight

To misquote a popular quote "these are the times that try men's souls The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink because it hurts a lot and even those who stand by in the midst of pain and trial will hope it will only come once in their life time..." 

I had one of those times this week and I'm not quite sure which kind of soldier I turned out to be. I faced things this week I had never imagined were in my future, I shed bitter tears of emotional pain, confusion, hurt and even anger. For the first time in my life I found myself wondering if Heavenly father really knew what He was doing. I knew He was there, I knew He heard my prayers but for the first time I couldn't get an answer. I've gotten no's before, I've gotten waits before, I've even gotten maybes, but never silence from the heavens. I couldn't understand why Heavenly father couldn't just give a little,  even now a part of me wonders why there can't be healing, why there can't be more hope, more healing more light. 

This last week has been one of the darkest in my life up to this point, I have shed more tears, faced more sleepless nights and felt more anguish for another human being than I ever have before and I have never felt more miracles from heaven and silence from my father above than in this week. In a blessing I received yesterday I was reminded that Heavenly Father doesn't allow these things out of cruelty or a lack of caring, He allows them to come because He knows what we need to grow and reach our full spiritual stature. I was also told that sometimes some circumstances require pure blind faith, to step into the darkness trusting that there will be light at the end, that I was not left alone to perish. 

I admit that on their own this counsel was not as comforting as I know it should have been. But in conjunction with a seemingly unrelated event it became comforting... I work the 5:45 am temple shift  on Saturday morning. Well as we are aware it was rather chilly, well down right frosty yesterday morning and I prayed anxiously that my car would start and it did. But I didn't ask that my car would shift and it did not. Three times on my way to pick up another sister and then head to the temple I prayed that my car would shift, three times it eventually did. Finally I made it to the temple, to face one final obstacle, my key was stuck in the transmission...there was still power in my car and I daren't leave with the radio still on or my battery would have been dead five hours later. So I sat in my car beginning to weep, for where was my Father in Heaven who hadn't simply removed the obstacles in my path? After the painful week I had had why couldn't driving my car to the temple just be easy? As I prayed, once more, words came out of my mouth I didn't expect..."Heavenly Father please bless that I can make it inside so I can learn about why I chose to come here to earth and face what I face". 
As I pondered on that throughout the day I came to understand that, I fought for this! I stood toe to toe with the minions of Lucifer and I said I wanted to come here. I stood with Heavenly Father and told Him that the individual plan He laid out for me was worth it and I wanted it. I fought to come to earth, to face trial and boredom alike, I wanted a body and I wanted experiences that would make me like Heavenly Father. I agreed to the week I just faced, I fought for it because Heavenly Father had a reason for it. I found peace there, even knowing I have no guarantee what tomorrow will bring.

Understanding who we are and what we chose before coming to this earth life can help us see Heavenly Father's plan unfold in our lives. Our minds might be veiled, but our spirits remember, we remember who we were, who we can be and what we agreed to face. The temple can help us clear away that veil and begin to understand what we can accomplish and what is at stake. We have important work to do in our Father's house, we chose this fight, now we need the tools to fight the fight we face. Our Father gives us those tools, but we must earnestly, as many times as necessary, seek His aid and help, even if it feels like you're praying for your car to shift for the fifth time in a row. He will answer and maybe its a matter of shifting your heart instead of your car.

We are coming to days that will try men's souls, we are coming to days that will make us question our faith. We were not saved for these latter days to quietly lay down and let Satan have his way. We were saved for these days and these times to exercise pure blind faith, to know that no matter what we face we have a guard of angels walking beside us and a Savior to meet us along the way, for we don't live in a world of guarantees. We were saved for these days because we were tutored in our Father's house, we know who He is, we know what He feels like and we know His nature. We are living in days when we must rely on our spirit's knowledge that God is good, He desires the very best for us, He just realizes best in terms of eternities, when we see it in terms of good night's sleep. We are known, we are cared for and we have angels as our guard and watchmen, know you are not alone even in exhaustion or the bitter watches of the night. Heavenly Father hopes for each of us that today can be the day we will see our Savior.