We are farther along than we think

I think one of the big struggles of our day is to find purpose in each new day. Time feels like it is rushing by, I heard someone say that the days are long and the years are short and I think I believe them. Each day of the week feels like a year in and of itself, filled with emotion, some good some bad, filled with tedium and too much excitement; then at the end of the week I find myself wondering how in the world it is already Saturday or in this case Sunday.



What I'm coming to find out is that if I don't make a conscious effort to be engaged and live with intention that I can go a whole week simply surviving instead of progressing. Sure that progression may only come in fits and starts and may not be as all encompassing or earth shattering as I would like to be, but progress even if by a 1/4 of an inch is still progress.

I think the biggest battle in this life is to just keep trying, to keep trying even without revelation, to keep trying without noticeable results, to keep trying when you are frustrated, to keep trying when you are confused, to keep trying when things get messy, to keep going even when every part of you just wants to give up because you don't even know why you are doing this anymore. As mentioned before most people will give up on something after two weeks if they don't see results...what I'm coming to see is that very few things in this life actually change in two weeks. I was looking at some of my blogs from December and realized I've been trying to improve my sleep schedule since before December. You know what...I stayed up until midnight last night. From a distance that would look like I am still failing because I'm still staying up later than I wanted to when I first started. However with a closer look I realized some things. First, I'm not crashing on the couch anymore and waking up at 1 a.m to head to bed. Second, the tv isn't on as late at our house as it used to be. This means that I'm spending less time in front of the tv and more time with my husband. Third, I have a much more solid and useful night time routine than I used to. Sure my actual time headed to bed might not have improved as much as I had hoped, but I am different than I was, and I have made improvements I hadn't even imagined when I started this journey 8 months ago.

Sometimes when the change we are seeking doesn't come the way we want or expected we can be tempted to give up and through in the towel. Sometimes when we start feeling frustrated we can be tempted to fall back into negative thought patterns and reside in the darkness in self-pity. I would guess that those moments are actually the moments when we are closest to success, perhaps not the "I have magically and suddenly reached the end all be all goal I have been seeking" but instead the "oh Heavenly Father, I see what you did there, that is a nice silver lining/added bonus to this endeavor."  Each time that we seek to become a better person, each time that we renew our effort to wear off a rough edge, each time that we look at ourselves and ask Heavenly Father what we might do to become a better vessel for His work, He knows we are embracing our divine DNA instead of our mortal DNA. He realizes this will be a life long effort and He knows that once we make the effort to change He can step in and with grace change us in ways we never expected. Satan realizes this as well, which is why he works so hard to keep us overwhelmed, over worked and exhausted. He doesn't want to give us the time to look at ourselves and see how we might change and he works doubly hard to discourage us in our change efforts because he doesn't want grace applied to our lives.

So if you are feeling discouragement tonight, if you feel like you have tried to change time and time again and you aren't any closer to your objective, I would encourage you to sit down and think about how you have changed in the last year, what things do you do differently now then you did then. Thank Heavenly Father for them, then ask Him how He and the Atonement of Jesus Christ can help you change more. You might be surprised what He has to say to you. I know the road is long and dark at times (I am still walking mine with some patches of sunlight as I go along), I know that it is frustrating to try and try and never seem to get closer to what you want. But remember, Heavenly Father gave you and nurtured in you that desire to change because He also saw all the peripheral changes that could come along the way. Be kind to yourself and to others, we can't always see where we ourselves or those around us started, but I promise you, we are farther along that we think and we do have Heaven's help to keep on going. This is just another step in an eternal journey, and I'm grateful for the time I have in this life to start that journey.