Our Nobelest Dreams

At the beginning of 2020, I read the book The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life's Direction and Purpose by Oprah Winfrey. Talking about how each of us has an individual purpose, Oprah says, "Your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you are meant to be, and begin to honor your calling in the best way possible."

In her book, Oprah shares her thoughts and insights and quotes parts of interviews she has had over the years with many different people. One of the quotes is from Pastor Wintley Phipps. 

"So I'm hearing in my head at sixteen: I've seen your dreams. Now give me your dreams and I will let you see a glimpse of what I've been dreaming for you. Let me tell you, God is the ultimate dreamer, and when he dreams, he also dreams about us. He dreams about you. He dreams about me. And the most amazing thing that can happen in the life of a human being is to catch a glimpse of what God’s been dreaming for you.”

We don't get to see the future as one big, open view, but we can know parts of what we can become or what we should do as we stay close to the Lord. He will guide us to where He wants us to be even though we can't always see why. We can be sure to "honor [our] calling" when we follow the promptings, thoughts, and incessant prodding we receive. It helps us to serve others, to discover truths, and to become who Heavenly Father is dreaming we will be.

Not everything in our lives will be easy, and that is the way God planned it. We can't progress in comfort and ease. We can't become the person He knows we can become without resistance. But through it all, we can be assured that we are not alone and it is not without purpose. We can say, "It is well with my soul."

Below is a video of a short message and a soul-stirring, captivating rendition of "It Is Well with My Soul" from Wintley Phipps. You can find many of his sermons and songs online. 

"It is in the quiet crucible of your personal, private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God's greatest gifts are given in compensation for what you have been through." Wintley Phipps

These beautiful words remind me of a quote by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin:

“The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in His own way. While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude.”

We are blessed in our trials and because of our faith and perseverance through them. We can become who we are meant to be by our growth through our trials. So we should allow everything to be "well with [our] souls." 

 

 

Step Away from Perfect

Last year I heard two similar thoughts that were freeing. They freed me from a false belief that I had.  Don't you love those aha moments, even when it means you've been doing something wrong? Both taught me that striving for perfection is counteractive to moving forward and to happiness. 

The first thought was just a blurb from a TedX talk from Ashley Stahl. I've shared it below in case you'd like to watch the whole video. The part that stood out to me was, "Perfectionism is the enemy of action." If we wait until the perfect time or until we have every lined up perfectly to act, we will be stuck. 

I picture myself standing in a little mud, and instead of jumping out of the mud, I act like the mud is dried cement. I act like I cannot move and have no power. But that is just a false belief. I can move forward and I don't have to wait until anything is perfect. But what if I jump in the wrong direction? Then I can jump again in a different direction. No destination is permanent. Moving forward in the wrong direction feels better than staying stuck.

How can I know when to go forward? For me, it's important to stay close to my Heavenly Father. He won't show me an entire path to its destination, but I can go to him with my plans and thoughts. He lets me choose, but He is with me wherever I go.  

The second time I heard something about perfectionism around the same time was from the book 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do: Own Your Power, Channel Your Confidence, and Find Your Authentic Voice for a Life of Meaning and Joy by Amy Morin. It's a good book and she has a couple of other 13 Things books you can check out. (They're also translated into Spanish for my friends who would prefer that.) 

There were a lot of good points in the book, but the perfectionist topic was that most successfully people aren't perfectionists. That makes sense when I think about it. They are willing to take risks, move quickly, work hard but not don't let anything, including imperfection, slow down their forward trajectory. Working or waiting for perfection is inefficient when good or great works just as well. For some reason, when I thought about how successful people aren't perfectionists, I realized that I don't have to be either. 

I know I've heard similar things about perfectionism before, but I guess I was finally ready to hear it and to wake up a little. And I've been trying to practice it this past year since then.

• "Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough - that we should try again."  Julie Cameron

• "Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it's about earning approval and acceptance." Brené Brown

Not Just For Sinners

It's been a long time since I've posted much besides my missionary son's letters on my blog. He is now home! I have been wanting to take the time to share my thoughts on my blog again, even if it is just for me to have a place where my thoughts and the words of others that touch me are stored.

This morning as I was getting ready, I randomly chose a BYU devotional to listen to. As I was listening, I felt it was exactly what I needed today. It was Elder David A. Bednar's devotional from 2001 called "In the Strength of the Lord".

Directly after the sentence above, he goes on to say:
"We will become agents who 'act' rather than objects that are 'acted upon' (2 Nephi 2:14)." Elder David A. Bednar

For quite a while now, that idea has been in my mind because of counsel to me from a church leader to "act rather than be acted upon." This talk was another testament that we should not just hope that things get better when we have the power to change something. Elder Bednar gives examples of several people who prayed for strength to change the circumstance instead of just praying for their burden to be removed. We can pray for the enabling power of the atonement to strengthen us to do what we need to do when we cannot do alone. 

That is the part of Elder Bednar's talk that I was thinking about most when I again randomly chose another past BYU devotional. This time it was Sister Dew's talk "You Were Born to Lead, You Were Born for Glory". I have heard both of these talks before and I love SO much about her devotional address, but what I noticed as I was listening was that both of these devotionals stated that the atonement is not just for sinners, but also for daily use by faithful followers of Christ. I must have needed that reminder today.

"Brothers and sisters, do you know what I likely would have prayed for if I had been tied up by my brothers? My prayer would have included a request for something bad to happen to my brothers and ended with the phrase 'wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren' or, in other words, 'Please get me out of this mess, now!' It is especially interesting to me that Nephi did not pray, as I probably would have prayed, to have his circumstances changed. Rather, he prayed for the strength to change his circumstances. And may I suggest that he prayed in this manner precisely because he knew and understood and had experienced the enabling power of the Atonement of the Savior.

"I personally do not believe the bands with which Nephi was bound just magically fell from his hands and wrists. Rather, I suspect that he was blessed with both persistence and personal strength beyond his natural capacity, that he then “in the strength of the Lord” (Mosiah 9:17) worked and twisted and tugged on the cords and ultimately and literally was enabled to break the bands.

"Most of us clearly understand that the Atonement is for sinners. I am not so sure, however, that we know and understand that the Atonement is also for saints—for good men and women who are obedient and worthy and conscientious and who are striving to become better and serve more faithfully."
David A. Bednar

"Until I was in my thirties, I thought the Atonement was basically for sinners—meaning that it allowed us to repent. But then I suffered a heartbreaking personal loss and began to learn that there was so much more to this sublime doctrine.

"My solution initially to my heartbreak was to exercise so much faith that the Lord would have to give me what I wanted—which was a husband. Believe me, if fasting and prayer and temple attendance automatically resulted in a husband, I’d have one.

"Well, the Lord hasn’t even yet given me a husband; but He did heal my heart. And in doing so, He taught me that He not only paid the price for sin but compensated for all of the pain we experience in life. He taught me that because of His Atonement, we have access to His grace, or enabling power—power that frees us from sin; power to be healed emotionally, physically, and spiritually; power to “loose the bands of death” (Alma 7:12); power to turn weakness into strength (see Ether 12:27); and power to receive salvation through faith on His name (see Mosiah 3:19)"
Sheri L. Dew

I am so grateful for how much I have learned about the gospel and especially about the atonement as I have used it in my life to strengthen and lift me. The enabling power has helped me get through times when I thought it was impossible to make it through. I am grateful to know Jesus, not just about Him. I am sure that as long as I live, I will continue to learn more and to learn how to better use the atonement to bless my life and bless the lives of those around me.

"The Future is as Bright as Your Faith"

I had the opportunity to give a talk in sacrament meeting today and was excited that the topic was one that I could use so many of my favorite quotes. If you didn't know, I'm a quote collector. It's cheaper than collecting antiques, you know? I actually used parts of some of my old blog posts in it, but you probably won't remember even if you read them in the past, so I'm sure it's okay.  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In 2009 April General Conference, President Monson gave a talk titled "Be of Good Cheer" and was speaking of discouraging things like the lagging economy, natural disasters, deteriorating morality and personal trials we are experiencing, then made this statement: “My beloved brothers and sisters, fear not. Be of good cheer. The future is as bright as your faith.”

 

Can our faith really determine our future?

 

After Brother P. gave me the topic, I mentioned it in a letter to Alex (my missionary son) and he sent me this thought. "In psychology, there is a phenomena that occurs (I can't remember what it's called) where, for example, if you are going to shoot a basketball and you think, "don't miss," then you're more likely to miss; on the contrary, if you think, "go in," you're more likely to make it. The same thing applies to other thoughts as well; if you keep a positive attitude as in through faith-things are more likely to turn out brighter.

 

This is true and is an important concept that we could talk about for quite a while. When we go through trials, we can become stronger if we choose to be positive and learn from them, or we can become angry and turn away from God. Trials themselves do not make us stronger. Our faith, or lack of it, determines how we will think and act and those decisions, as President Monson has said, determine our future. That faith that Pres. Monson is talking about though is not just happy thoughts and correct self-talk. Our faith must be in Jesus Christ, the atonement, Heavenly Father and His promises, timing and will.

 

Sometimes we think that if we have believe what we want to come true will come true, that is faith. My freshman year at BYU I had a roommate who was in a wheelchair, paralyzed when she was very young. One day some men came to give her a blessing to be healed. After the blessing, they kept telling her to get up and walk. She tried and tried, but could not walk. They chastised her, saying that she must not have enough faith. Unfortunately, they did not understand that, while Heavenly Father has the power to heal any infirmity, it may not always be His will to do so. Aligning our will with His, even when, or especially when, it isn’t what we would want, is having faith.

Elder Richard G. Scott, “Trust in the Lord,” Ensign, Nov 1995   "To exercise faith is to trust that the Lord knows what He is doing with you and that He can accomplish it for your eternal good even though you cannot understand how He can possibly do it. We are like infants in our understanding of eternal matters and their impact on us here in mortality. Yet at times we act as if we know it all. When you pass through trials for His purposes, as you trust Him, exercise faith in Him, He will help you. That support will generally come step by step, a portion at a time. While you are passing through each phase, the pain and difficulty that comes from being enlarged will continue. If all matters were immediately resolved at your first petition, you could not grow. **Your Father in Heaven and His Beloved Son love you perfectly. They would not require you to experience a moment more of difficulty than is absolutely needed for your personal benefit or for that of those you love."

Faith is not only believing that Heavenly Father exists and that Jesus really did suffer and die for each of us. It is knowing that our loving Heavenly Father knows us and sees us always. He is always aware of our heartaches and our joys, our weaknesses and our efforts to progress. The more I learn and grow in the gospel, the more I can see His hand in my life, especially during the most difficult times. Yet sometimes fear instead of faith is my first response.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “‘Come unto Me’,” Ensign, Apr 1998,  “The Lord has probably spoken enough such comforting words to supply the whole universe, it would seem, and yet we see all around us unhappy Latter-day Saints, worried Latter-day Saints, and gloomy Latter-day Saints into whose troubled hearts not one of these innumerable consoling words seems to be allowed to enter.”

(Me) There is so much we have to learn! We have the fullness of the gospel, but we don’t all always seem to let that fullness seep into our souls completely. We believe parts of it, but misunderstand or only have partial faith in other important aspects. Otherwise, why would there be so many of us who are unhappy and discouraged? Trials are part of this life and we all have them, but Heavenly Father never leaves us alone in those trials. It is up to us if we are to come unto Christ and allow his love and peace to fill us even in difficult times.

Elder Holland went on to say: “I submit to you that may be one of the Savior's commandments that is, even in the hearts of otherwise faithful Latter-day Saints, almost universally disobeyed; and yet I wonder whether our resistance to this invitation could be any more grievous to the Lord's merciful heart. I can tell you this as a parent: As concerned as I would be if somewhere in their lives one of my children were seriously troubled or unhappy or disobedient, nevertheless I would be infinitely more devastated if I felt that at such a time that child could not trust me to help, or should feel his or her interest were unimportant to me or unsafe in my care. In that same spirit, I am convinced that none of us can appreciate how deeply it wounds the loving heart of the Savior of the world when he finds that his people do not feel confident in his care or secure in his hands or trust in his commandments.”   

Many times when I start to feel hopeless, I ask myself a simple question. “Do you believe or don’t you?” Since I’m talking to myself, I know what I mean. Do you believe that the atonement is enough? Do you believe that Heavenly Father keeps His promises? Do you believe that you are not alone? Do you believe that you can live in the Celestial Kingdom with your Heavenly Father someday? Just asking myself that question, “Do you believe or don’t you?” has jump started my hope again each time because I do believe.

My former stake president, President B. said in a stake conference,  “If God allows a trial to continue despite faith, prayers and blessings, then maybe God, who know you and what you need, may just be trying to use that trial to save you."

How can we expect to develop the Christ-like attributes of patience and long-suffering if we do not have to wait for resolutions to problems or suffer long?

 

Dallin H. Oaks, "Spirituality," Ensign, Nov 1985  "Seen with the perspective of eternity, a temporal setback can be an opportunity to develop soul power of eternal significance. Strength is forged in adversity. Faith is developed in a setting where we cannot see what lies ahead."

Although we know that we can live again with our Father in Heaven and with our families, we cannot see what lies ahead in this life and sometimes that is scary for us.

In "Be of Good Cheer," Pres. Monson read a part of a poem called “The Gate of the Year”

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown!”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than [a] light and safer than a known way.”

Sometimes I have that mixed up and think that if I could just see the way ahead, I would feel safe and secure, but as the poem says, walking hand in hand with our Heavenly Father is even better because He is the perfect guide. We are blessed to have the knowledge of the plan of salvation. When we focus on an eternal perspective instead of our current pain or trial, we can be lifted up and see a glorious future. The atonement makes all things that are wrong, right.

To have faith means that we believe that the atonement is enough. There are several parts to the atonement. One part is that Jesus Christ suffered for our sins that we may repent, be made clean, and live again with the Father.

President M. said in our last stake conference, "Repentance is a call to be happy. We can only receive blessings that our Heavenly Father has for us if we've repented."

When we repent we exercise our faith in the atonement, can be happy, and will be worthy of blessings waiting for us.

Another part of the atonement is that Jesus felt our sorrows, sicknesses, pains and heartaches so that he may know how to succor us. Alma 7:12 ...and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

My favorite meaning of succor is “to run to”. Even though I can’t see him, I can just imagine at times when I feel especially burdened that Jesus is immediately aware of my heart and he comes running to be with me and to lift me. *The enabling power of the atonement can strengthen me to be stronger than I am alone and has helped me do things that I know I would not have been able to do. That power is real.

We are sent here to experience joy and happiness, but also trials and heartaches, but we are not sent to do it alone. Besides the Savior, one thing that has helped me is my patriarchal blessing and the promises that are there for me if I remain faithful.

Pres. Thomas S. Monson, Oct. 1986, "Your Patriarchal Blessing: A Liahona of Light"    "Your blessing is not to be folded neatly and tucked away. It is not to be framed or published. Rather, it is to be read. It is to be loved. It is to be followed. Your patriarchal blessing will see you through the darkest night. It will guide you through life’s dangers... Your patriarchal blessing is to you a personal Liahona to chart your course and guide your way."

Another thing that has helped me through difficult times is the covenants that I have made and keep. It takes faith to keep those covenants and it increases our faith when we do. I know that Heavenly Father is bound when I keep those covenants. I love that word bound in this sense. Being bound to Him is very reassuring and helps me see a better future. I’m grateful for the strength that comes from keeping my covenants.

Recently, I had the opportunity to help at BYU Women’s Conference and hear a little of the opening session.

Sis. Wendy Watson Nelson “There is nothing more important than making covenants with God and then keeping them with increasing precision because making covenants with God calls forth the divine within us and keeping our covenants with God allows him to pour his divine power into us.”  

In Oct. 2014 conference, Elder Klebingat said, “Selective obedience brings selective blessings.” I want all the blessings that my Heavenly Father has for me so I know that I need to keep all my covenants.

 

There was a Family Circus comic where one of the children asks the mother, “Do caterpillars know they are going to become butterflies, or does God want to surprise them?”

How blessed we are to know our eternal potential and to know that we will become butterflies someday. Just as the butterfly has to be patient inside the chrysalis, enduring the slow, possibly painful changes,, we can’t desire to have our wings with no trials and no perseverance. Maybe if the next time I’m tested by my circumstances, I can think that the pain is just my wings growing a bit more and I can have the patience to endure it and the faith to know Heavenly Father is in charge and He can see what I cannot.

 

Go Forth

Today as I was getting ready for church, I decided to listen to a BYU devotional since it has been a while since I have. Before church, I have been listening to podcasts that go along with the Sunday School lessons since I love the scriptures, but am not at all a scriptorian and want to learn more. But I felt I needed something maybe less academic. I feel very blessed to have listened to Anthony D. Perkins of the Quorum of the Seventy. His talk was entitled "Nevertheless I Went Forth" and given February 4, 2014.

The title is from verses where Nephi is speaking about how he was commanded to move forward even though he did not know what was in store for him in the future, even the immediate future, yet he acted in faith.

 “I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless I went forth.”
 1 Nephi 4:6–7

I am in a very uncertain time in my life and I feel like it takes more courage than I have sometimes to just go forth, not knowing what my future holds. But I am promised, as we all are, that if we stay close to the Lord and do His will, we will be blessed.

Ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you;  And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along.
 D&C 78:17–18

I especially appreciated this from the very end of Elder Perkins' talk.

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
 John 10:10

 "Be confident that the Savior will fulfill His promise to lead you along to an abundant life, even when the immediate path sometimes seems uncertain."

I'm grateful for the blessings that our Heavenly Father gives us when we are living righteously that we may feel His peace and the certainty of His presence in this unstable, sometimes scary world. These words make me feel that I was just scooped up and given a big, reassuring hug from Him Who Knows All Things.

What They Need Most

A year or two ago, I was listening to a Christian radio station and someone was telling a story right as I was pulling into my parking spot. I decided to wait in the car and listen to the end. It was short, but had a great message. I quickly scribbled down the name of the pastor who told the story, but I have since lost that paper so I cannot give credit to him. I will share what I remember of the story, no doubt in different words.

There was a man who bought a bird and took him home. Not long after, the bird died.

 

He was talking to a friend and said, "I don't know what happened. I bought a biggest cage that the pet store had, and a colorful, fun swing for him to swing on. And I bought a ladder for him to climb on and a pretty little toy. I gave him everything a bird would want, so why did he die?"

 

The friend simply asked, "Was there food at that pet store?"

 

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the fun and the new, that we forget the essential and basic. Our bodies need to be fed and our spirits need to be nourished. Our children need entertainment and down time, but only when balanced and when given proper doses of gospel learning as well. It's great to go to Disneyland or a circus, but if that is all we do when we spend time together, they miss out on simple walks together, baking cookies while laughing, talking while in the car (instead of everyone listening to their own iPods).

 

Our children need us to teach them rules and values. They need us to show them love. The world will not give them those things, and the few years we have with them in our homes goes by too quickly.

 

My son Alexander recently sent me a link to the October 2010 LDS General Conference talk Courageous Parenting by Elder Larry R. Lawrence of the Seventy. I am still struggling with being a parent to teenagers, with all the new challenges that come with that. I am grateful for counsel from our leaders who speak plainly and to the point.

 

 

"It takes courage to gather children from whatever they’re doing and kneel together as a family. It takes courage to turn off the television and the computer and to guide your family through the pages of the scriptures every day. It takes courage to turn down other invitations on Monday night so that you can reserve that evening for your family. It takes courage and willpower to avoid overscheduling so that your family can be home for dinner."

Elder Larry R. Lawrence, "Courageous Parenting", Oct. 2010

Right for You

Just a couple of Sundays ago as I was getting ready for church, I was listening to several episodes of Mormon Channel Daily and this one stood out to me. It's an interview with Joe Fowler and Joe Sines, who made the recent Mormon Message that some of you may have already seen called Wrong Roads, in which Elder Jeffrey R. Holland retells a story that happened to him and his son in the Grand Canyon.

I won't tell the story since it is told so well in the video. It was originally told by Elder Holland's son Matthew Holland (currently the President of UVU in Orem) in the New Era (a gospel magazine for youth) in the article Wrong Roads and Revelation. It discusses how sometimes Heavenly Father may send us down a path that isn't the right one in order for us to know which is the right path.  

Joe Fowler and Joe Sines talk in the interview about making the video and even before that about how they were sometimes inspired to go down an alternative path before realizing it wasn't the right path. (Click on their names in the first paragraph to listen to the podcast.) One of the Joe's talks about how he and his wife felt that it was right for him to get a better job so they started to do all of the necessary things for that change. Then it was soon obvious that it wasn't working out and they needed to stay where they were and he needed to keep his job. Because of the confidence they felt that this was the right job, despite other good opportunities being out there, they were able to be happy where they were. If they had not started down the path (a few times) to other employment, they might not have been sure that they were where Heavenly Father wanted them to be.

Although it is not in the video, I appreciated that the 2 Joe's emphasized that when they spoke with Elder Holland for the video, he mentioned that Heavenly Father will not inspire you to sin. That is a different kind of wrong road and is only prompted to be taken by the Father of Lies. The type of wrong road that he is talking about is one that is a good option, just not the correct one for that person at that time. 

At the time I was listening to the interview, I hadn't seen the Mormon Message they had made, so right after listening to it, I searched for it and found it right away.

      

I really liked the message and decided that I would use it for a Family Home Evening message and told Alexander, my son, that I was going to use it, but didn't want to tell him about it until the lesson. I just said that I had watched it and it had a great message. Then we went to sacrament and my visiting teaching companion gave a great talk and talked about this video and its message. As she started to talk, I told my son not to listen because that was the video. (Of course, I was kidding.)

Then the next day one of my friends shared it on Facebook, and then another friend. It was a message that is for everyone, and one that I felt was very personal and needed for me. I love that Heavenly Father cares enough about us to want us to be happy, confident and sure about the road that is right for each of us.

We have so many choices in this life and so many difficult ones are not between good and evil, but between two or more that could be good. Only our Heavenly Father knows which one is truly right for us and He will guide us to that, sometimes directly and sometimes after a bit of winding around or going down a different road.

Will I Recognize Myself?

 

If you know me, you know I’m a geek, even a double geek. I enjoy science and learning and I also I seem to see analogies and connections in strange places. A couple of months ago, I saw a connection in my biochemistry class that most people wouldn’t have thought about while sitting in class. I’m just that strange.

 

My professor, yep, the same one I quoted in the last post, was talking about activation energy diagrams, which we students are all familiar with from gen chem so we were just reviewing it. If you aren’t familiar with it, it just shows the reactants of a reaction on the left and the products, or what is made, on the right. In the middle is the activation energy, like the hill that has to be climbed before the change can be made from the reactants to the products.



 

 

While Dr. T was explaining this, I was thinking about how it is like us. We start off as one thing in this life and our potential is to be something else, something bigger and better. But in order to get there, we must pass through some hard things and go uphill for a long time. Without this uphill climb, we will remain the same. It’s easier not to try, but we get nowhere and our potential is never reached.

 

In many reactions, the activation energy required to pass over that hill is so high that the reaction would never happen without a catalyst. The catalyst helps the reaction happen and the reactants changed to the (at least in my analogy) bigger and better product while the catalyst is available to go off and catalyze another reaction. Of course, that catalyst for us is our Savior. Without Him, we could never get over the hills in this life or the biggest hill, to attain eternal life. With Him, we will be higher at the end than where we started. With Him, we can be changed to something better, whatever our individual potential is.

 

A few days after this class, with this still in my mind, I read the following quote by Haruki Murakami, a best-selling Japanese writer, from his book Kafka on the Shore, which I haven’t read. I love the imagery of this.

 

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”

― Haruki Murakami,  Kafka on the Shore

Don't Do It

I've been thinking a bit about something my biochemistry teacher said last week that isn't even going to be on the test. Telling us we should be sure to take the time to turn in a very easy homework assignment, he said, "Don't make yourself hate yourself."

I'd imagine we've all been there. We do something, big or small, that we regret and then can't stop beating ourselves up about it. How can we avoid it? Do what we know we should do. Of course, none of us is perfect, so that won't happen 100% of the time, but we really can avoid the big pitfalls by following the Spirit and using our knowledge of what Heavenly Father wants from us.

(From The Quote Factory )

 
 So let's be smart and not hate ourselves and be happy. Easy message for today.

The World Wants Me to Forget

I was sitting in the hair salon, waiting for a long time for my daughter’s cut and color, and I made the mistake of picking up a magazine.  I had been reading through some of the pages about which brand of lip gloss lasts longest and how to copy the hairstyles of several stars, when I came across an article that made me very sad. Actually, it made it a little sick to my stomach.

The page had tips of how to cover up your affair so your spouse wouldn’t know. “Put his number in your contacts under one of your friend’s names so if your husband sees when he calls, he won’t know.” Blah, blah, blah. (I won’t pass on the rest of the tips.)

Adultery has become so common place that editors and writers not only see this type of “advice” as normal, but as helpful and acceptable. It is so sad to me to know that this really is normal for so many people. Adultery has ruined so many families and hurt so many people and it just seems to be increasing. I know so many people who have been affected by it.

It has also saddened me to hear friends describe a favorite movie or book and when I mention that adultery is a major part of it, they say something like, “Well, yeah. But it’s so romantic.” Or “Yes, but his wife didn’t treat him well, so he was just finding love.” We’ll see (well, hopefully we won’t)  if you think it’s so romantic when your husband tells you about the true love he has found in someone else, or your best friend tells you she’s getting a divorce because she found out her husband has been having an affair. It’s not romantic. It’s wrong.

And there is no excuse for it. People who do it will rationalize it many different ways, but it doesn’t matter what they tell themselves. It is wrong.

Along with adultery, single people not keeping the law of chastity is sadly too common also. A few years ago, I joined a Facebook group of LDS singles, thinking it would be a good to connect to people like me. Some people were like me, but as in any group, some people weren’t. Some people were talking about how it is better to sleep with someone and find out if they are sexually compatible before marriage so they don’t have to get another divorce and then they just repent. There were people who didn’t agree with that thinking, but some who did. I wanted a group that would help me stand for truth in a difficult time and instead, I just got the same message that the world is quick to repeat.

The world wants me to forget the covenants I have made with my Heavenly Father. Those covenants are not conditional or temporary. The world wants me to forget the peace that comes only from following the commandments, all of them. They want me to forget the true and lasting happiness that comes when a loving family is together and when you think of the blessing of being an eternal family because of your love, covenants and obedience. The world wants me to forget the peace you have if you aren’t hiding things you’ve done, hoping no one finds out.

I will not forget what I have promised my Heavenly Father. I will not forget that blessings and power come from His grace when I am obedient. I will not forget how Satan wants to drag each of us down, and how he can ruin eternal families under the disguise of having “fun” now and not worrying about tomorrow, let alone eternity. I can keep my priorities right as I keep my eyes fixed on eternity and enjoy the presence of the Holy Ghost, listen to His promptings and remain worthy of this blessing.  

I wrote this post and almost posted it on Saturday night, the first day of conference, but I didn’t have a photo to go with it. Then in the Sunday morning session Elder Oaks gave a talk that spoke about chastity and even mentioned the word “forget” so I’m including some of his words here.

“The importance we attach to the law of chastity explains our commitment to the pattern of marriage that originated with Adam and Eve and has continued through the ages as God’s pattern for the procreative relationship between His sons and daughters and for the nurturing of His children…

“I pray that we will not let the temporary challenges of mortality cause us to forget the great commandments and priorities we have been given by our Creator and our Savior. We must not set our hearts so much on the things of the world and aspire to the honors of men (see D&C 121:35) that we stop trying to achieve our eternal destiny. We who know God’s plan for His children—we who have made covenants to participate in it—have a clear responsibility. We must never deviate from our paramount desire, which is to achieve eternal life.”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, No Other Gods  Sunday morning session, LDS General Conference, Oct. 2013

Hanging on Small Hinges

I am very grateful for the LDS General Conference talks this weekend. I took notes and have some thoughts in my head, but I’m not ready to write about any of them quite yet. I will say that I am grateful for the messages of hope and peace that were spoken and for the reminder that our Father is bound to keep His promises when we are obedient.

This afternoon I was looking through my file where I save things I want to share here in the future and saw this talk that I haven’t blogged about yet. It had similar messages of hope and peace that I have enjoyed during this conference so I’m happy to share a few bits of this today. It’s called Faith, Hope & Charity by Stan Kivett, a religion professor at BYU-Idaho.

 

“Some of my favorite friends––heroes I have come to love and respect––are those who have had the faith and courage to seek forgiveness. However, even more impressive, and less celebrated in my estimation, are the accomplishments of those who exercise the faith not to fall. When temptations become powerful, they use the example and power of the Savior to control passions, to forgive, or to remain faithful in spite of adversity. They use the atonement to succeed instead of just using it to rectify failure”

“…Brothers and sisters, life’s doors swing on small hinges. Many of us are facing tests right now that will be pivot points on which the rest of our life will swing.”

I love that statement about our lives hanging on small hinges. It is a small decision we make today or another we make tomorrow that will determine which way our life will go. We cannot make a choice without the consequence that comes with it.

 

Brother Kivett reminds us, along with President Packer’s words, that because we are children of God, if we are obedient and follow our Savior, we have power beyond our own.

"Satan is striving to cause us to become weak, pathetic victims. However, you are not victims—you are soldiers with a cause. President Boyd K. Packer once said:

‘When you say, ‘I can’t! I can’t solve my problems!’ I want to thunder out, ‘Don’t you realize who you are? Haven’t you learned yet that you are a son or a daughter of Almighty God? Do you not know that there are powerful resources inherited from Him that you can call upon to give you steadiness and courage and great power?'' (Ensign, August 1975)

I don't know about you, but I know a few blessings that I’d rather have now instead of wait for them. But I do have faith that my Father's promised blessings will come to me one day if I continue on His path. Brother Kivett’s words about this remind me of this photo that I have as the background on my computer. (I would give credit to its creator, but have no idea who that is. I have found it going around online.)

 

 

“As we exercise the faith to obey, we begin to acquire hope. Hope reinforces our faith as we seek to pass the tests of life. Hope in Christ has been equated with an 'earnest expectation' (Philippians 1:20). It is behaving according to a firm belief in how things will unfold. It is expecting, not wishing. Hope orients our lives. Hope keeps our eyes focused on eternity. Hope-filled individuals cherish eternal promises enough to cling to them through trials and distractions, while those who lack hope give up what they want most for what they want at the moment.”

"The immutable promises of God allow you to face the vicissitudes of life calmly. The temporary withholding of a promised blessing does not trouble those who keep their eyes riveted on the eventual fulfillment of the promise. Moroni explained that this kind of hope begins with faith and becomes 'an anchor to the souls of men which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God' (Ether 12:4). I testify that God is omniscient and omnipotent, and therefore able to fulfill any promise. You can trust in this assurance from Him: 'I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them' (Isaiah 42:16)."

I took this photo of a plaque at a pioneer cemetery in Utah.

 

To Be Tested

In an English class in 10^th grade, my teacher asked the question, “In a few short words, what do you think the purpose of this life is?” I can’t remember what we were studying, but that question was an amazing opportunity to explain what I believed about such an important topic to a class where I was the only member of my church. We each had to answer and I was only the third one in the row so I didn’t have much time to think of a good answer, so out came one that made no sense to anyone, I’m sure. I just blurted out, “to be tested.”

Okay, I know what I meant and maybe some people with the same teaching and perspective that I have might understand, but it taught nothing and was very incomplete. Something as complex and essential is not easy to sum up in one sentence. I wish I would have figured out something better to say, but I do know that being tested and using our agency really is a big part of it.

We are here on earth where we cannot see our Father or Mother in Heaven or our Savior Jesus Christ, but we have been given the light of Christ and the Holy Ghost. We can know what is right and wrong. We are given different amounts of knowledge of right and wrong, depending on if we are exposed to the gospel or not in this life, and we are judged based upon the knowledge we have.  

Abraham 3:25
And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;

I re-listened to a talk called To Act for Ourselves: The Gift and Blessings of Agency by Elder Robert D. Hales last week and, of course, it has some great quotes that I’m gonna share with you.

 

“[Satan] does lie at our door, as the scriptures say, and he follows us each day^. Every time we go out, every decision we make, we are either choosing to move in his direction or in the direction of our Savior. But the adversary must depart if we tell him to depart. He cannot influence us unless we allow him to do so, and he knows that! The only time he can affect our minds and bodies—our very spirits—is when we allow him to do so. In other words, we do not have to succumb to his enticements!”

"Are we following on the strait and narrow path that leads to God and eternal life? Are we holding onto the iron rod, or are we going another way? I testify that how we choose to feel and think and act every day is the way we get on the path, and stay on it, until we reach our eternal destination.

"The voice will be as soft as a whisper, coming as a thought to our minds or a feeling in our hearts. By heeding its gentle promptings, we will be protected from the destructive consequences of sin.

“But if we ignore those promptings, the light of the Spirit will fade. Our agency will be limited or lost, and we will lose the confidence and ability to act. We will be ‘walking in [spiritual] darkness at noon-day.’ Then how easy it is to wander into strange paths and become lost! How quickly we are bound in the chains of sin spoken of by Lehi to his rebellious sons.”

None of us can say that we are perfect and do not need repentance. Thankfully, that is available to all of us as often as we are willing to use it. But as Elder Hales says, “the light of the Spirit will fade” and the desire to return to the path may never be felt again. Some people think that they can play with sin for a while and then they will return, but sometimes those people no longer want to come back and so many opportunities, much happiness and freedom are lost to them and their eternity changed.

“Agency allows us to be tested and tried to see whether or not we will endure to the end and return to our Heavenly Father with honor. Agency is the catalyst that leads us to express our inward spiritual desires in outward Christlike behavior. Agency permits us to make faithful, obedient choices that strengthen us so that we can lift and strengthen others. Agency used righteously allows light to dispel the darkness and enables us to live with joy and happiness in the present, look with faith to the future, even into the eternities, and not dwell on the things of the past. Our use of agency determines who we are and what we will be.”

It must be wonderful to be able to say when we stand before our Father one day, “I was not perfect, but I chose your path and you can see that by the choices I made and by how my heart has changed. I was obedient because I loved you and because I knew you loved me.” The small choices we make each day add up to who we become and where we will spend our eternities.