This I Know: The Atonement

Yesterday I had the privileged of teaching the Young Women, which I love and somewhat miss.  Since becoming part of the presidency my formal teaching moments aren't as  regular as when I was an adviser.

I'll take it.

I felt a bit... inadequate, as the topic was on the atonement.

First, and foremost, I have a testimony that my Savior lived, suffered in Gethsemane, died on the cross, and was risen again.

All for me.

I know it to my core.

I know in that great council when we realized that we wouldn't be able to do this journey on our own, because some lessons are so hard to learn... so hard to learn... that when our Savior stood forward and covenanted to take on that role for us, that we cheered.  We cheered because we would get to learn all that the Father knew (and I'm pretty certain that He is the coolest person we will ever know, so why wouldn't we cheer to learn all that He had to teach us?), and we cheered because we knew that we would not be taking the journey alone.

We often teach the Plan of Salvation in a line of a series circles.  A physical journey from the first circle at the beginning, to one of the three at the end of the line.  I think the Plan of Salvation is more of a circle: a spiritual journey from our Father, to where we learn all that we can and prepare to be like Him, until we finally do return to Him; not having changed our physical location, but more our spiritual understanding and being.



I think when the Father said that there would be need of a Savior, we all sat in a heavy silence for a second.  Quite similar to the silence that greets you when you ask a room of teenagers for a volunteer for a prayer.  I imagine myself knowing that there was no way I could even do this for myself, how would I ever be able to do it for everyone else as well?

I know I cheered when He stepped forward and took it.  And he didn't fail me. Never did he falter, though, in his mortality he did seek a different way, if at all possible, but he never faltered and he gave all.

To the very end when in a simple prayer he stated, "Father, into the hands I commend my spirit."  I gave it all.  He did not fail us.

Me.

He did not fail me.

This I know.

You Can Be Bitter. Or You Can Be Better.

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Sometimes it starts with something small.

I've been reading Jeffrey R. Holland's book, Broken Things To Mend (here, affiliate link).  It's a compilation of some of his talks.  I read in his talk, "The Tongue of Angels" (here) that in the book of James it tells us of a way to be "a perfect man (or woman)."  "Said James: 'For in many things we offend all.  [But] if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.'" (James 3:2)

Last night I read in another chapter, an address Elder Holland gave at a National Day of Prayer Service in the Provo Tabernacle, about when Christ is teaching the Sermon on the Mount and he concludes with, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)  Elder Holland then goes on to point out that right before that verse, Christ tells how.  "If this comes as the grand finale, the great summation in a chapter that began with the sweet and simple Beatitudes, what immediately precedes perfection?  Or better yet, what preparatory virtues point us toward perfection and this full majesty of God?  I quote the verses immediately prior to the grand declaration of perfection: 'Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?  do not even the publicans the same?  And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?  do not even the publicans so?' (Mathew 5: 43-47)  I confess that I do not know how we meet the Savior's injunction to be perfect, but I am guessing we will be a lot closer to that goal if we can love our enemies, bless them that curse us, and pray for them that despitefully use us."

It's love. 

All you need is love.  *cue in Beattles song here*...

This morning I ran across this video from Alex Boye, Lemonade.

"I'm just so broke you won't believe
Can't get a dollar out of me
And as far as I can see
I'm losing control like a bad disease
No I just can't get relief
I've been shot down by the life police,
And everyday I try to rise
But I can't succeed
Can anybody find a cure for me?
You can be bitter, bitter, bitter
Or you can be better, better, better

When life gives you lemons
Instead of champagne
Don't worry little children
And don't complain
Remember you're golden
So find some sugar cane
When life gives you lemons
Make lemonade

Now everyday is like a brand new year,
I throw my hands up in the air
Like I just don't care,
I'm moon walking down the streets
Feeling like oh yeah (oh yeah!)
like the bottom of the glass now I see clear
So now I laugh just a little more
I stand taller than I did before
I know I'm not where I need to be
But I thank God that I'm not
where I used to be,
I used to be bitter, bitter bitter
And now I feel better, better, better

When life gives you lemons
Instead of champagne
Don't worry little children
And don't complain
Remember you're golden
So find some sugar cane
When life gives you lemons
Make lemonade

I was saved for a reason
That I can't explain
Got something new to believe in
I'm awakened again
So many miracles are
Happening each day
If I can just get out of
My own way"

These three things may not sync as the same topic at first glance, but it took me on a journey.

If my goal is perfection, which I'm well aware I will never achieve in this lifetime, then shouldn't I be watching the words that I say?  Elder Holland points out (here) with James 3:10, "Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing.  My brethren, these things ought not so to be."  Elder Holland expounds, "The voice that bears profound testimony, utters fervent prayer, and sings the hymns of Zion can be the same voice that berates and criticizes, embarrasses and demeans, inflicts pain and destroys the spirit of oneself and of others in the process.  'Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing,' James grieves, 'These things out not so to be.'"  Add that to the words of James 3:2, "...if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man..." and you have something to think about.

From there, I began to realize if I'm concentrating on what I'm speaking, it forces my concentration on what I'm thinking.  If I don't want to say it, I'm finding I'm trying to curb even thinking it.  And if I'm curbing even the thought, it's changing my attitude and feelings to be softer.

Don't get me wrong, this has been a hard thing to practice and I'm nowhere near were I should be with it, but in practicing no negative thing, I'm finding this is forcing me to more fully contemplate the second point that hit me from Elder Holland; Christ's teaching of love and prayer for your "enemy."

Not that I feel I have enemies, per se, but I do have individuals in my life that I struggle with.  And individuals who seem set out to specifically make my life harder, for whatever reason.

And now I'm trying not to express anything negative about them.  Which is leading me to curb my thoughts and not even think anything negative about them.  Which is a direct path to forcing myself to pray for them. Or, at least it should be.

And trying to love them.

And by "love" I'm generally aiming for a feeling of "good will."  I think it's in the same ballpark.  Or at least in the right direction.

It's a hard process.

It's a daily struggle.

So Alex Boye's video seemed to capture it for me.  Especially the second and third verses.  Go back and read them above.

For me, it ties back into no negative thing. I can be bitter about certain things and certain people.  Or I can be better and loving.  And if I'm to believe in the words of the scriptures, which I absolutely do, that will lead me to perfection.

At some point.

In the far off future.

 In the meantime, and hopefully much nearer future, it will lead to a happier life for me.  I can't complain about that.

With Real Intent

This morning, as I was checking my email, I found one from Your LDS Blog that mentioned some EFY (Especially For Youth) songs that I hadn't heard yet.

Being the curious soul that I am, I went to YouTube to find them.

My day is better for it already.

Check this one out.

Glorious, written by Stephanie Smith and preformed by Russ Dixon (who, by the way, is one of the master minds behind Beyond 5 (here)).



Tyler Castleton and Russ Dixon (Beyond 5 masterminds) have been using their talents in the music industry for a very long time, and have had their hand in a lot of EFY music.  Together they put together the 2014 EFY CD, Anxiously Engaged.

Which I own.

Which I love.

You need to hear this song from it.  It's preformed by Patch Crowe (a member of Beyond 5.  Are you guys catching on to how awesome Beyond 5 is yet?)



If you want to read the whole blog post on Russ Dixon and Tyler Castleton and their music ventures you can find it here.

Also, last night I was reading Broken Things To Mend by Jeffrey R. Holland, who is a rockstar in his own right.  In it he quotes part of the scriptures 2 Nephi 31:13, 17; a scripture I've heard and read so often but something about it struck me last night.

The phrase "with real intent" settled into my understanding and took on real meaning.  I stopped reading, all of 6 pages in on that book and I tested out the weight of those words.

With real intent.

And I wondered: what is my intent?  What am I trying to accomplish right now in my life?  Are my efforts real?  Is my desire coming from a sincere place?

Do I have real intent?

I've read on another blog (71toes.com) that every year she picks a motto for herself to live by.  I always liked that idea, but I never got around to doing it for myself.  I know the year is half way over, but I think for the next six months "With Real Intent" is going to be my motto.

I'm going to live the gospel with real intent.
I'm going to mother with real intent.
I'm going to be a wife with real intent.
I'm going to serve the young women in my ward with real intent.
I'm going to study the scriptures and other church books with real intent.

This also goes hand in hand with thoughts I've been having lately.  After praying and praying (and praying) for guidance with the direction of my life it keeps coming to me that I need to focus on the spiritual side of things, study the gospel, focus on teaching the gospel to my girls and in my calling, and if I do that the rest will take care of itself.

It's all just swirling around me, again and again.  Live the gospel.  With real intent.  Study the gospel.  With real intent.  Teach the gospel.  With real intent.

And that's all I need to know.

Come Unto Christ. My Thoughts On The Youth Theme for 2014.

"I do not know who in this vast audience today may need to hear the message of forgiveness inherent in this parable [see Matthew 20:1–15], but however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or distance from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.

"Whether you are not yet of our faith or were once with us and have not remained, there is nothing in either case you have done that cannot be undone. There is no problem which you cannot overcome. There is no dream that in the unfolding of time and eternity cannot yet be realized. Even if you feel you are the lost and last laborer of the eleventh hour, the Lord of the vineyard still stands beckoning. “Come boldly [to] the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16), and fall at the feet of the Holy One of Israel. Come and feast “without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1) at the table of the Lord. . . .

"My beloved brothers and sisters, to those of you who have been blessed by the gospel for many years because you were fortunate enough to find it early, and to those of you who have come to the gospel by stages and phases later, and finally to those of you—member or not yet member—who may still be hanging back, to each of you, one and all, I testify of the renewing power of God’s love and the miracle of His grace. His concern is for the faith at which you finally arrive, not the hour of the day in which you got there.

"So if you have made covenants, keep them. If you haven’t made them, make them. If you have made them and broken them, repent and repair them. It is never too late so long as the Master of the vineyard says there is time. Please listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit telling you right now, this very moment, that you should accept the atoning gift of the Lord Jesus Christ and enjoy the fellowship of His labor. Don’t delay. It’s getting late."

This year's theme for the youth of our church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) is Moroni 10:32.  "Come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness."

There is so much that I hope my girls will take from this theme.  First, the words of Elder Holland above.  I feel one of the biggest pit falls of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ is that we get it into our heads that we have expectations to live up to (which, of course we do).  And when we continually struggle to live up to those expectations, and when we continually seem to fail, we feel discouraged and feel we are simply not good enough.

That is simply not true.

To put it in another light let me bring to you, again, the words of Brad Wilcox.



And if you have a half hour to watch that video, it is completely worth it.  It changed my understanding of the gospel.  Of the Atonement.

Of my relationship with my savior, Jesus Christ.

I stuggled like the girl that Brother Wilcox speaks about in the beginning, wondering if I was meeting the level that I needed to be able to call on my savior for the rest.

But the thing is, there is no level that I have to meet.  My savior paid for it all.

All of it.

"But don’t you realize how hard it is to practice? I’m just not very good at the piano. I hit a lot of wrong notes. It takes me forever to get it right.” Now wait. Isn’t that all part of the learning process? When a young pianist hits a wrong note, we don’t say he is not worthy to keep practicing. We don’t expect him to be flawless. We just expect him to keep trying. Perfection may be his ultimate goal, but for now we can be content with progress in the right direction. Why is this perspective so easy to see in the context of learning piano but so hard to see in the context of learning heaven?

"Too many are giving up on the Church because they are tired of constantly feeling like they are falling short. They have tried in the past, but they continually feel like they are just not good enough. They don’t understand grace.

"There should never be just two options: perfection or giving up. When learning the piano, are the only options performing at Carnegie Hall or quitting? No. Growth and development take time. Learning takes time. When we understand grace, we understand that God is long-suffering, that change is a process, and that repentance is a pattern in our lives. When we understand grace, we understand that the blessings of Christ’s Atonement are continuous and His strength is perfect in our weakness (see 2 Corinthians 12:9). When we understand grace, we can, as it says in the Doctrine and Covenants, “continue in patience until [we] are perfected” (D&C 67:13).

"Grace is not a booster engine that kicks in once our fuel supply is exhausted. Rather, it is our constant energy source. It is not the light at the end of the tunnel but the light that moves us through the tunnel. Grace is not achieved somewhere down the road. It is received right here and right now."

I will never be able to make up for what my savior did for me in that garden.  And I will never be perfect in this life.  Far from it.

But what I can do is allow change in myself.  To be a better person with every lesson life gives me, whether it's thrown at me the way life has a tenancy to do, or whether I create it myself with poor or weak actions.  I can allow change for the better be the outcome, and I can keep going.

Especially in those times when I don't feel like I should.

Especially in those times.

Because the only time I've failed, is when I quit.

I can't do that.

You are not alone.

You are not doing this alone.

He loves you more than you realize.

"Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it... Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be alright in the end. Trust God, and believe in good things to come."

A Keeping It Real Post. Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence.

I found myself emailing with a friend that I haven't seen in a really long time.  And I found myself answering her inquiry of, "So how are you?  I see little updates on Facebook and Instagram, but how are things?"

Usually when someone asks, "How are you?" they don't really want to know, the question has become more of a standard greeting than an actual question with hopes of an honest answer, and as the standard greeting goes we all just answer with various replies of, "I'm doing well, how are you?"  And in turn we've just made it a greeting, we're not really asking.

Usually when someone asks me how I am I simply answer, "Wonderful."

But in this email I stopped and thought for a minute.  This was different since the question came at the end of the email, it had a bit more inquiry to it.

Obviously my friend really wanted to know how I am.

So I stopped typing and sat and thought.

And I tried to feel it out.

How am I?

And I wrote: "Life for me is good.  So good.  West is amazing.  It blows my mind every day the differences in my marriage with him and my marriage with (my ex).  It was a long road to finding West but I am so, so happy I did.  I'm working full time as a legal secretary.  I have six kids, half of which are teenagers *eek*, I've gone back to school (graduating SLCC in May and headed up to the U woohoo), and now West has "pushed" me into starting an online boutique.  Because, you know, I didn't have enough on my plate. Oh, and not to mention that I'm currently in the YW's presidency.  Having said all of that I kind of feel lost in it all.  I feel like I'm just being busy but don't really know what direction I want my life to go in, and I've been struggling with that for the past little bit.  I hope that as I progress with my schooling and get up to the U and into my bachelor's classes that something will open up for me career wise and I can feel like I've found my niche in life.  Unless my niche is crazy busy person who has a lot of irons in the fire, then by all means, I'm so there."

I feel like I drop a lot of balls lately and I'm not even sure why I'm doing any of it.  I don't have a solid direction in my life, though I do have thoughts of a couple that I would like to chase but I think what's holding me back and making me feel so confused are the thoughts that I'm not good enough to actually make that happen.  I'm afraid that for the rest of my life I will be that crazy person who pushes and pushes for dreams to happen when everyone around them is watching and asking, "When will she get it?  She's not even that good and really needs to think of something more realistic."

Maybe I'm wanting too much out of life and what I really need to be doing is just focusing on being grateful for what I do have.  Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful for what I do have.  I just yearn for progression in my personal life.  I don't like feeling like I've become stagnant.

Why am I so afraid of going after things or making things happen?

And then I found this:



"Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.  For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise." (Heb 10:35-36)  

"Once there has been genuine illumination, beware of the temptation to retreat from a good thing.  When it was right when you prayed about it, and trusted it, and lived for it, it's right now.  Don't give up when the pressure mounts."

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"Certainly don't give in to that being who is bent on the destruction of your happiness.  He wants everyone to be miserable like unto himself.  Face your doubts, master your fears, cast not away therefore your confidence.  Stay the course, and see the beauty of life unfold for you."

"Remember how urgently you have needed help in earlier times, and that you got it.  The Red Sea will open to the honest seeker of revelation.  The adversary does have power to hedge up the way, to marshal Pharaoh's forces, dog our escape right to the water's edge, but he can't produce the real thing.  He can not conquer if we will it otherwise."

"It is in the process of revelation, and making important decisions, fear almost always plays a destructive, sometimes paralyzing, role.  To Oliver Cowdry, who missed the opportunity of a lifetime because he didn't seize it in the lifetime of the opportunity, the Lord said, 'you did not continue as you commenced.'"

"Some days we'll be miraculously lead out of Egypt, seemingly free, seemingly on our way, only to come to yet another confrontation, like all that water lying before us.  At those times we must resist the temptation to panic, and to give up.  At those times fear will be the strongest of the adversary's weapons against us.  And Moses said to the people, 'fear ye not.  Stand still and see the revelation of the Lord.  The Lord shall fight for you.  In confirmation the great Jehovah said, 'Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.'"

"With the spirit of revelation dismiss your fears and wade in with both feet."

"Go forward and not backward."

"Along with the illuminating revelation that points us toward a righteous purpose or duty, God will also provide the means and power to achieve that purpose. Trust in that eternal truth. Please.  If God has told you something is right, if something is indeed true for you, He will provide the way for you to accomplish it."

"Therefore He said, let not your hearts faint.  Mine angels shall go before you, and also my presence, and in time ye shall posses the goodly land.  What goodly land?  Your goodly land.  Your promised land, your New Jerusalem, your own little acre flowing with milk and honey, your future, your dreams, your destiny.  I believe that in our own individual ways God takes us to the grove, or the mountain, or the temple, sometimes the privacy of our own bedroom or closet, and there shows us the wonder of what His plan is for us.  We may not see it as fully as Moses, or Nephi, or the brother of Jared did, but we see as much as we need to see in order to know the Lord's will for us, and to know that He loves us beyond mortal comprehension." 

Food for thought for me this weekend.

I hope it's a good one for you.  It's a kidless one for us.  Which boldly translates to date weekend.  And loosely translates to a lot of math homework for me.

And a nap.