Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Monday, December 29, 2014
to be proved and tested
Remember that you are here to be proved and tested, “to see if [you] will do all things whatsoever the Lord [your] God shall command [you]” (Abraham 3:25)—and may I just add, “under all circumstances.”
When these trials come..., try to force a smile, gaze heavenward, and say, “I understand, Lord. I know what this is. A time to prove myself, isn’t it?” Then partner with Him to endure well to the end.
Spiritual confidence increases when you accept that “often trials and tribulations are allowed to come into [your life] because of what [you] are doing right"
full article here
When these trials come..., try to force a smile, gaze heavenward, and say, “I understand, Lord. I know what this is. A time to prove myself, isn’t it?” Then partner with Him to endure well to the end.
Spiritual confidence increases when you accept that “often trials and tribulations are allowed to come into [your life] because of what [you] are doing right"
full article here
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
FAITH gives understanding and strength...
God has given us the capacity to exercise faith, that we may find peace, joy, and purpose in life. However, to employ its power, faith must be founded on something. There is no more solid foundation than faith in the love Heavenly Father has for you, faith in His plan of happiness, and faith in the capacity and willingness of Jesus Christ to fulfill all of His promises.
Even if you exercise your strongest faith, God will not always reward you immediately according to your desires. Rather, God will respond with what in His eternal plan is best for you. He loves you to a depth and completeness you cannot conceive of in your mortal state.
Sincere faith gives understanding and strength to accept the will of our Heavenly Father when it differs from our own. We can accept His will with peace and assurance, confident that His infinite wisdom surpasses our own ability to comprehend fully His plan as it unfolds a piece at a time.
full message by Richard G. Scott here
Even if you exercise your strongest faith, God will not always reward you immediately according to your desires. Rather, God will respond with what in His eternal plan is best for you. He loves you to a depth and completeness you cannot conceive of in your mortal state.
Sincere faith gives understanding and strength to accept the will of our Heavenly Father when it differs from our own. We can accept His will with peace and assurance, confident that His infinite wisdom surpasses our own ability to comprehend fully His plan as it unfolds a piece at a time.
full message by Richard G. Scott here
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
50 things you want to do before you die
I just added a post about Change and then saw this post waiting in the drafts. I wrote it quite a while ago and left it in drafts for personal (not public) reflection. I'm afraid I will loose it if I don't post it so today I send it out of drafts, posting it for all who may read it. I have not changed anything on it since I last wrote the last week of September and I don't know if I will ever re-write it, but I do post it now to remind me. Change is evident in this post too.
Change is ever Constant!
---
One of BJo's first assignments in college was to "list 50 things you want to do before you die".
That intrigued me and I began to think about what 50 things I would write.
(I wrote this sometime between Sept. 15th thru 19th, with Post Notes written after those dates - before the end of Sept.)
Several years ago I read a story about a famous woman who asked another to create a list of 100 movies she "must see" before she died. The list included a few that I knew and already enjoyed, but it included several that I had not heard of. I started to watch a few and wondered why some of them were on the list. Soon I had seen enough and didn't want to continue because they did not interest me. I realize that everyone will have their own unique style and desires, so it seemed quite apparent that one should write their own list and no two lists would be the same.
I think of the words to one popular song sharing what one man did - things like go bull riding, sky diving and Rocky Mt. climbing. These things are not my kind of thing and will not ever be on my list, but when I first heard this song it touched my heart. It made me wonder what I would do.
I knew that my list of 50 things might include some of the same things that BrittanyJo would write, but I also knew that it would be quite different. After all, I have already gotten married and had children. (FYI - I have not seen her list.) As I thought more about it I felt almost compelled to create my own, so I began my list one day as I waited for Terry to get his chemo infusion.
As I continued writing I realized that my list would change as time goes on, but I wrote what I came up with today.
My absolute number 1 is to care for Terry / take care of him with love and kindness and patience and tenderness and understanding and empathy. I want to be a good care giver to him because I love him and I want to show that love in the way I care for him. Being his wife (a good wife) is very most important because that is where this eternal family started. We will be together forever and I want a wonderful forever.
Second on my list is to witness the miracle of Terry's health restored to him so that he may enjoy a long and enjoyably energetic life with his loved ones. I don't want to let him go before we can experience so many more things together. I need a miracle! He needs a miracle! We need a miracle! I do recognize that this item on my list may be out of my control, but I will do all I can to make this miracle happen. I will not give up hope.
I had a hard time trying to decide what I would write after these. I felt somewhat blinded by those two. However, I remembered the difficulty with our car that morning and I decided that number three could be to get a new car. (It has been on our list for a long time, but poor health kinda gets in the way. I am grateful that we have been able to make things work as long as we have and that we had no problems with the car on our trip to and from Rexburg. Once we got home it was a different story. We are going to get that checked out as soon as we can. Post Note: we did get a new suburban from TriCities on Sept. 18th)
As soon as I wrote that down I felt somewhat ashamed for thinking of that and began to list more important things. Not that a car is not important, because it truly is, especially to get us back and forth to appointments, but it didn't feel quite as important as some other things I could think of, so I thought about things that are currently happening in our family as I continued my list. There are plenty of good things I want to live to see, like:
4 - BJo graduate college
5 - Chase graduate college
6 - Connor home off his mission
7 - Connor graduate college
8 - Anthony graduate High School
9 - Anthony serve mission
10 - Anthony graduate college
11 - Skyler graduate grad-school
What I have listed are not necessarily in chronological order, nor are they in order of importance, but they will become priority at the proper place and time. My family is in a growing stage, so there are more events that need to take place and I want to be a part of them, so of course these need to be added to the things I would like to do and be a part of before I die:
12 - BJo married
13 - Chase married
14 - Connor married
15 - Anthony married
16 - see and enjoy more grandchildren (all of them) attend their blessings and baptisms ...
17 - improve family relationships
My family is definitely top priority! After they are all taken care of, or while I am taking care of them I would add these things too:
18 - Read the BofM beginning to end again in a short amount of time.
19 - serve the Lord well.
20 - become more Christlike.
I thought of my family history info that is scattered and unorganized so I added
21 - organize family history.
That made me think of my house and I thought that I would like to organize and dejunk it before someone else has to, so that became #22 - organize and dejunk my belongings.
This one seemed silly, but one thing I want to do, and plan to do soon, is 23 - watch The Return to Snowy River with Terry. We watched Man from Snowy River a week ago and wanted to watch this but didn't have it. So, I've ordered it (on Amazon) and we should get it this weekend. This one is definitely just for fun! (Post Note: watched it! :)
Another fun thing I thought of was to 24 - plant the pink flower seeds that I got from some of Idris' flowers. I should be able to do that quite easy if I just would. I need to find a place and do it!
It became difficult to continue because I knew that anything from this point on my list would depend on the amount of time I would have yet to live. If I only had a week or even a year or two I would not worry about anything else (at least anything that came to mind today). If however, I live another 25 or more years then I might add things like remodel my kitchen and loose weight, which are both things that I have been wanting to do for a long time now. But because I cannot take either of those with me it seemed hard to want to add them. What good would either do me after death?
I am beginning to think that I am focusing to much on "before you die" instead of living, so I am sure that my list would be different if my circumstances were different. Iwonder if am convinced that my list is being created with the thought of what I would want to do before Terry passes away. His poor health this past year has frightened me. I do not want to think on that thought and yet it is a concern that is constant on my mind. So my list might be a bit short sided. Numbers 1 thru 17 are definitely what I want him to be able to experience before he dies. However, I do not want to focus on that because I really want a miracle instead. I know it is going to happen to each of us some day, but it seems to be closer than I want it to be at this point. Even five or ten years is too soon.
I do so need a miracle! I hope and pray for one!
I feel so caught up in number 1, really numbers 1-20, that it's hard to see anything else. Realizing that I am only half way through my list I will try to consider a few more things as I continue on in life. For now, this is it, and it is where I find my happiness and joy. I know that it will be easier to create this list after #2 takes place, and if I never realize #2 it would be most difficult, if not impossible to continue it.
Nothing else matters right now!
Change is ever Constant!
---
One of BJo's first assignments in college was to "list 50 things you want to do before you die".
That intrigued me and I began to think about what 50 things I would write.
(I wrote this sometime between Sept. 15th thru 19th, with Post Notes written after those dates - before the end of Sept.)
Several years ago I read a story about a famous woman who asked another to create a list of 100 movies she "must see" before she died. The list included a few that I knew and already enjoyed, but it included several that I had not heard of. I started to watch a few and wondered why some of them were on the list. Soon I had seen enough and didn't want to continue because they did not interest me. I realize that everyone will have their own unique style and desires, so it seemed quite apparent that one should write their own list and no two lists would be the same.
I think of the words to one popular song sharing what one man did - things like go bull riding, sky diving and Rocky Mt. climbing. These things are not my kind of thing and will not ever be on my list, but when I first heard this song it touched my heart. It made me wonder what I would do.
I knew that my list of 50 things might include some of the same things that BrittanyJo would write, but I also knew that it would be quite different. After all, I have already gotten married and had children. (FYI - I have not seen her list.) As I thought more about it I felt almost compelled to create my own, so I began my list one day as I waited for Terry to get his chemo infusion.
As I continued writing I realized that my list would change as time goes on, but I wrote what I came up with today.
My absolute number 1 is to care for Terry / take care of him with love and kindness and patience and tenderness and understanding and empathy. I want to be a good care giver to him because I love him and I want to show that love in the way I care for him. Being his wife (a good wife) is very most important because that is where this eternal family started. We will be together forever and I want a wonderful forever.
Second on my list is to witness the miracle of Terry's health restored to him so that he may enjoy a long and enjoyably energetic life with his loved ones. I don't want to let him go before we can experience so many more things together. I need a miracle! He needs a miracle! We need a miracle! I do recognize that this item on my list may be out of my control, but I will do all I can to make this miracle happen. I will not give up hope.
I had a hard time trying to decide what I would write after these. I felt somewhat blinded by those two. However, I remembered the difficulty with our car that morning and I decided that number three could be to get a new car. (It has been on our list for a long time, but poor health kinda gets in the way. I am grateful that we have been able to make things work as long as we have and that we had no problems with the car on our trip to and from Rexburg. Once we got home it was a different story. We are going to get that checked out as soon as we can. Post Note: we did get a new suburban from TriCities on Sept. 18th)
As soon as I wrote that down I felt somewhat ashamed for thinking of that and began to list more important things. Not that a car is not important, because it truly is, especially to get us back and forth to appointments, but it didn't feel quite as important as some other things I could think of, so I thought about things that are currently happening in our family as I continued my list. There are plenty of good things I want to live to see, like:
4 - BJo graduate college
5 - Chase graduate college
6 - Connor home off his mission
7 - Connor graduate college
8 - Anthony graduate High School
9 - Anthony serve mission
10 - Anthony graduate college
11 - Skyler graduate grad-school
What I have listed are not necessarily in chronological order, nor are they in order of importance, but they will become priority at the proper place and time. My family is in a growing stage, so there are more events that need to take place and I want to be a part of them, so of course these need to be added to the things I would like to do and be a part of before I die:
12 - BJo married
13 - Chase married
14 - Connor married
15 - Anthony married
16 - see and enjoy more grandchildren (all of them) attend their blessings and baptisms ...
17 - improve family relationships
My family is definitely top priority! After they are all taken care of, or while I am taking care of them I would add these things too:
18 - Read the BofM beginning to end again in a short amount of time.
19 - serve the Lord well.
20 - become more Christlike.
I thought of my family history info that is scattered and unorganized so I added
21 - organize family history.
That made me think of my house and I thought that I would like to organize and dejunk it before someone else has to, so that became #22 - organize and dejunk my belongings.
This one seemed silly, but one thing I want to do, and plan to do soon, is 23 - watch The Return to Snowy River with Terry. We watched Man from Snowy River a week ago and wanted to watch this but didn't have it. So, I've ordered it (on Amazon) and we should get it this weekend. This one is definitely just for fun! (Post Note: watched it! :)
Another fun thing I thought of was to 24 - plant the pink flower seeds that I got from some of Idris' flowers. I should be able to do that quite easy if I just would. I need to find a place and do it!
It became difficult to continue because I knew that anything from this point on my list would depend on the amount of time I would have yet to live. If I only had a week or even a year or two I would not worry about anything else (at least anything that came to mind today). If however, I live another 25 or more years then I might add things like remodel my kitchen and loose weight, which are both things that I have been wanting to do for a long time now. But because I cannot take either of those with me it seemed hard to want to add them. What good would either do me after death?
I am beginning to think that I am focusing to much on "before you die" instead of living, so I am sure that my list would be different if my circumstances were different. I
I do so need a miracle! I hope and pray for one!
I feel so caught up in number 1, really numbers 1-20, that it's hard to see anything else. Realizing that I am only half way through my list I will try to consider a few more things as I continue on in life. For now, this is it, and it is where I find my happiness and joy. I know that it will be easier to create this list after #2 takes place, and if I never realize #2 it would be most difficult, if not impossible to continue it.
Nothing else matters right now!
Change
I remember Terry reading this to me a couple months ago.
"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays." - Soren Kierkegaard
I saved the magazine and just found it this morning - it is something to consider and to remind me.
"What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain." - Maya Angelou
From The Progressive Farmer / October 2014
"The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays." - Soren Kierkegaard
I saved the magazine and just found it this morning - it is something to consider and to remind me.
"What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain." - Maya Angelou
From The Progressive Farmer / October 2014
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| a gift from a friend, in my time of need |
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