A Potpourri of Hope

To be honest, I don’t even know where to start. I have learned so much over the last few days that I feel like I’m trying to contain a waterfall with a child’s sand bucket. I cannot pick one theme that has stood out to me, so I hope you’ll put up with a potpourri of my thoughts.

Pre-earth existence

I’ll start with something that may seem trivial, but I love. It is always fun to me when I see something in Scripture that shows the restored doctrine has always been in the Bible if you have eyes to see it. When you’ve been blind for so long and suddenly get sight, even the most average of objects can seem spectacular. So, for those of you who’ve known these things your whole lives, please bear with my “playing catch up”.

One of the hardest doctrines to understand scripturally is our pre-earth existence. While it feels right and makes sense, the recovering Calvinist in me prefers Scripture. I was reading in John 9 the other day. In verse two, the disciples ask the Savior,

“Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Did you catch that? If he were BORN blind, how could he have possibly sinned? The only possible explanation is he existed before he was born. If that were not possible, the Savior would have pointed that out to HIs followers. Maybe He would have said something like, “How could he have sinned having not yet been born?”  Instead He answered,

“Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

I know it is a silly thing to get excited over, but to me it showed that the disciples understood there was an existence before birth.

Faith

Skipping a few days in my Scripture journal brings us to the topic of faith. I have really been convicted about this topic for some time. Every once in a while I think I see some progress, but then the Lord allows something to creep in that shows me I have so far to go still.

I was reading in 1 Nephi 7.

“….the Lord is able to do all things according to His will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in Him………” vs. 12

Then later in verse 17 it says,

“….O Lord, according to my faith which is in Thee, wilt Thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren;….”

To be honest, every time I read my Scriptures the verses on faith just jump out at me. I know that Heaven works according to laws that are irrevocably set. Faith is one of the big ones. There is much our Father in heaven wants to do for us, but much of it depends on our faith.

This makes me nervous sometimes, because I know I fall so short of the mark. Whenever I read passages on faith I have such a deep, deep longing to do better, to be more than I am. When I read the passage in verse 17 that said “according to my faith..”  I wrote in my journal, “What if the Lord only did anything according to my faith? How much would then be accomplished for His kingdom?”

How painful that is for me to consider knowing my failings. I think about the father of Alma the Younger, whose faith brought an angel to call his son to repentance. Wow! What incredible faith. Though I rejoice in his faith, I’m saddened by my lack of it.  When will I get there?

Of course whenever I pray about my lack of faith and ask for the Lord to help me grow in and develop more faith, He reminds me of Alma 32. So, I guess that is the course He has outlined for me. Hopefully as I diligently follow it I will one day have the faith that can help others more readily find His kingdom.

Unrighteousness

This next lesson was not in Scripture, but through life and the Spirit. I’ve been struggling with the behavior of a man who has done several unrighteous deeds. It has caused me anguish, almost destroyed my testimony, and brought harm to my family.

I have spent countless hours in tears and prayer over it. I have confronted the man several times asking him to stop the behavior, only to have ridiculous excuses made. When I pressed him, he would accuse me of lacking charity for not accepting him as he is.

Every confrontation damaged both my soul and emotions further. It kind of came to a head this past Friday. I had lost all hope of trusting  him (or anyone) again, but thought it only fair to try again. That was a mistake and served in no way other than to make my day completely miserable and give me another few hours of tears and heartbreak.

The thought suddenly popped into my head, while praying, that this is exactly what Satan wants. I don’t think I could have hand picked a scenario more perfectly designed to destroy me. I had two choices. I could continue to struggle and try to make sense of his behavior, fruitlessly hoping for righteousness, or I could recognize that Satan was using this person to not only bring me harm, but stunt my growth, and not allow it any further.

It reminds me a little of the story of the tree of life (1 Nephi 8). The analogy doesn’t fit completely, but you’ll get the idea. Here are these people who’ve just had an opportunity to taste the fruit from the Tree of Life, but because scoffers came along they fell away and were lost.

I have tasted of the gospel. I have a testimony. I know what is true. Am I therefore to let go of the iron rod and give up the fruit of the gospel because of someone else’s indifference to righteousness? How stupid would I have to be?  Umm…don’t answer that.

Well, I wish I had more time. There is so much more I’ve learned, but I’ve got to exercise and get some wonderful children to bed. I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for His constant patience with me. I hope one day I will be the kind of person that brings Him much glory. Maybe I’ll even develop the faith of Alma, or Enoch, or ….

Oh! to be all that God wants! What could be better?

 

Dual Post: True Love and A Look at Sin

At my daughter’s violin teacher’s home there is a portrait of Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the crucifixion. You don’t see the crosses, only the pained face of His mother, watching her son being tortured. Looking into her eyes you see the fulfillment of Simeon’s prophecy that a sword will pierce her very soul. I’ve often wished to obtain a copy of that picture as a reminder to me of the Sacrifice given on my behalf.

No matter what kind of life you lead. If you are single, married and unloved, or even have never been loved by even your parents, you can know that there is one person that when He says He loves you, He means it. Think about all He sacrificed, willingly on our behalf. Picture his great drops of blood when he took on Himself our sin and infirmities.

Even today, when we continue to sin, he pleads on our behalf. I love this passage in Doctrine & Covenants:

“Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before Him----

Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of Him who did no sin, in whom Thou wast well pleased:  behold the blood of Thy Son which was shed, the blood of Him whom Thou gavest that Thyself might be glorified;

Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on My name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.”

That is true love. Love which willingly gives His all. Such love deserves true devotion in return. Such love has the right to ask us to do anything, no matter how difficult. There are times when I am frustrated with life and I have to remind myself of the Savior’s love and remember that He isn’t asking me to do anything that doesn’t pain Himself equally.

I had told a friend from church in frustration the other day, “You know, my life wasn’t easy before I joined the church, but it has been much harder since.” I don’t blame the church of course. I knew the life I was signing up for when I made my decision. It doesn’t however make it any easier.

Therefore, when I am struggling or having a wretched, exhausting day, I remind myself of my beautiful Savior. He’s not asking me to do anything needlessly. He loves me. I love Him too, therefore I should willingly, even gratefully do whatever He requires.

I said this was a dual post because I’ve been having two disparate thoughts this week and I couldn’t think of a good segue…so I’m cheating.

I’m re-reading one of my favorite novels Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. My son’s about to read it for school, so I needed to do a touch up on it. There is a passage in the beginning that is describing a godly bishop. It says,

“He was never quick to condemn and he always took into account the surrounding circumstances. He would say, ‘Let’s see how this sin came to pass.’”

I think there are two applications to  this. The first is the one intended. Few people wake up and go, “I think I shall sin today.” There are generally circumstances that creep in and gradually, sometimes before they know it, they are sinning. Sometimes emotions and history factor into the situation. The point is, we can’t really know what someone is going through, or what led them into the sin they’re committing. Because of that, we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Let’s try to understand and love the person. Then we can help them with their sin.

There is a second application to this as well. A personal one. When we sin, we need to say to ourselves, “Let’s see how this sin came about”. Sin is inevitable. We are fallen people. If you’re like me, you want desperately not to, but know you will fail. I fail all the time. My heart breaks when I do. Sometimes though, I can learn from my failures. I can say to myself, “How did this come about?” Maybe I can see a pattern that I can avoid. A way to keep myself from falling into the same trap. It is a good habit to get into.

Hopefully in the future I can give myself more wisely to the one who truly loves me.

 

An Anchor to the Soul

I left church after Sacrament meeting today, which is something I never do.  I wasn’t feeling well. So I drove home, took some medicine, and tried to get some rest, but of course, I couldn’t sleep. You would think someone who lives on about 3-4 hours of sleep a night would conk right out, but my mind wouldn’t shut off.

Plan B was to read my Scriptures in silence. A rarity at this hopping house. I read something magnificent. For my Book of Mormon reading I am in Ether 12. It is so packed that this is day three on the same chapter. I just keep finding more gems. Right now I am compiling a three column list on everything Ether has to say about faith, hope, and charity in just this one chapter.

The verse I want to focus on right now is verse four:

“Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.”

If you’ve ever felt thrashed about by the storms of life, this verse should make you breathe a sigh of relief. For those of you who don’t know, I grew up on Staten Island. I sure miss that place sometimes. When I was a child riding the Staten Island Ferry, I would often go to one of the port holes and look into the churning sea. Although I loved the feel of the air and water as it sprayed up at me, the voyage itself frightened me, so I would sit and watch hoping nothing would go wrong with our voyage.

I was always fascinated by the gigantic chains that would place and withdraw the anchors and wonder how they could help keep such a massive boat in place. I still don’t know the technicalities of all of it, but somehow it worked. Our boat was sure and steadfast.

According to the Scriptures, faith is our anchor. This anchor, however, does way more than the ones on the ferries I grew up with. First, it gives us a hopeful, secure future. Ether called it a better world. It is better because we are at the right hand of God.  At first that phrase puzzled me.  At the right hand of God? No, that is the Savior’s rightful place-definitely not mine. Maybe it was my tiredness, but I couldn’t figure out why he would say that. The answer of course was obvious, but it didn’t occur to me.

I leaned over and asked dear Bishop Nance (he was bishop before our current one), whom I was sitting beside. Thankfully he didn’t call me an idiot for not remembering “the sheep and the goats”. When the author says we will be at the right hand of God, it is because that is where the sheep go. We go with the group destined for eternal life in the presence of God. That will most assuredly be a better world. In that world there will be joy, peace, godliness, honesty, truth, learning, safety, and righteous judgment, just to name a few things.

Why use an anchor analogy for that though? I know some who would say we cannot be sure of our eternal place. I disagree. Faith makes that eternity sure. We can not only hope, but be sure in our hope of it. Not because of our own merits, which I know frightens all of us and makes us worry about eternity. But, on the merits of the atonement of Jesus Christ. I can be sure of my eternity IF my faith is in the right place. Do I have correct faith in the person and work of the Savior? Is it the kind of faith the Scriptures teach us? A repentant faith unto good works? Then if so, I can be sure of eternity. Now that is better than any anchor I have ever seen on a ferry.

This anchor does more though. Heavenly Father doesn’t throw us into a tempest filled sea, leaving us to drown and suffer, merely saying, “Well at least you have eternity to look forward to.” No. Instead He says, “Use your anchor.” That anchor of faith makes us sure and steadfast. That anchor of faith allows us to abound in good works. That anchor leads us to glorify God. I can’t think of anything better.

When I am drowning in a sea of turmoil. And believe me I know what turmoil feels like. I can grab onto my faith. That frees me up to do the work God has set apart for me. I am excited about that! I can think of a dozen ways I have disappointed my Father in the last 6 months, knowing that if I had just grabbed my anchor, I could have avoided the mistakes all together. I can’t change the past, but I sure can remember to grab it in the future.

It can also keep me steadfast in the face of other’s sins. There are frightening people in this world, who do very bad things and are obvious about it. There are others who are more cunning and unexpectedly do bad things. I’m not sure which is more dangerous. It probably doesn’t matter, because both kinds leave wounds and damage our vessel. But this verse says we can be sure and steadfast even in the face of damage. It will not matter what kind of storm we are confronted with. Faith will lead us to glorifying God. We can do great works, even in the face of suffering. What an anchor that is!

One other thing just occurred to me. It says this anchor can lead us to glorify God. I periodically get emails or phone calls from people who say wonderful things to me. Things I don’t deserve. Sometimes they say they admire me. Most often lately they say they have a strong feeling Heavenly Father has an important work for me. Now, I am not an important person and I am sure every assignment Heavenly Father gives, even to the least of His children is important to Him. It did get me to thinking though. I know He has a work for me. We were all given assignments in the pre-mortal existence of how we could further the kingdom during our tenure here. What was mine?

While I do not think I can do anything more important than any other servant, I have been facing tremendous trials that were obviously designed by the enemy to keep me from service. I began to pray and ask Heavenly Father to show me my work. What is my mission? He gently reminded me that He had already told me. He puts desires in our hearts and minds that are designed to help us know and fulfill our mission. What I want more than anything else is to start a magazine AND write books designed to help Latter Day Saints not only become more valiant in their testimony of the Savior, but to give them the tools to minister and teach the gospel to protestant evangelicals.

All I have to do is hold on to the anchor, so I am equipped for every good work and not allow the storms I face to overtake me.

Incremental Revelation

I have learned so much in the last week that I don’t even know where to start. I suppose I’ll start with the temple. Yesterday I went to the Memphis temple to do initiatories and an endowment session. I was especially anxious to spend time in the Celestial room. I had 5 major things I was praying about that I needed direction. I typically sit close to the front so I can get to the celestial room more quickly.  On a side note……I like doing the prayer circle, but as a single woman it is awkward waiting up there all on my lonesome while the leader (or whatever he is called) asks for some poor schmoe to come up there to join me. Brothers, if you see a single sister waiting up there, jump up and join her.  Don’t leave her hanging! End of lecture.

When I got to the celestial room I grabbed some Scriptures and immediately started praying. At some point the burdens overwhelmed me and I started to cry. I laid out the big issues and asked Heavenly Father to lay out for me a plan. He said, “No.”  I said, “What?” He said, “I want to guide you little by little and you want the whole picture.” I said, “Ok.”, but a few minutes later decided to ask again in the hopes that I had misunderstood. Nope. Got the same answer. 

I’ll be honest. I found that disappointing. I wanted some answers! I needed direction. My heart was in a great deal of pain. AND I am confused about some things with regard to the gospel, the Spirit, and discernment. Not to mention the fact that I have so much on the plate, it would save some burden to get a great deal of direction at once. But, I trusted that Heavenly Father had a great reason. That submission was a good idea. It didn’t take long for me to start getting some answers.

The first answer I received was why he wanted to guide me little by little.  I’ve been reading a useful book by Gerald Lund entitled Hearing the Voice of the Lord. He wrote about incremental revelation, using the example of Nephi and the brass plates. Nephi was told to get the plates, but he wasn’t told how. He was kind of left to flounder on his own and figure it out. He made several attempts before having success. In his third attempt he said, “I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless, I went forth.” (I Nephi 4:6-7)

That is how I was feeling. God wants me to do these things, but doesn’t tell me how. Nephi was driven by faith, not knowledge. He had faith in Heavenly Father, therefore he would continue to try and figure out how to do what he was commanded to do. He had the same experience building the ship for their trip to the Americas. I Nephi 18:1 said he was given directions on how to build the ship, “from time to time”. I thought about that for a moment and it occurred to me that if the Lord had given him all the direction at once, he wouldn’t have been able to handle it.

Let’s look at the example of getting the plates from Laban. The Lord knew that Nephi was going to have to kill Laban to get those plates. But, if he told that to Nephi, Nephi might have spent his entire life wondering in false guilt whether or not there was anything else he could have done to get those plates back and spare Laban’s life. Therefore, the Lord let him attempt diplomacy first and learn for himself there was only one solution. How merciful of God!

Using the example of the ship, it is easy to see the need for incremental revelation. If Heavenly Father told me to build a car and gave me all the directions at once, I can guarantee at the end of my building, we would NOT have a car. Sometimes in His wisdom, He gives the direction we need, as we need it. I’m now not as disappointed with the idea.

The next thing I learned, was also confirmed to me more solidly in my reading. I was struggling with a wrong committed by someone. I couldn’t understand why the Lord was seemingly ignoring it. However, the Lord whispered to my heart that maybe He isn’t ignoring it, but giving others another learning opportunity.

I wondered about that, but wasn’t sure if I understood the Spirit correctly. Then I read something that confirmed it to me. While writing about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail, Gerald Lund made the following observation: 

“But here is another lesson to learn from that experience. While Joseph was in jail all that time, the challenge of leading and exodus of thousands of Saints to safety in the dead of winter fell to the two senior Apostles, Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. These were the very two men on whom would fall the task just eight years later of leading the Saints across more than a thousand miles of wilderness to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. How’s that for “in service training”?

Often while we are undergoing our own learning experience, the Lord may be accomplishing His purposes with other people and in other settings. This is why it is foolish to think that we can fathom with our finite perspective the infinite and eternal purposes of God.”

Well, there is tons more that I learned this week that will have to wait.  There are little people who want me to come to their “club” meeting. Apparently it is time for my membership interview. I am one lucky mom.

Becoming A Celestial Being

By Annmarie Worthington

*The following is an article I jotted down tonight. I don’t’ know if it will be helpful to anyone but me, but it helped to get the thoughts down.*

I want to reach exaltation. I bet you do too. The only problem is I don’t deserve it. Heavenly Father has said very clearly that He cannot look at sin with the least degree of allowance (D & C 1:31). If there is one thing I know above all others, it is that I sin. I fail all the time. The only thing that gives me hope is the next verse, “Nevertheless, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven.”

But repentance is more than being sorry for our sins. Spencer W. Kimball put it this way:

“Very frequently people think they have repented and are worthy of forgiveness when all they have done is to express sorrow or regret at the unfortunate happening, but their repentance is barely started. Until they have begun to make changes in their lives, transformation in their habits, and to add new thoughts to their minds, to be sorry is only a bare beginning.[1]”

There are days I see my failures and think there is no way the Lord can save someone like me. I sin and sorrow pierces my heart. I confess and forsake my sin, but before I know it there I am sinning again. What a wretched daughter of God I am! My poor Father must be so disappointed. Sure, I may make it into the lowest level of the celestial kingdom based on the atonement of Christ and my paltry attempts at keeping the commandments, but let’s face it, I’m not really celestial material.

However, something happened the other day that helped put it in perspective for me. My ten year old daughter came to me visibly upset. She, like her mother, was worried she did not deserve heaven. This precious daughter of God, who has more love and compassion than any child I know. This sweet girl, who even now, practices so she can be a good mother one day. The child who voluntarily goes to her room after losing her temper to read her scriptures and pray to get her heart right was worried. This child thought she might not make it either. At that moment, I saw her as I suspect Heavenly Father sees me- with complete love and compassion. I then found the words that had evaded my own conscience just moments before.

I pointed out to my dear daughter that Heavenly Father knew we could not be perfect. Yet, He loved us so much He provided a way to bring us back to Him. The atonement. No one is capable of sinning more greatly than the atonement can cover. If we believe in Christ, really believe in Him, we must also believe in His power. When God says the atonement covers all our sins, our faith must say, “even mine”. 2 Corinthians 9:15 puts it better than anything else: “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.”

Now, if you are anything like my Rachel, you want to do more than have faith in the atonement. You want to have a Celestial spirit. So do I. While I believe it starts with having faith in his atonement and knowing our repentance brings restoration, it doesn’t stop there. Our Father is so kind. He knew we’d be grateful and want to bring Him glory. He knew we’d want to be valiant and make Him proud, so he made sure we could learn how. All throughout the Scriptures Heavenly Father gives us ways to be more like him. I wish we could sit for hours and talk about all of them, but alas, this is one article. Therefore I will to focus on just one book. After all, even a long journey begins with a single step.

Our Heavenly Riches

The book of Ephesians is filled with more depth of riches than we are capable of mining this side of eternity, but even just skimming the surface we can come away with jewels more valuable than all the riches of the universe.

There are six chapters in Ephesians and it can be split right in half. The first three chapters tell us of our marvelous position in Christ. As children of the King of Heaven we can scant imagine what is ours for the taking. But, for me, the key passage comes in the first verse of the second half of the book. “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” (Ephesians 4:1)

That’s it right there. Once we understand our riches in Christ, which the first three chapters delineates so well you can see your spiritual cup filled to overflowing, he tells us simply to walk worthy. We have been given every grace imaginable. Our sinless Savior died so we could once again enjoy the riches and fellowship of a relationship with our Heavenly Father. Not only that, but He was kind enough to also impart to us His Spirit, which Ephesians calls “the earnest of our inheritance”. How can we not live worthily? Who would not say, “Lord, what would you have me do?” That is what being a Celestial spirit is. It is consistently looking for ways to honor and glorify our Father in Heaven.

A place to start

Fortunately Heavenly Father did not give abstract concepts when he had Paul pen the words to show us how. The remainder of the book is terrestrially practical. His first exhortation to us is to show forbearance to one another in love. He even told us how. “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering,…” Eph. 4:2 Don’t you kind of wish he would have given us something easier to start out on?

I think He did it on purpose. Heavenly Father knew that even if this was the only celestial concept we got down, we would be closer to being like Him than almost any other commandment. Loving others is hard, because they are as messed up as we are.

So what does this mean? Essentially it means we are to put up with each other. But, not only that, we are to do it while loving them. Maybe someone has slandered us, or maybe someone mistreats us. It is easy, in our carnal state, to think we deserve better. But why? Why do we deserve better than our Savior? If He can suffer humiliation and death on our behalf, why can we not suffer and love his children anyway.

I could list countless ways I’ve been wronged. Yet it doesn’t even begin to measure up to what the Savior suffered. So, how can we live this out? I think we start by forgiving those who wrong us, being patient and truly longsuffering with those who annoy us, and praying for those who spitefully use and mistreat us. Maybe we can find a way to bless and serve someone who hurts us this week. Or maybe we can figure out something wonderful about them. Invite them to dinner and try to find out what is special about them. There will be something special in them. Ephesians tells us we’ve all been given special gifts. Let’s find out theirs.

Unfortunately, there is not enough space in this article to go through all the wonderful ways Paul outlined for us to walk worthily, but you can study them yourself. He lists the word “walk” at least six times in those final three chapters of Ephesians, giving much practical advice on what to do. As my sweet daughter and I strive to walk worthy of the immense gift we have been given in the atonement, maybe we’ll actually become Celestial beings in a Telestial world. That is my hope and joy.

---

[1] Spencer W. Kimball, "What Is True Repentance?", New Era, May 1974, 4

The Gift of Learning

 

And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God; –D & C 88:118-119

There are so many wonderful things I love about the Latter Day Saint faith. I cherish the church’s stance on learning and education. We are encouraged regularly to do everything we can to improve our knowledge, both secular and spiritual. What a blessing! What a gift!

I was once told by a pastor’s wife at my former church that I was over-educating my children. She told me they’d end up weird and on drugs. I have no idea where the drug connection was, but figured if they ended up weird it wouldn’t be from their “over” education. It would be because their mom was weird. As there is nothing I can do about that, we might as well keep learning.

There are obvious temporal benefits from continuing education, such as better employment and salary opportunities. But, there are incredible spiritual benefits as well. I always tell my children: Every time you learn something new, you’ve added another way you can love and serve your Heavenly Father.

Are you studying an instrument? You can use it to serve at church, bless people with beauty, and teach others who may want to learn. Think of the joy you can bring to elderly people at a nursing home, or who are homebound, when you visit and play a few songs for them. They are so happy for both the company and beauty.

Are you studying a new language? You have a whole new people group with whom you can share the gospel. At many of the bigger piano competitions, where my son competes, the majority of the competitors are Asian. My family is learning Mandarin together so we can better fellowship and minister with our new acquaintances. I have so enjoyed the fellowship time I’ve had with one of my new friends from China as she allows me to practice with her and ask her questions.

Are you studying math? That is one of my favorites. There are countless people who need tutoring whom you can bless with the knowledge you’ve developed. One day, when I have enough money to cover my bills, I want to tutor at risk children from disadvantaged homes free of charge. I want to develop relationships with them and love them, all while helping them get through Geometry or Algebra 2 well.

There are so many incredible things in this world our Savior formed. Daily I get to sit with joy and wonder as my children and I study science together. My oldest (14) is doing chemistry this year. My 10 year old is studying zoology, and my 6 year old is studying astronomy. Each day brings us new admiration at the glory of the universe and creatures God has made.

I long to go back to school, but have to wait until I am making enough money to cover all our expenses.   One day….. (sigh). In the meantime, I study daily at home, and take great joy in schooling my children, looking forward to the day I can go to the university myself.

I feel so blessed that I belong to a church where I don’t feel I have to avoid talking too much about what the children and I are learning. Nobody here thinks I’m nuts if I let my 10 year old learn algebra, or my 3 year old learns to read. Instead we are encouraged to learn as much as we can. It was even a visiting teaching message not too long ago.

I would love to hear some of the ways you guys are becoming houses of learning.  Oh….and if you’re ever interested in homeschooling, give me a buzz. I can talk about that for hours. You should also check out the Latter Day Homeschooling blog (and not just because I am one of the authors). There is loads of information on ways to bring learning into your home, no matter what avenue you have chosen to school your children.

www.latter-dayhomeschooling.com

Thank you so much, Heavenly Father, for the gift of learning!

By the way, next week is Education Week at BYU. You can take as many classes as you want for $50!

Do you ever want to be so much more than you are? I have a picture of what I want to be. God tells me to do something and I do it at the drop of a hat, without fear. That last part is what is hard for me. I'm scared a lot! My imaginary me also can discern the Spirit whenever He speaks. It's not that I don't hear Him. It's just that I know He says way more than my miniscule spirituality can discern. I would know my Scriptures by heart and not get confused by all the new Book of Mormon names. I would also be cheerful all the time. No sadness, no crying, no fear, no secretly wishing someone (whom I won't name) would fall down and break both arms. Hmmm...this is going to be a long paragraph, but there are a few more wishes for the imaginary me. My house would be spotlessly clean ALL the time, the laundry would always be caught up, and I'd bake something delicious every day. Do you know what else? I wouldn't exercize for an hour and then sit down and eat chocolate. Never mind, I don't wish that. I know the Old Testament said the heavenly bread called manna tastes a little like honey, but there must have been chocolate flavor in it somewhere.

I'm not sure I'll ever be the imaginary me this side of eternity, but I'm not one to give up. I don't want to improve as a means of showing worthiness, I know I will never be worthy of heavenly glory. For that reason, as well as many others, I am so grateful for the atonement. I want to improve so I can be more like Him. I want to be more like my Heavenly Father. I spent some time today sad, and wondering how someone who was dear to me, who taught me the gospel, could end up being so unrighteous. It was consuming me. I couldn't grasp it. Then I read Helaman 6. In this chapter the roles were reversed for the Lamanites and the Nephites.

Now, it was the Nephites who were behaving so unrighteously, and the Laamanites who were becoming righteous. It stood out to me because I had always looked up to the Nephites as a people, as I once had the person who had taught me the gospel. There were two things that stood out to me.

First, NO ONE is exempt from the possibility of an unrighteous life. We cannot progress without progressing. Previous righteousness will not keep us righteous. We have to constantly be learning and growing, or we'll end up unrepentant. The second thing that stood out to me, was what pleased the Father about the Lamanites. It said, "And thus we see that the Lord began to pour out his Spirit upon the Lamanites, because of their easiness and willingness to believe in his words." That was it. Believe. That sounds remarkably like "having the faith of a child". When my children are little, and they ask me a question about how something works, or why something is the way it is, they never question my answer. They assume, because I am mom, that I must know. That is a remarkable trust and one I take very seriously. Oh! how I long to be that way with my Heavenly Father. I want to have an easiness and willingness to believe His words. Funny, I have the willingness. It is the easiness that is getting me.

For now, I look across the distance of where I am and where I want to be, and sigh. But I know that even if all I can take are tiny steps forward, eventually, I will get there.