Why I am Grateful for Michael

I am grateful to Michael for his pure heart.

He exemplifies in many ways the qualities of charity,

in that he has suffered while exhibiting kindness.

He is neither vaunted nor puffed up.

He is not easily provoked.

He rejoices in the truth.

He has borne, hoped, and endured, and continues to show great patience and faith as he shows gratitude for those blessings he has received through his faith.

Michael has the best hugs. 

I am grateful for his talent for loving others.

I am grateful for his patience towards others.

I am grateful for the purity of his desire to be of service and to help others.

I am grateful that he stands as a provider and defender of his family, and that he has made himself worthy to receive temple blessings and exercise priesthood keys for his family.

I am very proud of him.

Gratitude Journal Entry for Kirby

My assignment for my class this week is to record gratitude daily.  I am supposed to write in a gratitude journal every day.  When I got the assignment, I immediately decided that I would express gratitude to one person every day. So, this is my first day.  Since Kirby is the first person in my life, and the one I am most bound to eternally, I will start with him.

Why I am grateful for Kirby:

From the moment I met you you have made me feel more alive and more whole.

You have made me feel cherished and valuable.

You have encouraged and challenged me intellectually and spiritually.

You have always held me in high regard, which has helped me feel good about myself.

You do not spare any effort to provide, protect, and defend me and our children.

You are tireless.

You rarely, if ever complain about the work you do or the sacrifices you make to accomplish this work.  You make these things seem normal, even though they are always extraordinary.

You get up early and you work hard until the end of the day.

You are exact in all things.

You love to have opportunities to serve and bless your family.

You are fun to be with. People come from miles around to spend time with you.

You command respect.

You are unfailingly honest and forthright.

You keep promises.

You have integrity.

You have a strong mind and body.

You take care of me and love me.

You love to be with me and are not afraid to tell me so and to express love and affection to me and to our children.

You honor your priesthood and fulfill priesthood callings.

You respect and honor God by choosing to be obedient to His commandments and live an honorable life.

You study and learn.

You are aware of current events, history, and collect well reasoned evidence to support your conclusions.

You are tolerant and considerate of other’s viewpoints and beliefs and behave with respect towards them.

You are a champion of freedom, our country, and God.

You chose me, for which I will be forever grateful, and blessed.

Tools

Ponder thought of the day:

Satan uses tools such as discouragement, anger, fear, contempt, annoyance, negativity, envy, contention, hatred, lust, and distain towards us.

We should not use these tools against others, or against ourselves.

Christ gave us different tools to use.  He gave us the sword of His Spirit, the shield of faith, the breast plate of righteousness. We are protected from Satan's tools when we are shod with the gospel of peace, wearing the helmet of salvation, and girt about with truth, with love towards God and all men.

We should use Christ's tools for and in behalf of ourselves and others.
We should not use the tools of Satan at all, not against ourselves, or against any other person.

Have You Seen God?

I was thinking this morning about this question:  "Have you seen God?"  This is sometimes a challenging question thrown out to people of faith.  A person may attempt to challenge ones faith by saying something like: "You can't say that you've seen God, so you have no proof that He exists".  This seems ridiculous to me.  Perhaps you could ask that person, "Have you seen gravity?"  How do you know that it exists?"

There are more senses than one. Just as gravity is constantly acting upon us, just as we see its influence in our world everywhere,  just as it effects everything that we do--that is how I see God in my life.  I see Him everywhere.  I feel his influence in my life from my earliest memories until the current day.

I've seen him working in my life.  I've felt Him as a powerful force sending me love comfort and direction.  I've felt His comforting spirit ever since I was a very small child.  He has protected me from harm.  He has given me strength in hard times. When I have sought direction at his hand--He has guided me.  He has brought me peace and healing after the trials of my faith.  When I have been confused, He has taught me and lighted my way.  He has provided for my needs.

As I have learned to be obedient to His laws, I have received blessings at His hand.  I have been provided with wonderful blessings of abundance, health, security, patience, wisdom, and knowledge. I have been given continuous opportunities to grow, learn, and to develop my talents.

Have I seen God?  Why, yes, I believe I have.

I Will Give Away All My Sins to Know Thee

I've been studying a lot this year about light and truth.  I learned that Jesus Christ is the source of light and truth; that all of us are given the light of Christ to guide us in our lives; and that if we follow this light, that we can make our way safely back to our Father in Heaven's presence.  It's basically that simple.

I have read a book called Following the Light of Christ into his Presence, by John Pontius recently.  He explains that the rod of iron, or word of God in Nephi's dream, represents the light of Christ, or the Spirit of Christ, which we can receive as the Gift of the Holy Ghost.  As we learn to receive this gift, or as we listen to the promptings given by this voice, we will be able to be guided, lifted, and our pathways lighted until we can become worthy, through our Savior's grace, to enter into the presence of the Lord.  Simply stated, Mr. Pontius teaches that personal revelation is our rod of iron, that it will lead us each unfailingly to the Love of God, to Charity the Pure Love of Christ, and to Eternal Lives.  It is the purpose of our lives to learn to follow this voice of truth, and the reward for doing so will be perfection through Christ and salvation in His kingdom.

Today we had a lesson in Relief Society about following in the path of the Savior.  It was based on the talk,  Ponder the Path of Thy Feet by Thomas S. Monson.  One of the paths mentioned in this talk was the path of obedience. During the lesson, I was reminded of an experience I had last year when I was reading about King Lamoni's father in the book of Alma, chapter 22 verse 18  This is the part of the scripture that struck me:  ". . .O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee." I was thinking about conversion, and how people change.  Some people change over time, but some people make a sudden and complete change from wickedness to righteousness with a sudden deep commitment.  They never look back from that time forward.  They simply accept the saving grace of the atonement and become purified through Christ's grace,  remaining ever valiant and obedient afterward. 

All of this has kind of gelled in my mind as being the way to gain light and truth, to build faith and testimony, and to trust in the Lord.  That we could give away our sins to know Him.

I have been trying to go through a process of  "giv(ing) away all my sins to know thee" since then.  I have been trying to listen more closely for promptings from the spirit, and to follow them more completely.  As I recognize promptings in my life and follow them, I find that there is always a spiritual reward, or confirmation that the thing that I am doing (in being obedient to the spirit) is pleasing to the Lord.  This is felt as joy, or peace, or as an inner light or warmth.  It is hard to describe these feelings, but they can be quite intense.  Sometimes I wonder how one could actually function normally if you felt   such a strong spiritual witness all of the time.  I hope to continue to be more sensitive and obedient to the light of Christ in my life until living with the Holy Ghost as my constant companion becomes a normal part of my life.

Over and over the gospel teaches us that we will receive blessings and be worthy of the companionship of the spirit of Jesus Christ by being obedient to the commandments of God.  John Pontius suggests that we can't remember all the commandments, to do them, and we can't always know which of all the things that we could choose to do is actually the right thing for us in each specific circumstance without the promptings of the spirit. By simply becoming sensitive to the light of Christ and by following spiritual promptings, or in other words, by receiving our own personal revelation, which is always perfectly tailored to our own questions and needs,  we can always know what is right for us to do at any given moment.  This becomes our own personal rod of iron to lead us always towards the tree of life.  

"And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." Moroni 10:5

I felt like I was supposed to record these impressions.  So I have followed that prompting.  Now I feel the confirmation of the spirit--and that is how it works.

This morning, I remembered a simple Children's song about following the promptings of the Holy Ghost.  It is a very simple message, but it is also very profound.  I thought I'd add it to this post.

  
Listen to the still small voice!
Listen! Listen!
when you have to make a choice.
He will guide you always.

Words and music: Merrill Bradshaw

This is an article that I like

http://mormonscholarstestify.org/1718/valerie-hudson-cassler

Of Gardens and Grandmas

I have a perennial flower garden.  I call it my Grandma garden.  I love the idea of passing on the love of country flowers to another generation. It is a love that includes memorial days at my grandmother's house when we would go about the yard gathering iris and spirea, pussy willow, snowball, and forsythia to put on graves. It includes my memories of an elderly neighbor's rose garden, and my mother teaching me how to make flower ladies from hollyhocks. I remember walking down the road to my friend's house in the spring time and smelling the lilac scent waft toward me from their border hedge of lilac bushes. I wanted to have lilac in my bridal bouquet, but that was not a practical desire, for their season is short. I love so many flowers. Perennial flowers bloom for only a few weeks a year, so I have collected a variety of types so that my front garden blooms all spring and summer. It is a random and haphazard collection of plants that I have started from bulbs and roots and nursery plants. Some plants thrive, and some plants fade away, so always the garden is changing. Last year I cleaned out some of the aggressive plants that had taken over too much space and moved them to some spots along the mow strip, where nothing else seems to survive, Then I started some new plants that I have been wanting to add to the graden. I moved everything around and dug up the root system of a reed that grows near us at the pond. It had invaded my garden and a huge web of roots up to a centimeter in diameter had to be dug out from under the other plants. They were about 6 to 8 inches below the surface--a seriously hardy strain of weed. I like to say that Cinton is the weed capital of the world, because we have some seriously hardy strains here. I am currently doing some clean up work near the edge of the garden, where I didn't quite finish my work last summer, and there is grass and established weeds that need to be dug out from among the border flowers. The other day, as I was digging, a couple of families walked by. They stopped to look at the daffodils and hyacinth with their little children, pointing out the "pretty flowers." One woman commented that "That looks like a lot of work." "It is." was my reply. Not as many people seem to grow these types of gardens today. Annuals are easier, and also beautiful. But these old flowers remind me of my childhood and my grandparents, and that makes me feel happy.