watermelon in winter

Words of wisdom.  This is gonna be a long post, because of quoting a couple things... Mother Teresa of Calcutta said: "People are often unreasonable and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you.  Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous.  Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.  Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway." Martina McBride sang: " You can spend your whole life buildin' Something from nothin One storm can come and blow it all away   Build it anyway You can chase a dream   That seems so out of reach And you know it might not ever come your way Dream it anyway God is great but sometimes life aint good And when I...

...and we REALLY don't understand why. And, at least for me, I ask not only WHY some things happen, but also WHY does Heavenly Father think I can handle so much?!  I was thinking this morning that every trial I go through is harder than the last.  And it makes perfect sense, actually, because of our purpose on this earth.  We're here to progress, to learn, and not to sit stagnant.  If I didn't have challenges, I wouldn't learn how to deal with them, I wouldn't learn to trust the Lord, I wouldn't grow the way the Lord knows I need to.  But golly, I just want to understand!  The scriptures and prophets all talk about righteous desires, and mine are righteous desires, things I've felt good about for a LONG time, and yet....I guess the Lord knows what's best, but I wanna know too! So amid my trauma of the last couple of days, and my failure to understand WHY I've been faced with this new trial, with oh-so-many complications and no easy solution, I re...

Today at church I heard a definition of forgiveness that I'd never heard nor even thought about before, and it stuck out a LOT at me: "Forgiveness is repentance for a failure to love." Love who?  Love of God.  Love of others.  Love of self.  We are our own worst critics, and often the hardest person to forgive is ourself.  But as we learn to love ourselves, we learn to love God, and to forgive ourselves, implementing the Atonement in our lives.  As we learn to love God, and love as God loves, we are more open to speedy forgiveness of others.  I think Nephi had this down...his own brothers tried to take his life, and he "swiftly forgave" them.  That is just incredible.  And often we are slow to forgive (others and ourselves) for even trivial matters that really don't matter in the eternal scheme of things. As we learn to love others, we automatically learn to expand out capacity to forgive.  And that brings blessings beyond compare!!!...

A few weeks ago, I read the same chapter in the Book of Mormon (Alma 34) 4 times in about 6 days.  The last time I read it, I read it looking for WHY I was reading it, though I didn't find anything I hadn't seen or learned before.  Last night I was having a rough time of it, walked out into the kitchen just as Ethan and Carli were reading some scriptures, one of which was from that chapter...and right as I walked out, they read a verse that was the answer to many many prayers, and the WHY i had to read that chapter so many times! Also yesterday, Mom texted me asking me for the reference to the scripture that talks about weaknesses becoming strengths.  Ether 12:27 says And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.  I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto the...

Sometimes it seems like all we do is invisible, right? We put ourselves out there, but we are invisible.  Those we want to see us, don't. We do all we can to make someone happy, but we can't all the time. We change who we are (for the better), and yet no one seems to recognize this. We have great ideas, but our closest friends don't see them as "great". We look for ways to surprise people, but they don't want the surprise. We smile even when it hurts, yet others don't smile back. We fight back the tears to appear strong, so no one sees how weak we really are. We are the shoulder for everyone else to cry on, but everyone disappears when we need a shoulder. We give advice, but no one wants it. Then when we don't give advice, people ask why we have nothing to say. We are quiet so as not to argue, but they don't see it as peaceful, they see it as passive. We know we are right sometimes, but to someone, we are always wrong. But these are ...

For all of you who may have read about Elder Schenk, his family is keeping a blog about him: elderbrittenschenk.blogspot.com Prayers are so powerful.  I know Elder Schenk has people all over the world (especially all over North and South America) praying for him, even thousands of people who don't even know him. I don't have much to say today, except that I am SO GRATEFUL for the Lord's hand not only in my own life, but in the lives of ALL people.  Miracles are real, miracles happen multiple times a day.  Elder Schenk is making an amazing recovery, and this is FULL of miracles. I don't know how, especially at times like these, anyone can NOT believe in God.  He is real.  He is here.  He is by our and on our side.  He is rooting for each one of us.  My heart is so full of gratitude for that, and for ALL He does.