We had such wonderful messages at church today. A beautiful woman named Bliss gave a talk about faith and choosing to believe. I know all the women loved it, cause we were talking about it during the whole next hour in Relief Society. It tied so nicely into the General conference talk we were discussing today by Emily Belle Freeman - Walking in Covenant Relationship with Christ. Bliss shared with us how she and her husband were married in the temple, and shortly after their first daughter was born, he stopped coming to church. She felt hurt and betrayed, but over time she realized that was because she was viewing his actions through her thoughts. When she decided to look at his actions through his point of view, she had more sympathy and could see where he was coming from. She made a conscious choice to allow him AGENCY and to give him space to choose for himself the way he wanted to live. She kept coming to church, and has been bringing her young family to church since they have been in the ward (5 years maybe?). Their life took a turn in July 2022 when her husband was having headaches. They took a trip to the ER and soon were in for surgery - he had a massive brain tumor and brain cancer and has been given 7 years to live. Talk about your life being thrown up in chaos. She's handled it beautifully. She shared that before one of his chemo treatment, she opened the scriptures and found comfort in Doctrine & Covenants section 84 verses 82-83, 85 and 88~
82 For consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin; and the kingdoms of the world, in all their glory, are not arrayed like one of these.
83 For your Father, who is in heaven, knoweth that you have need of all these things.
84 Therefore, let the morrow take thought for the things of itself.
85 Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man.
88 ...I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.
Those same thoughts continued in our RS discussion. TRUST the Lord. He will be with us in our trials and challenges. Our teacher Jill shared this clip of a paralympic blind runner David Brown with his guide Jerome Avery.
In this video below, Jerome is there by his side, encouraging David every step of the way~ “Go David go David!”
I want to be one with Christ in each move I made. I want to be tethered to him! I want him to be my guide! I'm the blind runner here on this earth. He is helping me and running with me. I am totally dependent on him. I want to be in sync with him with every step I take in my race, to listen to his instructions. He will get me there! He can SEE where he wants to take us and he knows how to get us there. It is HIS WORK AND HIS GLORY to give me salvation and glory! That video was so inspiring, it made me cry. A few quotes from Sister Freeman's talk:
[Enoch] was blinded by what was broken in him. The Lord’s answer to what hindered him was simple and immediate: “Walk with me.” Like Enoch, we must remember that the One who was bruised and broken for us will allow mortality to do its work in us, but He doesn’t ask us to face those challenges alone. No matter the heaviness of our story or the current course of our path, He will invite us to walk with Him. (To run with him!)
Our covenants aren't just about a commitment, or promises. They are about a relationship! Just think of the relationship between David Brown and Jerome Avery! Complete trust, joint work, united goal, so good! Speaking of Jacob/Israel...
On that night, the Lord stood beside Jacob, introduced Himself as the God of Jacob’s father, and then promised:
Jacob had a choice to make. He could choose to live his life simply acquainted with the God of his father, or he could choose to live life in committed covenant relationship with Him.
I choose a committed relationship with Christ! It was just such an awesome sacrament meeting, and a wonderful lesson in Relief Society, and I just came home feeling so edified and determined. Christ can see the end! He wants me to get there! He is working so hard with me to help me get there, to win the prize. That is his work and his glory, to bring me with him. As I work and listen to him and follow his every move, he works to make me just as capable as him. I know I repeated myself there, but it's just beautiful symbolism there in the blind runner and his guide. Also, it's not the race or the track that makes me the winner. It's following my guide. I felt like there's some more parallelism there in the track and the race being the law, but the law isn't what has the power. Christ does. The law just IS. The track is just there. But it's God's abilities and the abilities I learn on the track that are important for salvation. I'm going to ponder over all of it a little more.
So, that's that. Today Wayne came over to join us for dinner. We had garlic toast, a Greek salad, and Tuscan Sausage Soup (thank you Costco) with an addition of lots of golden potatoes, cauliflower, and zucchini. I also attended a virtual baby shower for Xela who is expecting her first child in a few weeks, a little girl! The shower was very cute, I took notes for future baby showers! I went over to a friend Kathy's house and she is going to host a bridal shower for Belle in two weeks so that will be fun. There's a lot to do, AHHH! Corey went to the Mt. Jordan chapel before church to look around. They have a screen, no stage, he only saw banquet tables, we only have access to round table clothes to borrow, so I'm going to need to text ladies about that tomorrow. Tonight Abi was looking through my yearbook and I told her about the Golden Talon award, and how when I was in 9th grade, I looked through my older sister's yearbook at a high school soccer idol of mine and I decided I wanted to be like her and get the Golden Talon award, so I looked at how many yearbook page numbers were after her name in the index and decided I needed about that many as well if I wanted to get the Golden Talon, so I set to work. So I had a lot of numbers after my name in my senior year book, and Abi was looking at that and was impressed. Then she was looking at pics of Corey and I, and I went downstairs to try and find where I put our Golden Talon awards, found the, then we were looking through a box of memorabilia and sharing some of our high school romance story with the kids the rest of the night. Kids looking at the collage pic that Corey made for me on my mission... it was going to be a cd cover for a cd of our love songs. It still needs new glass on it (bird broke it in 2014...)
(haha, look at Kat in that photo!) Ethan was here and took a little video of Corey and I for his House part 2 video that he's been working on for over a month. He's got lots of good content. He's just so busy, he wishes he has more time to work on it. But when he does start working on it, he can't stop and then his homework suffers! Life of a college kids. Wishing he was living back in the good ol' days of carefree childhood? Probably not, but I'm sure he'd like the free time that small children have. Wouldn't we all? Owen was playing legos with Peter tonight, thank you Owen! Peter needs his brothers to play with him.
ANYWAY, it's been a fun walk down memory lane tonight. Feeling very blessed for our relationship and story. Corey has been a gift from God to me. I'm so grateful that it worked out between us! My kids are so lucky. I love Corey!!!
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