Today was a good day. As has the past week been. My best friend Dawn and I have been doing this gratitude thing. We send each other a list of five things that we are grateful for at the end of each day. I was noticing that our weekly phone conversations were turning into some pretty downer times. I mean, it is good to have a friend that you can trust entirely and that you can vent to about anything and everything.
However both of us are going through some rough times, and so our conversations reflected that. And I knew it needed to stop. We both know we are having a hard time. We both know very personally what the other is suffering. But we do both have many things to be grateful for. The list has given me a chance each day to reflect on what I am grateful for, and sharing that list only helps me recognize that I do feel happy about my life. I find myself looking for things to be grateful for throughout my day. The world looks a lot different when you are consciously choosing to see all that is beautiful and right with it.
Today I felt really grateful for my testimony. I feel really really grateful for church. I love going. It's been a long time since I've said that. But I have noticed this past year how uplifting it is. And today the lessons really hit home.
First: talents. When the Savior told the parable of the talents, he explained that each person was given talents according to their own capacity. Isn't that interesting? He gives us talents according to what He knows we can do. For example, He gave my friend Susan this running talent, and she has multiplied it. She runs marathons on a regular basis, thinks nothing of a seventeen mile "jog" in the morning, and she's fast...especially compared to this slowpoke. Susan could have been different, though. What if she had decided not to develop that talent? What if she had buried it instead? It isn't just that she can run. It's the way it has impacted her life and the lives of others. She's really healthy, for example. And she has found ways to help others be healthy. She shares her menus and ideas with friend and family. She's taken one good thing and multiplied it.
When I look at my life, I know I've been given talents, too. And I've multiplied them. But lately I sort of feel like I'm the one burying my talent because I, like the man in the parable, am afraid. But again, the Lord gives us according to our capacity. So whatever talents and skills He has bestowed upon me, they are the talents and gifts that will help me to prosper and grow most because I was given according to my personal ability to develop them. And to think that those talents can not be just one thing but that they can spill over and become many things! Well that is just a beautiful blessing.
Second: obedience. Two stories from the scriptures. First, the stripling warriors keep coming to mind. They obeyed with exactness every command. And they were spared. Sometimes I think I ignore little things. Maybe I'm not careful about what I choose to watch on t.v., or I think it isn't a big deal to gossip. But after hearing that lesson and discussing it last night with Dawn, I realized something. My obedience matters in my life. It matters because it determines the capacity to which I feel the Spirit. It determines the amount of promptings I get from the Holy Ghost. It matters because it helps me draw closer to God or pushes me further away from Him. And obeying Him because I love Him is even more important.
Sometimes I feel like I'm that child who won't listen to his or her parents, even though the parents are trying to look out for the child's best interests. And if only I would listen and obey, the answers and understanding will come.
The second story is of Christ's temptation after fasting for forty days. What strikes me as significant is that the temptation didn't come when He was beginning the fast or even somewhere in the middle. It came at the end. It came when He was at his most vulnerable. And yet He was able to obey. That would have been really hard. We often think of Christ's atonement in the Garden of Gethsemane when we think of His suffering. Or His suffering on the cross or His road to Golgotha. And rightly so. But we forget that He lived as we live. And He suffered the same temptations we do. They, too, came for Him at His weakest moments. That is why He knows what it is like to be tempted as we are. And it inspires me to want to do better, to be more obedient. Because if Christ could be that obedient to God in His weakest of moments, so can I. I can because He strengthens me.
I've read that scripture over and over..."I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." But I've never given thought as to why. And that is why. I can do it because He set the example, and His example lifts me. I am grateful to Him for all He does in my life. I can be obedient. I can overcome a difficult time. I can live a happy, good life.
So that was my Sunday...how was yours?
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