LIFE

I read once...

making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life"

I got thinking

Am I living or am I making a living?

Do I know what my life is like?

Do I even like my life?

Are my day to day actions creating a life for me or a living?

of course I looked in the dictionary...

LIFE ~ the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects

LIVING ~ the means of maintaining life 

Our life is like a ball game. Sometimes things get going rough so you call a 'time out' to get reorganized or regrouped, to ask the coach for advice and help. Sometimes our lives get rough and things go wrong so we need to call 'time out' and pray to our Heavenly Father for guidance.

A little boy was trying to lift a big rock. His dad came and asked his son if he was using all his strength. The boy said, 'Yes, but I still can't move it'. The dad said to his son, 'Then you're not using all your strength, because you haven't asked me'.

The Atonement was made

The Atonement was made 

Ever and Always is offers amnesty 

from transgression and from death 

if we will but repent. 

Repentance is the escape clause in it all. 

Repentance is the key with which 

He can unlock the prison from inside.

We hold the key with our hands, and 

agency is ours to use it.

Boyd K Packer 

Fear AND Change

Over the past few days I have been thinking a lot about change. I still maintain the opinion that change is a good thing.

 It helps you grow. It helps you progress. It helps you learn.

Thank goodness I'm not the same person I was two years ago, or even nine months ago. Thank goodness for progression.

Although change is undoubtedly a positive thing, it does bring with it a certain amount of uncertainty.

I think it makes you stronger.

For me, the future is a beautiful thing, however I have this thing called fear of the future. Maybe it's a fear of commitment. Maybe it's just that I've never experienced it so I don't know what to expect.

Whatever the case, it still scares me.

So today I went for a walk. I passed some deer crossing the road. They looked petrified. They stared me down, and the closer I got to them the more uneasy they became.

I have never seen fear take hold of an animal so quickly before in my life.

One of them wasn't even close, but the moment it saw me coming around the corner it started darting off in any direction it could think of in order to get away. I passed them, and thought to myself,

"Wow, I'm so glad that I don't live in that kind of fear".

 I have been living with fear of the future for a few years now but guess what, whether I like it or not, the future is coming right around the corner.

The future will forever scare me. The unknown is a frightening concept.

I can try to run off in any direction to get away from it, but it's still going to come.

Knowing that, wouldn't it be so much better to face it with faith rather than with fear?

God has said that faith and fear cannot exist in the same place. I love God, so I choose faith. I know that God is with me, and will be forever.

That is all I need to put one foot in front of the other, and follow my Savior, knowing that because of Him,

"there is always hope smiling brightly before me".

It's hard to sit back, and let it all happen. It's hard to wait. But knowing that God knows best, and that He has a plan for me,

one that equals happiness is what gets me through.

~TR

CHRISTmas

God not only lives, but He loves us. He loves you. Everything He does is for our good and protection. There is evil and sorrow in the world, but there is no evil or harm in Him. 

He is our Father - a perfect Father - and He will help us find refuge from the storm. 

Jeffery R. Holland

GRAPPLE

The first time I saw this word it was for a new creation. Apples that smelled and tasted like Grapes. Therefore they were known as GRAPPLES. Makes sense.

Then I was reading and this phrase stuck out to me.
'Grapple the hard things in life.'

Do apples and grapes help us with the challenges of life?

So of course I looked in the dictionary.

Grapple

1. to hold or make fast to something

2. to engage in a struggle or close encounter
3. to try to overcome or deal
4. a grip or close hold in wrestling

We need to grasp the hard things in life and keep them alongside of us so that we know exactly what we are up against. Its the only way for us to keep our head held high and know that there are great things ahead.

Then I got thinking about GRAPPLES

Its funny how apples and grapes really do help us with the challenges of life.

APPLES-
The fruit of the forbidden tree
Knowledge of good and evil
To understand the purpose of life we need oppostition
The Lord is a respector of your agency from the very beginning

GRAPE-
Wine, The Sacrament
The Saviors Atonement!

Phillppians 4:13

I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me

MASTER CARVER

How s l o w the forming-

How HARD some blows-

But I, the stone, must come to know

In my own person, my own soul,

Thy will, Thy purpose here below.

O Master, now I plead to Thee,

Cut off my roughness, form my face,

Refine my feelings, make of me

A fit reflection of Thy grace.

Yea, haste the day when I may kneel

Before Thee and great Elohim,

Accepted, peaceful in Thy home,

At last like Thee each grain of stone.

J. Devin Cornish

The Atonement

Ive been studying the Atonement for the past year or so.
A dear friend of mine shared this with me.

We know that on some level Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It's our faith that He experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don't think through the implication of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don't experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means Jesus knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for your mother and how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the gas chambers of Dacau. He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism... his last recorded words to His disciples were, "And lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world." What does that mean? It means He understands your mothers pain when your five years old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your 5Th grader, when your daughter calls to say the new baby has Down Syndrome... He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children who ever come are visitors, when your hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your 50Th wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He's been there. He's been lower than all that.

Chieko N Okazaki