Just wanted to share a tender mercy of the Lord for me this Christmas season. Every year as long as I can remember I have done a 12 days of Christmas for my children from All a Dollar so they could have a small toy present to open to count down the days until Christmas. This year my son left for his mission on Dec 11th and so I created with the help of his grandmothers a 12 days of Christmas for him to open in the Missionary training center. I used up the energy I had to do this family tradition on creating his and then once he was gone my mother heart had a hole in it that only he could fill. Christmas is a time for family and I have enjoyed for the last 2 years having my adult children come home for the holidays and be with our family. This was the first year that that would not happen and I was aching. Only knowing that the church is true and will bring great joy to others could I possibly tolerate his absence at this time of year.
I was unable to get myself to do a 12 days of Christmas for the rest of our family.
One day on about the 16th or so of Christmas a tender mercy was given to me. Some one left a 12 days of Christmas present on my door step. It was so precious to me and such a testimony that God knew me personally and my needs this year. The Lord was very involved in the details of my life this year and I was so grateful. Each day as we would gather for family scripture study and open one of the presents I was as excited as the children not knowing what was inside. It was a joy to me!
http://www.lds.org/pages/tender-mercies-of-lord?lang=eng “The Lord's tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ” (David A. Bednar, April 2005 general conference).
Read Elder Bednar’s April 2005 general conference address, “The Tender Mercies of the Lord,” to learn how we can invite and recognize the Lord’s tender mercies in our lives.
"I wrote down a few lines every day for years. I never missed a day no matter how tired I was or how early I would have to start the next day. Before I would write, I would ponder this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?” As I kept at it, something began to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done.
More than gratitude began to grow in my heart. Testimony grew. I became ever more certain that our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. I felt more gratitude for the softening and refining that come because of the Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ. And I grew more confident that the Holy Ghost can bring all things to our remembrance—even things we did not notice or pay attention to when they happened."
"There is a division line well defined that separates the Lord’s territory from Lucifer’s. If we live on the Lord’s side of the line Lucifer cannot come there to influence us, but if we cross the line into his territory we are in his power. By keeping the commandments of the Lord we are safe on His side of the line, but if we disobey His teachings we voluntarily cross into the zone of temptation and invite the destruction that is ever present there. Knowing this, how anxious we should always be to live on the Lord’s side of the line.[“Our M.I.A.” Improvement Era,May 1935, 278]
I repeat, “If we live on the Lord’s side of the line Lucifer cannot come there to influence us.” What an offer of safety and security in a world that Lucifer has turned into enemy-occupied territory; a world where his enticements are more provocative and enslaving than ever; Very simply, our physical and spiritual safety lies in never even getting close to the line that separates light from dark, good from
evil. Jesus Christ showed us how to deal with the adversary. When Satan tempted Him, there was no clever repartee, no battle of wills, just immediate dismissal—“Get thee behind me, Satan. . . . Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Luke 4:8, 12). If the omniscient Jehovah wasn’t willing to debate the adversary, how quickly ought we to run for our lives—our eternal lives—when confronted with even the slightest hint of evil."
2.Been
listening to conference and LOVE two talks from Priesthood session.
This quote from Pres Uctdorf has really got me thinking about priorities
and where I am spending my time.
"Brethren, we all
know that it takes self-discipline to remain focused on the matters that
have the greatest power to increase our love for God and fellowman,
invigorate marriages, strengthen families, and build the kingdom of God
on earth. Like a fruit tree with an abundance of branches and leaves,
our lives need regular pruning to ensure that we use our energy and time
to accomplish our real purpose—to “bring forth good fruit”! 1
"There
is a sentiment among many in the world that we are the spirit creations
of God, just as a building is the creation of its architect or a
painting the creation of its painter or an invention the creation of its
inventor. The scriptures teach, however, a much different doctrine.
They teach that we are more than creations of God; they teach that we
are the literal spirit offspring or children of God our Father.1 What
difference does this doctrinal distinction make? The difference is
monumental in its consequence because our identity determines in large
measure our destiny. For example, can a mere creation ever become like
its creator? Can a building ever become an architect? A painting a
painter? Or an invention an inventor? If not, then those who believe we
are creations of God, rather than His spirit offspring, reach the
inevitable conclusion that we do not have the capacity to become like
our creator, God. In essence, their doctrine of identity has defined and
dictated a diminished destiny. "
4.
". . . tell
me sufficiently why a thing should be done, and I will move heaven and
earth to do it. Hoping you will feel the same way as he and fully
recognizing my limitations, I wish to try to give at least a partial
answer to "Why be morally clean?" 1. Our soul is what's at stake
here--our spirit and our body. Paul understood that doctrine of the soul
every bit as well as James E. Talmage did, because it is gospel truth.
The purchase price for our fullness of joy--body and spirit eternally
united--is the pure and innocent blood of the Savior of this world. We
cannot then say in ignorance or defiance, "Well, it's my life," or worse
yet, "It's my body." It is not. "Ye are not your own," Paul said. "Ye
are bought with a price." So in answer to the question, "Why does God
care so much about sexual transgression?" it is partly because of the
precious gift offered by and through his Only Begotten Son to redeem the
souls--bodies and spirits--we too often share and abuse in cheap and
tawdry ways. Christ restored the very seeds of eternal lives (see
D&C132:19, 24), and we desecrate them at our peril. The first key
reason for personal purity? Our very souls are involved and at stake. 2. Can
you see then the moral schizophrenia that comes from pretending we are
one, sharing the physical symbols and physical intimacy of our union,
but then fleeing, retreating, severing all such other aspects--and
symbols--of what was meant to be a total obligation, only to unite again
furtively some other night or, worse yet, furtively unite (and you can
tell how cynically I use that word) with some other partner who is no
more bound to us, no more one with us than the last was or than the one
that will come next week or next month or next year or anytime before
the binding commitments of marriage?
You must wait--you must wait
until you can give everything, and you cannot give everything until you
are at least legally and, for Latter-day Saint purposes, eternally
pronounced as one. To give illicitly that which is not yours to give
(remember--"you are not your own") and to give only part of that which
cannot be followed with the gift of your whole heart and your whole life
and your whole self is its own form of emotional Russian roulette. If
you persist in sharing part without the whole, in pursuing satisfaction
devoid of symbolism, in giving parts and pieces and inflamed fragments
only, you run the terrible risk of such spiritual, psychic damage that
you may undermine both your physical intimacy and your wholehearted
devotion to a truer, later love. You may come to that moment of real
love, of total union, only to discover to your horror that what you
should have saved has been spent, and--mark my words--only God's grace
can recover that piecemeal dissipation of your virtue.
3. But I
wish to stress with you this morning, as my third of three reasons to be
clean, that sexual union is also, in its own profound way, a very real
sacrament of the highest order, a union not only of a man and a woman
but very much the union of that man and woman with God. Indeed, if our
definition of sacrament is that act of claiming and sharing and
exercising God's own inestimable power, then I know of virtually no
other divine privilege so routinely given to us all--women or men,
ordained or unordained, Latter-day Saint or non-Latter-day Saint--than
the miraculous and majestic power of transmitting life, the unspeakable,
unfathomable, unbroken power of procreation. There are those special
moments in your lives when the other, more formal ordinances of the
gospel--the sacraments, if you will--allow you to feel the grace and
grandeur of God's power. Many are one-time experiences (such as our own
confirmation or our own marriage), and some are repeatable (such as
administering to the sick or doing ordinance work for others in the
temple). But I know of nothing so earth-shatteringly powerful and yet so
universally and unstintingly given to us as the God-given power
available in every one of us from our early teen years on to create a
human body, that wonder of all wonders, a genetically and spiritually
unique being never seen before in the history of the world and never to
be duplicated again in all the ages of eternity--a child, your
child--with eyes and ears and fingers and toes and a future of
unspeakable grandeur.
Imagine that, if you will. Veritable
teenagers--and all of us for many decades thereafter--carrying daily,
hourly, minute-to-minute, virtually every waking and sleeping moment of
our lives, the power and the chemistry and the eternally transmitted
seeds of life to grant someone else her second estate, someone else his
next level of development in the divine plan of salvation. I submit to
you that no power, priesthood or otherwise, is given by God so
universally to so many with virtually no control over its use except
self-control. And I submit to you that you will never be more like God
at any other time in this life than when you are expressing that
particular power. Of all the titles he has chosen for himself, Father is
the one he declares, and Creation is his watchword--especially human
creation, creation in his image. His glory isn't a mountain, as stunning
as mountains are. It isn't in sea or sky or snow or sunrise, as
beautiful as they all are. It isn't in art or technology, be that a
concerto or computer. No, his glory--and his grief--is in his children.
You and I, we are his prized possessions, and we are the earthly
evidence, however inadequate, of what he truly is. Human life--that is
the greatest of God's powers, the most mysterious and magnificent
chemistry of it all--and you and I have been given it, but under the
most serious and sacred of restrictions. You and I who can make neither
mountain nor moonlight, not one raindrop nor a single rose--yet we have
this greater gift in an absolutely unlimited way. And the only control
placed on us is self-control--self-control born of respect for the
divine sacramental power it is.
Lately
I have been thinking a lot about the enabling power of the atonement
and how to better use it and call upon it to help me be better and have
more strength then I have.
I love the story of the
father who brings his son to the savior to be healed and the Lord asks
him do you believe. The father wants his son healed more than anything
but recognizes in himself a lack of faith. Recognizes that the Saviors
question and his answer to it could make all the difference to his son.
He wants to believe desperately but I am sure looking into the saviors
eyes he relizes that he has doubts. So he says something that I love and
feel like has been an answer to my question of how to use the enabling
power of the atonement more in my life
He says " Help thou mine unbelief" in other words enable my belief to be enough to create this mighty miracle for my son.
I
have had a goal this year to attend the temple every week. I have set
it up with a friend to help me get there and have done pretty well. But
the truth is every week I have a little conversation with myself that
includes a prayer to "help mine unbelief" help me be stronger then I
feel right now and help me to be able to be successful in attending the
temple and getting the power that I need for the week.
We some
times have the erroneous belief that we have to do it alone and that we
have to want to do it alone. The truth is most the time we really need
help. and that help is available by asking.
What are
you struggling with in your belief? What would happen if you prayed for
greater strength and power to accomplish what you are trying to
accomplish?
“Impressions on the soul that come from the Holy Ghost are far more
significant than a vision. When spirit speaks to spirit, the imprint
upon the soul is far more difficult to erase. Every member of this
church should have impressions that Jesus is the Son of God indelibly
pictured on his soul through the witness of the Holy Ghost.” (President
Joseph Fielding Smith, Improvement Era, November 1966, 979)
Lately I have been thinking a lot about the enabling power of the atonement and how to better use it and call upon it to help me be better and have more strength then I have.
I love the story of the father who brings his son to the savior to be healed and the Lord asks him do you believe. The father wants his son healed more than anything but recognizes in himself a lack of faith. Recognizes that the Saviors question and his answer to it could make all the difference to his son. He wants to believe desperately but I am sure looking into the saviors eyes he relizes that he has doubts. So he says something that I love and feel like has been an answer to my question of how to use the enabling power of the atonement more in my life
He says " Help thou mine unbelief" in other words enable my belief to be enough to create this mighty miracle for my son.
I have had a goal this year to attend the temple every week. I have set it up with a friend to help me get there and have done pretty well. But the truth is every week I have a little conversation with myself that includes a prayer to "help mine unbelief" help me be stronger then I feel right now and help me to be able to be successful in attending the temple and getting the power that I need for the week.
We some times have the erroneous belief that we have to do it alone and that we have to want to do it alone. The truth is most the time we really need help. and that help is available by asking.
What are you struggling with in your belief? What would happen if you prayed for greater strength and power to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish?
My earliest memory of God's love for me personally and very individually was when I was about 8 or 9 years old. My family lived in San Diego and we were planning a trip to Disneyland the next day. My pants had a hole in them and my mother said I couldn't go unless I could find a needle for her to sew a patch on my pants. I was searching and searching then decided to pray and ask Heavenly Father to help me find a needle. Soon after I was done I went back to the sewing box and although I had looked there multiple times, this time I saw a shiny needle in a hidden corner of the box. It seemed to glow and made me feel warm all over. I had a distinct impression that my prayer had been answered and that my small needs were important to my Father. That He was aware of me and heard me.
I love this song by Hilary Weeks. I have tried in vain to find it on youtube but here are the lyrics
I've been asking He's been sending Miracles Seen them all Both big and small And they’re beautiful I can see the hand of God Along this road of faith Living proof I am evidence That His love is real Seen the truth And I can't deny How it makes me feel He heals, He knows, He gives, He cares He hears, He shows, He’s always there I'm living proof I've been praying He's been listening To every word I've been searching He's been leading And I know I'm heard I can see the hand of God Along this road of faith Living proof I am evidence That His love is real Seen the truth And I can't deny How it makes me feel He heals, He knows, He gives, He cares He hears, He shows, He’s always there I'm living proof
Because of this beautiful song I have been thinking of the ways I too am living proof that God's love is real. My goal is to blog about one every week.
