More Than an Angel

It's a good day to bear testimony of Jesus Christ.

Today at church, someone bore testimony of how the Savior fulfilled the Atonement perfectly and endured so much... so why would He turn His back now? He won't.

I then happened to read this quote by Dieter F. Uchtdorf:

"If we will lift our hearts to the Lord during those times [our own dark and bitter hours—times when our sorrow and grief may appear to be greater than we can bear], surely He will know and understand. He who suffered so selflessly for us in the garden and on the cross will not leave us comfortless now. He will strengthen, encourage, and bless us. He will encircle us in His gentle arms.
He will be more than an angel to us.
He will bring us blessed comfort, healing, hope, and forgiveness.
For He is our Redeemer.
Our Deliverer.
Our merciful Savior and our blessed God.
"Encircled in His Gentle Arms," Ensign, March 2015 - emphasis added

Trials and broken hearts change us. It's changing me. The times during the day that I remember to turn to the Savior, I find a measure of peace, and I can tell I'm becoming a more trusting person. I don't trust Him every minute - but I hope to become more consistent. For now, I'm happy that I don't stay miserable and doubtful all the time. My bouncing back and forth is progress, and I'm grateful for it.

I don't like pain... but I can't deny that I'm changing because of it. And through Jesus, our Savior, that change can be for the better.

Exercise Faith

"Despite all of the negative challenges we have in life, we must take time to actively exercise our faith. Such exercise invites the positive, faith-filled power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ into our lives." - Elder Richard G Scott

Life provides the challenges on which we can practice exercising our faith. At least one reason to be grateful for the hard times. =)

I can't go into every detail of my scripture study this morning, but I wish that every day of scripture study was like today. I feel so much more alive.

Cultivating A Resilient Spirit: Week 1

This resiliency guidepost is a tricky one. I think it is the one I have the hardest time with. Basically, resilience is the ability to overcome adversity and bounce back from trials or pain. This resilience is rooted in spirituality, which I plan to talk a little more about in a future blog post. When we are not resilient, we turn to numbing instead. Numbing can be done in all kinds of ways, including drugs, alcohol, ice cream, Facebook, shopping, sex, over-planning, watching tv, staying busy, or anything else we use to avoid feeling pain. These things don't have to be bad things, but if we are using them to numb, we are misusing them, and we stop ourselves from progressing in a lot areas in life.

I believe I was numbing so much I didn't know I was numbing. When I would ask myself what trials I have gone through in my life, I couldn't think of any. Yet, if you were one of my close friends for very long, you probably heard me crying about all kinds of things that really weren't going right.

But if I was crying, then I wasn't numbing, right? Why would I be crying if I was avoiding the pain? I think it's because I wasn't crying because of the hurt itself. I was crying because I felt powerless.

So for me, one of the main keys to resilience is to start believing that I have power to change things. There are a few things I can't change, but they are quite few compared to the things I can change. And working on using my power to change things is a far better alternative to numbing.

I'm throwing around a lot of terms here, but I want to share an example to make more sense of it. In January 2014, I had been living at home for about a month, after I had finished all my college classes. I had broken up with someone in November (after dating him for four months), and then broken up with a friend named Steffen that I had been close friends with for 2 years, and dated for about 2 weeks. We were still friends, and talked fairly often. I started to get really lonely and depressed and hopeless about my situation - living at home with no friends around, and without the support of a boyfriend, which I had gotten used to in the preceding months. My loneliness was very sharp, and I often called Steffen in these moments, just to have someone to talk to. One of the times I called/texted, he was at a party and said he couldn't talk for a few hours. I didn't know what to do. I had tried calling other people too, and no one was available. I felt I had exhausted every option, and now I was going to be alone. I was terrified of being alone, of no one coming to save me from my pain. I had prayed too, but I was still feeling terrified and lonely.

Eventually I thought to myself, "Okay fine! I guess this is it! I'm alone! No one is coming. No one will come save me from this pain. So I guess I have no choice but to feel it." I then proceeded to feel the pain of being alone - of calling for help and no one answering. I felt the pain pretty deeply and cried my heart out for about 20 minutes. And then............... I felt okay, and I realized I had survived! I thought to myself, "This is the pain I've been avoiding for years?" My fear of this pain had negatively influenced so many of decisions and my moods over the years, and yet the pain itself was really not that bad. I found that crying from genuine pain for 20 minutes is completely worth it, instead of numbing pain whenever it comes, running from it, and making decisions in order to avoid it. After going through this pain, the fog of fear was gone, and I could then finally make some choices to try to change things, with hope that things would change. And that even if things didn't change right away, the pain wouldn't defeat me.

Putting down my shield and allowing myself to feel the pain ended up enabling me to be more powerful. Interesting, huh? I believe that God did the best thing by not taking away my pain. I needed to survive those 20 minutes. After that, He helped me to move forward.

I acknowledge that some pain is so large that 20 minutes of crying won't take care of it. These 20 minutes didn't completely take care of my loneliness either. They just taught me I could survive through it. The experience taught me to not let my fear of pain make the decisions for me. Instead, I can make my choices based on other things, like my goals and deepest desires, trusting that my Savior will help me through any of the pain that is too much for me to handle.

Without God, I don't think I could be resilient. But with Him, I can do anything.

This week and month, I will do my best to not run away from pain. I will admit when I am uncomfortable or pained, and give myself permission to feel it. And then give myself permission to move on. Saying good-bye to my Chicago friends and my Chicago life this month will be hard. But I will survive it. And I will be able to move forward with power if I will let myself feel the pain of good-bye first. It's pain that I know I can survive.

Wholehearted Journey

I am intending 2015 to be a very healing year. I know things won't be perfect by the end of the year, but I know things will be better. No matter what the circumstances outside me, my life will be better internally.

I intend to do this through a focus on my Savior, Jesus Christ. I believe that through Him, my sins can be forgiven, my mistakes can be learned from and made beautiful or remedied, and I can be given the strength to grow and change. He sees me as "the glorious being [I am] capable of becoming."

I will be studying and applying His Atonement in my daily and weekly life. I also intend to study and apply the things I've learned from Brene Brown's research. Her research (without God) is not enough, because, as part of her research explains, spirituality is a necessary component. A belief in God and His love is essential in order for healing and resilience to occur.

For me, healing comes through Jesus Christ. And I believe that whether or not people acknowledge it, He is the source of all healing.

I'm going to be trying out each of the Guideposts to Wholehearted Living, one for each month, and living them, to see if these seeds are good. (See Alma 32.) I believe they are, but I will try and see. And I am very excited to see the fruits that I believe will come, as I plant these seeds. =)

Not only do I believe this will help me be happier, I feel that it will help me to bring light to others, and help me to serve people more powerfully, in my profession, my personal ministry, and in my everyday life.



--The guidepost I intend to embrace for the month of January is self-compassion. Which I will write about tomorrow!--

Second Witness

I went to the temple tonight, and the answer I received is that the Atonement is all about hope and change. That gave me a lot of peace, and also excitement. =)

Good Figs

I've been reading in Jeremiah, specifically chapter 24. Jeremiah has a vision of two baskets of figs. One has good figs, and the other has figs so bad they can definitely not be eaten. These are compared to the children of Israel and their bondage in Babylon. Both kinds of figs, or people, are taken. They are both put through the same trial. The wicked are cursed to experience all kinds of pains and afflictions as part of their bondage in Babylon, but this is what the Lord says about the "good figs."

5 Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.

6 For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.

7 And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart. (Jeremiah 24:5-7)

All kinds of people go through trials. Whether I am following the Lord or not, my life is going to be hard. But if I am serving and loving Him, those trials will be for my good. He will keep His eye on me and ensure that the things I'm going through are helping me grow. He'll help me to eventually find success and peace again. Most importantly, through my trials He will give me a new heart, to know Him, and to know that He is the Lord. The more trials I go through, the more I can see Him help me through them, and I come to know that I am His daughter, and He is my God and my Father. And though sometimes I wander, it's easier to come back because I understand His nature that much better than the last time. Through every trial, my testimony of Him becomes more sincere, and I can testify, make choices, and act with even more confidence than before. It's a beautiful thing.

I am so happy to have read this promise, because I really feel like this season in my life is for me to truly come to know God. That has been one of my foremost desires for several months now. It amazes me how God answers prayers. =) I'm so grateful to have found these verses. Now I've just gotta do my part to become/remain a "good fig."

Advocate

This is what I wrote this morning for my scripture study, and Jeffrey told me to post it as a blog post. Hopefully it's helpful to someone out there. =)

An advocate is "a person who pleads for or in behalf of another" (dictionary.com). This is how I have come to know Jesus Christ in my personal experiences with His Atonement.

The scriptures teach that Jesus Christ is our advocate with the Father. One of my favorite sections of scripture is found in Doctrine and Covenants 45:

3 Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—
4 Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified;
5 Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.

My friend Daniel shared these verses with me when I was going through my anxious/depressed phase of my mission. He pointed out to me that Christ wasn't saying "Father, behold the efforts of Ali. She's trying really hard, and the mistakes she made really weren't that bad. She's a really good person, and I think we should forgive her." Instead, He shifted the Father's attention to His Son. "Behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin...behold the blood of thy Son which was shed...wherefore spare this, my sister, Ali."

This meant a lot to me, because it resonated true. I didn't want to be excused from my sins, I wanted to be forgiven. So often we tell ourselves that we can be forgiven because our sins weren't really that bad. But Christ makes no claim about the severity of the sin when He intercedes. By not excusing the sin itself, He acknowledges that the sin may have been or likely was horrible.

We also often tell ourselves that we should be forgiven because we are a good person at heart. Christ makes no such claim about us.

We get ourselves into trouble when we focus on the sin (saying it was small or justifiable) or on ourselves (saying we are good) as we try to find peace. The only way to peace is through Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Jesus knows this, and that's why He Himself didn't talk about our sins or our heart as He pleaded with the Father. Instead, He talked about His Atonement. It's really the only relevant thing. The only thing that He says about us as He asks God to spare us is "spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life." When we repent, the most important thing to ask ourselves is "Do I believe in Jesus Christ? Do I believe in His Atonement?"

Let's not focus on our own merits as we seek peace, and forgiveness from our sins. Let's focus on Him who said "I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father." (D&C 110:4)

Increased Confidence

My miracle of the day is that when I sang in front of all the voice students today during Voice Recital hour, I didn't feel nervous. No shaking legs, no frantic feelings. I didn't sing amazingly, compared to everyone else, but I sang pretty good for me. And I was happy to listen to myself singing.  The fact that I wasn't nervous makes me really happy. One of my main desires is to grow more confident. To not be afraid of others opinions, or the opinions that I imagine they have. I want to be a humble, willing-to-take-correction, yet confident, happy person. And today was encouraging in that respect, seeing that I'm making progress, and was more confident today than I have been in the past. =)

My favorite thing about the Gospel and about life, is that people can change. Really change. For the better. That really is one of the best miracles of all.