He never moves

The other day I was chatting with my bishop, expressing how I feel more inadequate, and distant from my savior than I have ever felt in my life. He asked me the question "do you have the spirit of The Lord in your life?" I instantly answered YES! I was almost shocked to even consider that His spirit wouldn't be in my life. 

While my life is nowhere near where I want it to be, and I feel that The Lord is leaving me to my own devices when it  comes to revelation for myself, he has not left. I am distant because I am bitter and frustrated. I'm almost mad at the current mess I find myself in, with no clear solution or respite, but still, he has not left! 

Daily, I find myself blessed by small and simple things that let me know he loves me. People around, who realize that I am just doing my best, blessing me with love. Small acts of service that make me recognize he is aware of my needs, and amazing beauties all around me. 

I guess bottomline, I'm not completely happy right now, but only I can close the gap that I have created between me and my savior. He still loves me deeply, even though things are not where I want them to be, and I am not who I want me to be. Regardless, I am blessed. 

Not there yet, failing everyday, but trying

My brain has been a crazy mess lately. There are things on my plate that I just don't know how to deal with. I was texting my sweet mommy. In response I relplied with the title of this post. 

I am petrified of failing, but i do it daily. Lately I have been faced full force with one of my largest weaknesses. It hurts to feel myself uncontrollably forgetting every ounce of personal progress I have made, and retorting back to my natural coping mechanisms. The kicker is with everything I have learned over the past while, I still don't know how to fix things. 

Honestly though, we are not asked to "fix" anything. I want so badly for things to work the way that I have concocted in my brain. I guess that's why I have just have to accept that I will fail constantly. I will not be able to accomplish everyday the way I have planned, nor will I be able to make the personal progress that I want each and everyday. 

I guess it's like I always tell my little brother, it doesn't matter how much you move upward, JUST MOVE! again, I can say that until I am blue in the face, but  no where near satisfied with myself and the small amounts of progress I make. Most of the time I feel that in my progress I am slipping backward. But the kicker is to just keep trying to move forward. Your best efforts to try have to be enough. 

Now right now I am feeling my broken parts more openly than I am comfortable with, but I'm hanging onto the small moments of peace that i am blessed to experience. I know that I am failing constantly, but I am trying. The most beautiful blessing is that, even though it's hard, when I open my pained heart I can feel the love of my savior. I know that he so often shakes his head at me, but he still blesses me far beyond what I deserve. I'm failing, but oh so blessed! 

Letting go of control

I am an extremely controlling person. Not in a malicious and hurtful way (I don't think) but I try really hard to control every aspect of my world in order to ensure that everyone in my world is happy. Now that seems insane, I know. That is an impossible task, but for so long it has encompassed my entire world! 

Lately, I have made a conscious effort to really focus on what I can control, which is very little. When I feel myself slipping into that nasty pit where I feel like everything that defines me is falling apart,I have tried to stop and ask myself where I have control. This small gesture has been so incredibly liberating! It has also helped me deal more Christlike in moments of pain. 

When you feel like your world is spirally out of control, take a moment to evaluate you. What can you control in the situation, that is where you should put your energy. If you truly apply this tool I know it will bring you so much peace! The nasty does not disappear, but it becomes so much more manageble. You will find so much power! 

Actually applying this tool is a constant effort for me right now, but I know it works! The other day I was faced with someone bringing up the pain of my past in a very comedic way. For a moment I was very hurt, because he was right, I was different than everyone else in the room because of past experiences that still causes me pain. In that moment I made a choice about my control. I could not control how he publicly brought attention to my past, but I could control how I viewed his intentions behind the comment. I could also control how I reacted publicly to his comment, and how I let it effect me. This was huge for weak little me! So, in that moment, I convinced myself that he did not intent to hurt me. I also chose to accept my past and confront it publicly, and let it go inside me. 

Now, I know that this sounds like common sense, but it has taken me a while to really realize. I'm sure I will fail to use this tool many times in my future, but right now it has been so amazing! I am so blessed! 

"People DO really change"

So I have been through a mini journey lately. I was watching the movie frozen, which I love, and was a little thrown by one line in the troll song "cause people don't really change." This little line kinda threw me into a self worth downward spiral. Now, I understand what was meant with this line, but the gospel contradicts the simple interpretation of this line. 

The very next day I read the conference talk "what manner of men?" He talks a lot about how we can choose to make self improvement permanent. The Lord promises that the changes we make can be forever. We are not stuck, we are ever improving. This was so vital for me to remember. We should never define ourselves by our faults, but we do not have to "just live with them." In the above mentioned talk he tells a story about a man who offends many, and his response was "that's just the way I am" FALSE!  You can be what The Lord wants you to be, that's what he spends his day encouraging you to be! 

Now getting back to my frozen reference, the next line says "people make bad choices if they're sad, or scared, or stressed." (Tangent: so true. If we really knew the entire why behind the actions of others, or factored in all the emotions that effect how we act, things would be a lot better for everyone.) then the very next line says "throw a little love their way; true love brings out their best!" Again, TRUE! Now, true, the love of others does bring out our best, but even more powerful is the love of The Lord. He is the one who will inspire permanent change, and bring out your true best! A best that we cannot even fathom!

I love seeing this principle work miracles in my life, and the lives of those I care about. I'm still a lot of talk on this one, but I'm working on it!  Feeling blessed! 

What upsets your ok?

So do you ever feel like nothing really terrible is going on, but your ok has been upset so things are a little rough. I know it's completely strange grammar to call this feeling an "ok" but that's all the best way i can explain how I'm feeling right now. The words peace, or balance came to mind, but they seem to deep in emotion or physical activity. When I say ok, I'm referring to the normal circumstances that you find yourself in that in some way defines your inner self assurance. Wellp, now that I've over explained myself let me tell you how I've discovered how vital my ok is to my emotional well being. 

My family is all traveling away for the summer (except for one brothe, and my amazing grandma) and it has completely thrown my ok out of whack! I have honestly bitten off the head of anything that attempted to speak to me this last week, and I finally broke down to my best friend today. I blamed it on the ever growing to do list, and my failure to be who others need me to be, but he saw right through it. I am really upset because my ok is going to be seriously messed with and my subconscious just doesn't know how to deal. Yes, those other things are stressfull, but as much as I try to put on my big girl face I am going to miss them SO MUCH! 

I'm convinced that we all have moments where we just need to be accepted completely, and loved unconditionally. That is my family. They are loud, childish, unorganized, and my favorite group of people in the whole world! Thinking about not being able to drive the short distance and be in their extremely comforting environment at a moments notice. I realize that most people do not have this amazing oppertunity, but now that it is flying across the nation, and to the other side of the world I am understanding how incredibly blessed I am.  It is also humbling to realize how much those who are staying near me mean to me. I am so blessed to be loved, and recognize fully that it is a direct expression from my Heavenly Father of how much he loves me by blessing me with these amazing people in my life, and allowing me to more fully appreciate that expression by completely throwing off my ok! 

I LOVE YOU MY CRAZY BUNCH!

An undeserved outpouring of love

It was my birthday this week, and I was showered with love from my family and friends. The most tender gift I recieved was a bunch of birthday letters collected by my dear sweet sister! 

I opened the box, and sobbed! The reasons that I was so emotional may not be exactly why you think.  I have really been struggling with feeling self worth, so my reactions were pretty intense. 

First, I honestly do not believe that I am who I need to be to the people who wrote me these letters. I have been so intensely overwhelmed lately with this feeling of extreme inadequacy. I put so much of my self worth into my being ble to be there for the people I care about, but lately I have felt that I am constantly failing! Seeing those letters was somewhat hard because I don't feel that I am living up to their praise. 

Second, because I have been feeling these feelings I also saw this outpouring as a direct communication from my savior in response to my feelings. 

I feel incredibly blessed by having this, and many other extreme outpourings as I am one year older and wiser too. I also feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many amazing people who see me at my best. I am also humbled to have a father in heaven who wants me to be my best. So, thank you to all those who see me not as who I am, but who I strive to be. I feel so blessed. 

Where is your focus?

There have been two clear principles on my mind a lot this week. The first is pretty common sense, but I think it was good for me to realize. That is, everyone gets to the end of their rope. Everyone gets to that point where something in thier life is so pressing it takes over everything. It is sometimes hard to recognize when people are at this point because we are all pretty good at faking it, but it happens to everyone. 

The second principle is more dear to my heart, and something that I am very passionate about. I have recently had the opportunity to witness the joy, peace, hope, sorrow, and dispair that comes through the repentance process. There have been moments where I see the hand of The Lord completely taking over the hearts of others in a way that is so exciting, and i have also seen the struggle where satan tries to convince that you will never be what The Lord needs you to be. On this note, I think that  one of Santans most powerful tools in this process is that he places other doubting people around us that don't have faith in the lords work either. 

It is interesting for me to see the stark contrast of these two forces. One has the power to inspire service and self worth, while the other triggers introversion, and outside blame. Unfortunately, to become truly into what The Lord wants us to become we will be faced with both forces, the key element is where you put your focus. 

I have come to realize in my own life, and also in the lives of people I care about that your emotional and spiritual momentum will go where you put your focus. If you are focusing on the wats you fail, you will continue in that direction. If you focus in things that are going well, areas where you succeed then that is where you will move. Now I am not naive enough to think that everything will be butterflies and rainbows of you put your focus there, but if you are constantly trying to focus on the good then when the nasty comes it will have less power to drag you down to the end of your rope. 

This principe applies to how you view others, and your expectations of them. Just imagine how the world would change if we expected everyone to be their best selves? Imagine how inspired we all would be to meet those expectations. If we did our best to focus on the positive qualities of others, then we would be so much more able to love them. We would also be so much more happy to serve them. Honestly, the world would be a better place if we just shifted our focus more closely to how The Lord views his children. 

Now, we all know that I am not anywhere close to perfect at this principle! Although, I have been so blessed recently to witness amazing people that have set incredible examples of how The Lord can bless lives in such a positive way. The psie around me constantly teach me how to have the strength to be better. I am so blessed!