Motherhood Breakthrough

A friend of mine just became a life coach and was offering free life coaching sessions during the month of December so she could practice. I signed up because, why not? I’m always up for some new insights on how I can live my life better and be happier. And that was exactly what this life coaching session delivered.

When asked to pick the topic of our life coaching session (either something I wanted to accomplish or something I am currently struggling with), I said that I struggle to manage feelings of frustration well and that I would like to be better at disciplining my children without anger. My friend had me describe a recent situation with my children where I had felt frustrated and disciplined in an angry rather than calm way. I shared an experience I had had with Sam earlier that day.

My friend then taught me some truths that I have found extremely helpful. She said that what I need to realize is that the circumstances themselves are always neutral: what’s happening in my life, what my children or others are choosing to do—all that is neutral. It is my thoughts about the circumstances in my life that create the emotions that I experience. It’s not the circumstance—which is something I can’t control—it’s how I choose to think about the circumstance that leads to the feelings I have about it, which leads to my actions, which leads to the results of those actions.

Realizing this has really been a game changer for me. It’s empowering to realize that no matter what choices anyone else makes or what circumstances I’m in, I’m the one in control of how I think, and therefore how I feel, about the situation at hand. I don’t need anyone else to behave in any particular way for things to be okay—I just need to think about things in a positive way, which will trigger positive emotions and lead to more desirable actions and outcomes.

This may sound overly simplistic, and I admit I have no idea how well it does or doesn’t work when you’re dealing with actual tragedies in your life, but in dealing with the ups and downs of a normal day, I have found it to be super effective. Whenever I start feeling negative emotions, I remind myself that nothing is actually bad—it’s just the way I’m choosing to think that is causing me to feel negative emotions. When I switch to positive thoughts about what is going on and focus on the good things about the moment I’m in, not worries about the past or future or other things I can’t control, I find that life is actually very good, and I have so many things to be grateful for and so many reasons to be happy. It’s awesome! I have so much more control over my emotions and over making my life good and happy than I thought I did. It’s all in the way I choose to think about things. So amazing!

I love learning new things that actually make a difference in the way, I think, act, and experience the world. It continues to astound me how powerful our thoughts are and what a difference it makes when we gain more knowledge and come to see things in a more truthful way. Nothing in my circumstances has changed except my thoughts, and yet by changing my thoughts everything has changed. I feel like a different person, with so much more power over my life, actions, and emotions. It’s amazing! Hooray for knowledge and change and life coaching! It definitely changed my life for the better, and I’m so grateful.

Doing Things the Lord's Way

As the current prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Russell M. Nelson, invited us to do, I am currently in the process of reading the Book of Mormon from beginning to end by the end of the year. This week involved a lot of reading in the book of 2 Nephi where the prophet Nephi quotes extensively from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. In chapter 24 of 2 Nephi, Nephi quotes from Isaiah 14 in the Old Testament.

Isaiah’s words about Satan in this chapter really struck me. Lucifer was a son of God who, instead of following God’s plan and doing things God’s way, decided he would rather do things his own way. Isaiah tells us in this chapter how that worked out for Lucifer, and I thought it was a nice parallel to how things go in our lives when we choose to do things our own way rather than submitting our will to the Lord and doing things His way.

Starting in verse 12 of Isaiah 14 (quoted by Nephi in verse 12 of 2 Nephi 24), Isaiah says the following:

12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!...
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

So, Satan’s goals were to ascend into heaven, above the height of the clouds, and be like the most High, or possibly even better than Him. Isaiah tells us what happened instead, when Satan decided to take matters into his own hands and do things his own way to try to attain his goals. His ending, according to the prophet Isaiah, will be much different than what he was hoping to accomplish:

15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.
19 But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.
20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.

Basically, Satan, by doing things his way, accomplished the exact opposite of what he hoped to accomplish. Instead of being exalted in the heavens like God, his actions will result in him bringing brought down low into hell, where he will be even lower than those he leads astray in mortality.

The ironic thing is that if Satan had chosen instead to submit his will to the Lord and follow God’s plan instead of trying to do things his own way, he would have achieved exactly what he wanted all along. God’s goal is to exalt all His children and bring them to live with Him again in the heavens, glorified like He is. Following God’s plan would have given Satan everything he dreamed of. But he was convinced his way was better and would make him happier than God’s way.

I went through a period of my life when, while outwardly keeping the commandments and doing what God asked, in my heart I was saying, “God, you just stay over there, and don’t interfere, and I’ll take care of making myself happy. I know what I need to be happy, and I’ll take care of it. You just let me do my thing.” And I went on that way for quite a while, until things started to fall apart, and I realized that I was being more successful at making myself miserable than making myself happy. Humbled, I finally came to the Lord with my whole heart and said, “Heavenly Father, I have no idea what I need to be happy. My way is not working. Will you teach me your way?” And He did teach me. And His way was better, and I found the peace and joy I had been seeking all along but could not find while I was insisting on doing things my way. I fought God’s way for so long, when it was the key to my happiness all along.

I think by telling us Lucifer’s story, Isaiah is trying to teach us this truth: that the Lord’s way is always better than our way, and the quicker we submit to His will and do things His way, the happier we will be and the quicker we will achieve our ultimate goals of happiness and exaltation. No matter how convinced we are that our way will make us happier than God’s way, that’s never the way things turn out. It is only by following the Lord and submitting our will to His that we will find the true happiness we seek. I know this to be true from my own personal experience, and I share these words with you in the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Life Philosophies

There's a conversation Ted and I have had several times throughout our marriage. It's a discussion about the Rudy philosophy versus the It's a Wonderful Life philosophy. In the movie Rudy, Sean Astin’s character sacrifices everything to follow his dreams, while in the movie It's a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart’s character sacrifices his dreams to fulfill family and community obligations. Which is the correct philosophy? Which is the worthier objective? Which is the more worthwhile sacrifice?

I realized that neither of these philosophies is a 100% correct philosophy for everyone all the time. Following your dreams at all costs can lead you to act selfishly and damage your relationships with others. Sacrificing too much of your own needs and desires to meet the desires and expectations of others can be unhealthy and can create unhealthy relationships.

The only philosophy that is true for everyone 100% of the time is the one contained in the following Bible verses: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31).

The only thing thing or person you're supposed to be willing to sacrifice everything for, all your heart, soul, mind and strength, is God. Not your dreams, not a cause, not your talents or career, not another person, not a material possession--only God. That’s the answer.

You may be asking, why is God the only one worthy of such a sacrifice? Because He is the only one who has already sacrificed everything for you. Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price of the atonement, took the pains, sicknesses, and sins of every single one of God’s children on Himself, which gave Him, and only Him, the power to save each of us and ensure our ultimate, eternal peace and happiness. He is the only one who knows the correct path for each of us to take in our life, what dreams, causes, relationships, and talents to pursue, to help us learn what we need to learn to reach our full potential, do the most good in this mortal life, and prepare for salvation in the next.

Sometimes we have the philosophy, my life will be complete when…(insert mortal experience that we think we have to have in order to be happy: marriage, children, career objective, material possession, etc.). This kind of philosophy can be a dangerous one. To think that your happiness requires some specific mortal experience or possession or achievement is foolish. Either you won't get it and you will think that you can't possibly be happy without it (and you can't be as long as your focus is all on that one thing--marriage, career, etc.), or you’ll get it and realize it has not brought you all the happiness you will ever need, and you’ll either keep trying to make it do that when it doesn't have the power to, or you’ll lose direction and meaning in your life (ex: Olympic athletes who win the gold and then don't know what to do with themselves after achieving that dream).

God’s plans and dreams for us, on the other hand, are with our eternal progress in mind, and each step we take on the path He has laid out for us brings us a step closer to an eternity of joy and increase. No experience we have here is a waste or a failure; every experience can teach us something that can draw us closer to God and help us become more like Him, which is our ultimate goal, and one we can never fully achieve in this life or without the Savior’s help. The more we choose to seek out and follow God’s plan for us, even, and perhaps especially, when it requires sacrifice, the more we will learn, and the more peace, joy, and love we will feel. God wants His children to be happy, and only by sacrificing our all to Him will we find the true, lasting happiness we are seeking, accomplish the things that are most important for us to accomplish, and become the people we have the potential to be.

Dealing with Hard Emotions

A little while back on Facebook I saw this quote by John Gottman:

“Your emotional awareness and ability to handle feelings will determine your success and happiness in life.”

I think there is a lot of truth to that. The most difficult thing about most hard things in life is the emotions that come with a particular event or circumstance. I feel like we spend a lot of our life developing coping mechanisms to deal with hard emotions we experience, and then we spend the rest of our life trying to unlearn the unhealthy coping mechanisms we’ve developed and replace them with healthier ways of coping with hard emotions. We know we’ve really progressed when events or circumstances that used to trigger hard emotions for us no longer do because we’ve learned to see those events/circumstances in a different, more truthful way.

I thought I’d share some of the lessons I’ve personally learned while learning to cope with difficult emotions in healthier ways in my life, in case the things that I’ve learned could help someone else in their own learning process. 

One of the biggest lies I believed before learning to handle hard emotions better was that the way I felt was a result of other people's words/actions. I gave way too much control of my feelings to other people. Because of this I loved other people, but I was also terrified of them. I loved people because they had the power to make me happy when they noticed me or spent time with me, but I was also terrified of them because they had equal power to make me sad when they ignored me or rejected my overtures of friendship. 

This false belief caused me problems in a few different ways. First of all, it made me incredibly sensitive to the way other people reacted to me because I was always trying to gauge my acceptability as a person and how I should feel about myself based on how others reacted to me. Obviously problematic. As I mentioned in an earlier post, how other people react to you is often a much better reflection of them and their current emotional state than it is of you and your value as a human being. 

Another problem this false belief caused me took me a bit longer to recognize, but was equally damaging to me and to my relationships. Believing that my feelings were determined by others and their interactions with me, I tended to put too much of the burden of keeping me happy and feeling good about my life on those who were closest to me. I thought that when I was sad I needed those close to me to show me love to make me happy again. I knew I usually felt happy when I was with people I loved a lot, and so I focused my life on spending as much time as possible with people I loved and feared the times when I could not be with them. I became emotionally dependent on other people, which hurt both them and me.

The biggest lesson I had to learn in dealing with hard emotions is that other people are not in charge of my emotions; I’m in charge of my own emotions. I found this to be both a freeing and a terrifying truth. No one is responsible for making me feel happy in my life except me. I have the power to do that, and I also have the responsibility to do that. Only me. Of course it’s easier to be happy generally when you have people in your life that love you and a job or activities to do that you enjoy, but day to day, minute to minute, you are the one that has control over your own feelings and actions and the one that determines your own happiness by how you think about and interpret the world around you and what you choose to do.

One thing I noticed as I learned to unravel my feelings and trace them back to their source was that the trigger for hard emotions I experienced was often different than I initially thought it was. How I explained to myself the reason for my sadness was often not the actual trigger at all, making it difficult to resolve the actual problem. I think that is often the reason we struggle to resolve difficult emotions: we’re looking for solutions in the wrong places to fix things that aren't actually the source of the problem at all.

Let me give you an example. Often I get sad when I try to use my relationship with someone as a coping mechanism for a different problem. For example, maybe my house is a mess and I need to clean it, but cleaning sounds hard and my motivation to tackle the actual problem of a messy house is low. What’s actually making me unhappy is a messy house, but instead of tackling the actual problem, I try to find a different way to feel better, such as hanging out with a friend. When my friend can't hang out, I am sad that I cannot use that means to feel better and start bemoaning my lack of friends or their lack of desire to hang out with me, when my real problem is not a lack of friends but the fact that I have a messy house that I haven't cleaned yet, but I’ve convinced myself otherwise. Or maybe I have the responsibility to make a phone call or perform some other task that sounds hard, but I’m avoiding it, and so I start feeling a desperate need to know I am loved in spite of failing to accomplish something that someone else is expecting of me or that I know I need to do, when really if I just did the thing I knew I needed to do instead of procrastinating I would have no need to compensate for my failure to do it by getting reassurance of love from someone else.

So, the end lesson I’ve learned from all this is that when I start feeling difficult emotions such as loneliness or a desperate need to feel loved, one of the best ways for me to feel better is not to wallow in my sadness or start seeking reassurance of love from my friends, but instead to push through the hard emotions and start doing something that I know needs doing. If I’m feeling frustrated that I’m living in a messy house, I need to get up and start cleaning it, not wallow in my frustration and wait for someone else to take care of my problem for me. I have the power to solve my own problems and change the way I’m feeling. Often all it takes is a little productivity to realize that my problem is not a lack of people that love me or the amount of love I’m being shown--neither of which is a problem I have the power to solve, since it involves the agency of others--but rather my failure to create meaning in my life outside of other people and work to accomplish good things on my own. Once I start working to accomplish something, even if I really am not feeling motivated to do so starting out, by the end I feel so much better about myself and my life, and all the other problems I thought I had and the hard emotions I was feeling dissipate in the positive feelings created by working to accomplish something good. 

Yes, so that’s my two cents of wisdom for today: if you're feeling sad, particularly if your sadnesses tend to stem from things you make up in your head and not actual life problems, push through the sad feelings and start working to accomplish something you know needs to be done, even if that task seems to have nothing to do with what you’re sad about, and you may find that what you were sad about is actually less of a problem than you thought it was and that productivity has miraculously produced an overall happier state of mind for you. Prayer usually helps a lot too. When I pray for help to see things differently and feel better, and then I get up and do something, the Spirit will often also teach me a little nugget of wisdom or a different way of seeing things that magically makes me feel better as well, and makes me a wiser person overall. I love you all, and I wish you well in learning to cope with your own difficult emotions--one of the greatest challenges we all face in this life, I think, but one that it is possible to overcome with the right tools and a lot of hard work.

*Note: For some people, the right tools may include medication and/or therapy, and that is totally fine. Whatever works best for you for handling the difficult emotions you struggle with (what those emotions are and what triggers them is different for everyone) in a positive, healthy way is great. No judgement here.

How Can You Feel Grateful In All Things and At All Times?

I was reading over a talk I gave in church a little over a year ago, not too long after we moved to Heber, and I decided it would be a good thing to share on my blog. Here it is.

November 9, 2014
TOPIC: Gratitude in all things and at all times

The topic I was assigned for my talk today is "gratitude in all things and at all times." So, the question is, “How can we feel gratitude even when we are facing trials and difficult times in our lives? What is the source of this gratitude that transcends the suffering we sometimes experience here in mortality?

People often joke that they have read the first verse of the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 1:1, more times than any other verse in the Book of Mormon. If you start reading the Book of Mormon and that’s as far as you get, you’ve actually already learned quite a bit from the very wise prophet Nephi. Let’s take a look at that first verse: 

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; 

• Nephi had good parents who taught him well, which is very important, but this next part is the part I want to focus on:

and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; 

• This sounds like a contradiction. How can you both have many afflictions and at the same time be highly favored of the Lord? We know Nephi did indeed experience many afflictions in his days. He had to leave his home in Jerusalem and all his possessions, travel in the wilderness for a long time where sometimes food was scarce, his older brothers hated him and tried to kill him multiple times. And yet, although Nephi acknowledges that he’s seen many afflictions in the course of his days, in the same breath he says that he has been highly favored of the Lord in all his days. It seems like Nephi has figured it out, how to be grateful even in hard times. Let's keep reading and see if he gives us any clues to this secret. Nephi goes on to say:

yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God,therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days. 

• Nephi feels blessed and highly favored of the Lord because of his knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God
• We often think that there are certain things we need in order to feel happy and blessed in our lives: maybe we think we need a nice home, or to get into the college that we want, or to get a certain job that we want, or to get married, or for our kids to behave and make good choices, or for our health to improve
• Nephi is teaching us that it is knowledge of God and His goodness and of eternal truths that brings us peace and hope in the midst of affliction, that allows us to feel greatly blessed, no matter our circumstances. 

How can knowledge of God and His goodness help us in times of trial? 

President Uchtdorf tells us that "Being grateful in our circumstances is an act of faith in God. It requires that we trust God and hope for things we may not see but which are true." He says that "True gratitude is an expression of hope and testimony" (“Grateful in Any Circumstances, Ensign May 2014).

Trusting God is something that I've struggled with a lot in my life. Most recently, this last spring when Ted was getting ready to graduate from USU and was looking for a job, I struggled to trust God in the face of so much change and uncertainty in our future. We had been living in Logan for four years, and I had made a lot of friends and gotten quite comfortable with our life there. I was afraid of having to start over somewhere new where I didn't know anyone. I was pretty sure what I needed to be happy, to live close to people that I loved, and I was afraid that God wasn't going to let me. I didn't feel that I could be grateful unless He did, unless the outcome of Ted's job hunt looked the way I wanted it to look. My struggles with all the changes in my life finally pushed me to humble myself enough to realize that I needed to change the focus of my life. I needed to rely on God and His love to meet my needs, not on other people. When I stopped focusing so much on specific people in my life and my fear of losing them, I was able to see that God had been right there beside me the whole time, but I had been too distracted to notice because I was holding on so tightly to the things I thought I needed to be happy instead of relying on Him and trusting His greater wisdom and knowledge to guide my life. Once I was able to recognize my weakness in this area and work to change and make God and His will the center of my life and trust Him to take care of me, I was able to feel so much more peace.

We are here on earth to gain knowledge and experience and to become like God. For me, the true learning began when I recognized that the way I was going about trying to secure my own happiness was not working. I had a plan, and my plan was not giving me the results I wanted. Realizing that I actually didn't have any idea what I really needed to be happy, that my plan was actually causing me way more suffering than just following God's plan, humbled me enough that I was finally able to say, "Okay, God, you're right. You know best. I thought I knew what I needed to be happy, but I was wrong. I will do things your way. You know what I need to find joy and peace, and I don't. I am ready to accept your plan for my life and trust you to take care of me."

What is it that we actually need to find true joy and peace in our lives? If it isn’t other people or power or possessions, then what is the source of that joy and peace that is available to us even in hard times, when nothing in life seems to be going well? In his famous dream of the Tree of Life, the prophet Lehi finds himself in “a dark and dreary waste” (1 Nephi 8:7). After traveling many hours in darkness, Lehi prays to the Lord for help and relief. It is then that he sees what Lehi describes as “a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy. And it came to pass,” Lehi says, “that I did go forth and partake of the fruit thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted...And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy…” (1 Nephi 8:10-12). Later we learn that the fruit that Lehi ate represents “the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men" and "is the most desirable above all things...and the most joyous to the soul" (1 Nephi 11:21-23). 

God's love - that is the true source of joy and peace. And the great thing is that God's love is something that we can have access to at anytime, no matter what or who else is in our lives. At the time that we make our very first covenant with God, at baptism, our Heavenly Father gives us a great gift, the gift of the Holy Ghost. We learn from Paul in his letter to the Galatians that the fruit of the Spirit includes love, joy and peace (Galatians 5:22). The Holy Ghost helps us feel God's love for us when we are living righteously. Paul also tells us in his letter to the Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, nor death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature - nothing (Romans 8:35, 38-39). Paul says that "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us" (Romans 8:37). Jesus Christ and His atonement have the power to heal all of our wounds and to purify us of all our sins and weaknesses. What a great blessing this is, and what a reason to be full of gratitude to a loving and merciful Heavenly Father who will not leave us alone in times of distress and who is willing to forgive us time and time again and has a wonderful plan to help us return to Him and gain eternal joy and peace in His loving presence. 

When we gain a true understanding and testimony of God and His goodness and mercy and love, we are able to trust Him, to know in hard times that He is there to help us and that by following His perfect plan a bright future awaits us, that all our sorrows will ultimately be swallowed up in the love of our Redeemer. We know that God will never give up on us or on our loved ones and that His greatest desire is to bring us all safely home to Him and that He will not rest until He has given us every opportunity to make that choice and achieve that glorious objective. 

At the last General Women’s Meeting, Sister Marriott, the second counselor in the YW presidency, shared an experience where during a struggle in her life she turned to the Lord and was able to have her testimony strengthened and her burden lightened as she came to a greater understanding of herself and of her relationship with the Lord. Sister Marriott recounted:

“Some years ago our family encountered a major challenge. I went to the temple and there prayed earnestly for help. I was given a moment of truth. I received a clear impression of my weaknesses, and I was shocked. In that spiritually instructive moment, I saw a prideful woman doing things her own way, not necessarily the Lord’s way, and privately taking credit for any so-called accomplishment. I knew I was looking at myself. I cried out in my heart to Heavenly Father and said, “I don’t want to be that woman, but how do I change?”

Through the pure spirit of revelation in the temple, I was taught of my utter need for a Redeemer. I turned immediately to the Savior Jesus Christ in my thoughts and felt my anguish melt away and a great hope spring up in my heart. He was my only hope, and I longed to cling only to Him. It was clear to me that a self-absorbed natural woman “is an enemy to God” and to people in her sphere of influence. In the temple that day I learned it was only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ that my prideful nature could change and that I would be enabled to do good. I felt His love keenly, and I knew He would teach me by the Spirit and change me if I gave my heart to Him, holding back nothing.”

Sister Marriott continued, “I still fight my weaknesses, but I trust in the divine help of the Atonement. This pure instruction came because I entered the holy temple, seeking relief and answers. I entered the temple burdened, and I left knowing I had an all-powerful and all-loving Savior. I was lighter and joyful because I had received His light and accepted His plan for me” (“Sharing Your Light,” Ensign November 2014).

Notice in this example that going to the temple did not make the major challenge in the life of Sister Marriott and her family go away. However, recognizing her weaknesses and calling upon Jesus Christ for help to change allowed Sister Marriott to feel God’s love for her and gain confidence in His ability and willingness to help her and her family achieve their divine potential and the eternal joy He desired for them.

When life seems hard and we feel that we are surrounded by darkness and despair, like Lehi in his dream, sometimes it can be really hard to find Christ’s light and God’s love in the darkness. How do we get out of dark emotional places to a place of gratitude?

When we are in dark places, Satan would love for us to stay there. He is the one that gives us feelings of discouragement and despair, tries to convince us that we are worthless and can never change or accomplish anything good and that our lives are terrible and will never get better. Those feelings do not come from the Spirit. You can tell because they do not motivate you to do good, they just paralyze you. The Spirit gives you feelings of hope and faith that you can change and improve with Christ's help and that God is taking care of you and life will get better. I’ve noticed that it's easier to feel the Spirit in my life when I am pushing forward, making goals, and working to make good things happen in my life and in the lives of others, rather than just sitting around contemplating the things in my life that make me sad or that I wish were different. Like Lehi, often we need to call on the Lord for help to find the light in the darkness. 

When I was struggling with all the changes in my life and trying to change my focus and gain a more eternal perspective on things, I prayed to know what my new focus should be in my life. What I had been focusing on hadn’t been working well for me, so I didn’t want to focus on that anymore, but I needed something to replace it with, something that was worthwhile and that I felt good about. I had just recently had my son Sam and quit working, and I needed to know what my life should be about besides nursing and changing diapers. I decided to read my patriarchal blessing with this question in mind: What should I be doing with my life right now? How should I be using my time? It was like God had just been waiting for me to ask that question. As I read my blessing, I received so much inspiration about what things God expected me to accomplish and work on at this time in my life. I received so many ideas about ways I could use my talents to help build God’s kingdom. It was amazing. And as I worked to implement these ideas, I felt God’s love more in my life and gratitude that I could use my strengths to help bless others’ lives in ways that worked well for me during this new stage in my life.

As I mentioned earlier, the main purpose of this life is to learn how to become like God. That's why we're here. No matter what is happening in our lives, if it is helping us to grow and to seek answers and truth and to change and to become better and stronger and to trust in the Lord more deeply and feel His love more strongly, then we are succeeding in obtaining the treasure we came to earth to find. Struggles help us to be humble and to recognize our need for a Savior and to seek to learn the lessons He is trying to teach us. Lots of times we want to say, "Oh, I'm good. I'm as good as I want to be, I've got all the blessings I need, I don't need to learn anything else.” God loves us too much to let us sell ourselves short though. He knows what experiences we need to become who we need to be to qualify for celestial glory, and He will not settle for any less joy than that for His children. He lets us go through hard things because He knows we need those experiences to be purified and molded and shaped into the best people we can be and to receive the greatest amount of joy in the next life and throughout eternity.

Gratitude comes when we recognize our great need for a Savior and come to know personally that He loves us in spite of all our weaknesses and mistakes and that He is willing to forgive us and bless us as we turn to Him and repent and try to change. His great patience with us as we continue to stumble and fall again and again as we try to become better and more like Him is what creates a spirit of gratitude in our hearts.

Adam and Eve felt this great gratitude in their hearts when, after partaking of the forbidden fruit and facing the consequences of their choice of being cast out of the Garden of Eden and out of God’s presence, they were told that their Heavenly Father had prepared a Savior for them who was willing to suffer for their sins and give His life so they could have the opportunity to return to God’s presence and feel His great love for them again. They were eager to make covenants with their Father and live their lives by those covenants for the opportunity to have that great blessing.

Ammon, the son of Mosiah, and the prophet Joseph Smith both have beautiful chapters where they praise God in joyful gratitude for His great mercy and longsuffering towards the children of men and His eagerness to forgive us and bless us and bring us home. 

In Alma 26, starting in verse 11, Ammon says: “...behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God.” Jumping down to verse 14: “Yea, we have reason to praise him forever, for he is the Most High God, and has loosed our brethren from the chains of hell. Yea, they were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation; and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work. Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel. Who could have supposed that our God would have been so merciful as to have snatched us from our awful, sinful, and polluted state? Behold, we went forth even in wrath, with mighty threatenings to destroy his church. Oh then, why did he not consign us to an awful destruction, yea, why did he not let the sword of his justice fall upon us, and doom us to eternal despair?....Behold, he did not exercise his justice upon us, but in his great mercy hath brought us over that everlasting gulf of death and misery, even to the salvation of our souls….Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began; yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name. Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo....Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen.”

What a beautiful tribute to an all-loving, all-powerful, all-merciful Heavenly Father. Joseph Smith also gives witness to the greatness of our God and His gospel and the great blessing we have to be children of God and to know His plan for us in D&C 128:19, 22-23:

“Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that bring glad tidings of good things, and that say unto Zion: Behold, thy God reigneth!....Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free. Let the mountains shout for joy, and all ye valleys cry aloud; and all ye seas and dry lands tell the wonders of your Eternal King! And ye rivers, and brooks, and rills, flow down with gladness. Let the woods and all the trees of the field praise the Lord; and ye solid rocks weep for joy! And let the sun, moon, and the morning stars sing together, and let all the sons of God shout for joy! And let the eternal creations declare his name forever and ever! And again I say, how glorious is the voice we hear from heaven, proclaiming in our ears, glory, and salvation, and honor, and immortality, and eternal life; kingdoms, principalities, and powers!”

God’s plan for His children is amazing, and we can be eternally grateful for His love and wisdom and mercy towards us and His great desire to make a glorious future possible for us. This is the difficult part of our journey towards Godhood, but the blessings we will receive as we press forward and endure to the end will be greater than we could ever imagine. Paul tells us in Romans 8:18 “that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

I know that we have a Heavenly Father who knows and loves each of us dearly and knows what experiences we need to return to live with Him again and have an eternal peace and joy that will never be taken from us. I know that we have a Savior, Jesus Christ, who suffered for all our pain and sins so that we might repent and be forgiven and receive all the blessings God has to bestow on His precious children. I know that we are here on earth to learn, and that the experiences we have will help us become perfected as we turn to the Savior for help and comfort and allow the Spirit to teach us important eternal truths through our sorrows and struggles. I know that we can trust our Father to take care of us and our loved ones, to give us the strength and comfort we need to carry on, and to guide us home to His ever-loving presence. I know that all wrongs in this life can and will be made right through the Atonement and that all wounds will be healed. What a huge blessing this is. My heart is full of gratitude for my Heavenly Father and for my Savior, His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. I am grateful for their love and wisdom and mercy and their great patience with me and my weaknesses as I seek to learn and grow and become more like them. I am grateful that They never give up on me, no matter how many times I stumble or fall short. I know that they will take care of me and that they will take care of you. You can trust Them. Give your burdens to the Lord and let Him sustain you during the hard times. Pray for an eternal perspective, to feel joy and peace from the Spirit, and to gain your own testimony that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28).

D&C 42:61

If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things—that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal.

And you will always have reason to be grateful and to rejoice. I say these things, in the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.