There are times in my life when I feel down, the past couple of days have been one of those times. However, this post isn't about how poorly I felt, it is about how I was able to remember who I was and feel the Lord's love!
The past few days, I've felt that I'm only hear to "fill in a hole". Nobody really wanted me, but somebody needed to be there; so here I am! I've always been somebody who has focused on others; but this past week as I've talked to people, everything I've said has been blown off (or so it felt). I was so frustrated Thursday night, because even some of my friends were being very short with me and kind of rude. That night, Thursday, I had a Jump-Start sectional with the Altos in choir. We went and spent two hours singing our hearts out and getting to know each other and Brother Kempton a little better! As I left, I felt a little bit better. I definitely felt like I wasn't there on accident or as a "filler". After, I went and grabbed my things and saw that I had missed a call. I called back and found out that it was a member of the Bishopric; he asked me if I could speak in church in a week and a half. I told him I would be happy to! He then assigned me a talk from the Oct. 2011 General Conference as my topic, It Is Better to Look Up by Elder Carl B. Cook.
I immediately went and started reading the talk. I realized that I was continually looking down. I was being pessimistic and it was truly affecting me. I couldn't feel the spirit as easily as I could before, I couldn't feel love towards people like I had before, and I wasn't smiling as much as I typically do. I decided, right then and there, to change! I served somebody! When I got home, I knelt down and said a prayer. I prayed to my Heavenly Father and told Him how much I love Him and what a tender mercy that talk was for me. I felt a reciprocation of love from Him; it was as though He was hugging me and comforting me. He told me that all would be well! I remembered a scripture that talks about how "all of these experiences I give thee for they GOOD" and I started thinking what I could learn.
The next day, Friday, I applied what I thought I could learn. I strived to serve more, to be selfless, and to let the Holy Spirit guide me. I felt so much better about life! I didn't care what anybody else thought about me or how they treated me. The only thing that mattered was what God saw and thought of me. How people were treating me didn't necessarily change, but I did--and still am. I feel so much better remembering that God loves me and wants me to be happy. Not only that, but He wants me to succeed. The trials and tribulations I have are not so I can fail, but so I can succeed. He is striving to help me become stronger. When I push away those trials, or run from them; I am not doing the Lord's will. He wants me to face them head-on, with an eye single to Him, and trusting that He will guide and direct my paths. He wants me to become like Him through all I do and say. Proverbs 3:5-6 says: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. But in all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path." I know this is true, because I've seen it in my life. I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to use the atonement in my life daily so He can help me with my pains, but that I can also repent of my sins! The only person(s) whose opinion matters is yourself and the Lord's. =D
I'd like to add the lyrics to a song we are singing this semester in choir. It is taken from a speech by Edith who was a Quaker woman who war martyred in the play Christus: A Mystery -- Part III: The New England Tragedies by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is called Inward Stillness:
Let us, then, labor for an inward stillness,--
An inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
In singleness of heart, that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do His will, and do that only!
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