2 Nephi: Religious Freedom In America

Alrighty! It’s off to a new day, and after a nerve-wracking trip to the dentist, I’m apparently all good! Yay! *PHEW*

So, this morning I was reading from 2 Nephi 2, which is just a classic chapter, because it clarifies so many beautiful truths that we don’t get hardly at all in the Bible. Referring to my Institute manual was also very helpful today. Seriously, if you want to get more out of your studies, open up an Institute manual whenever you do your reading. It helps a lot. It really does.

Speaking of Institute manuals, credit goes to that manual today. I had a deeply reassuring realization today, one that’s given me greater confidence for the future of America as a free society. I know some days, it’s easy to look ahead with a sense of grimness, with all these antagonistic forces rising up in the States. I’ve fallen prey to that as well. But after reading what I did, I don’t think we need to worry at all. Not even, really, from a temporal point of view.

You Do More Good Than You Know

 Alrighty! Sorry for missing a post again, y’all. I’m not perfect, and yesterday was a rough day. But that’s what I’m gonna talk about. After having an extra-long scripture study this morning, and feeling my sanity has been restored- XD it still stuck out as the thing I wanted to talk about most. Cuz it was “one of those days” for me. You know, when after making a ton of progress and growing so much as a person, you just have that one day where, for 24 hours, you relapse into a lot of stupid stuff you thought you’d outgrown a long time ago. Yeah. Yesterday sucked.

So why do I wanna talk about something like that? Well, there’s a silver lining, don’t worry. The irony being, after saying my evening prayers, when I looked back on my day…it still sucked. But, I realized I’d accomplished more than I thought.  Heavenly Father had given me two chances to uplift other people instead. Despite how fried I was, physically and emotionally, he was still able to use me to help someone else.

Trusting God When Things Go Wrong

In everyday life, it’s easy to get swept aside by all the ugly and all the heartache and forget we’ve already won the battle. We’re just waiting for the end-game. God keeps all his promises.

Alrighty! Sorry for missing a post yesterday, y’all; I got caught up with making a birthday present for my beloved. His birthday’s this coming Sunday, so I had to make him something special. Happy early Birthday, Andrew! 😉

Anyway. As I pondered what to write about this morning, I decided I should look at a BYU talk that Andrew sent me. You can read it here if you want; it’s called “Trusting God When Things Go Wrong.” As always, Andrew managed to send me something I really needed to hear myself, so I figured I’d share it with you all as well. Naturally, BYU talks are always super long, so I can’t really talk about the whole thing here. But, I can focus on the core message, and that is simply this: No matter what we go through in life, our trust in the Lord will be what always pulls us through.

Ecclesiastes 7: Finding Wisdom In Affliction

Although Ecclesiastes can be pretty pessimistic, this chapter is a more upbeat one. It talks about how sorrow is turned into wisdom – and why the wise know the value of affliction.

Man, I just love bright green things. LOL

So, today I was reading from Ecclesiastes 7, and if you’ve read Ecclesiastes, you can definitely pick up on the pessimistic tune after a while. But really, that’s just the result of being honest about life without God. Cuz let’s face it: Life without God sucks. Like, really sucks. There’s no justice or goodness, nothing that lasts, nothing that’s really worthwhile. It’s all, as he describes it, “vanity.”

So, in trying out the advice from church leaders, I decided to take a look at this new chapter with the goal of finding optimism. And to my surprise, there was a lot here. You wouldn’t get that first impression tho, I imagine. I mean, just look at the second verse:

“It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.” (Ecclesiastes 7:2)

So it’s better to suffer than to be happy? And happiness is never a good thing, but rather “the end of all men?” Talk about a letdown! But then I realized that can’t be the core message. Heavenly Father wants us to have joy in this life. Heck, just yesterday, I wrote about how God blesses us to enjoy our labors in life, even if they’re technically pointless in the grand scheme of things. He values our happiness very deeply, because he loves us. So, even if the chapter can be taken in a pessimistic way, that can’t be the real message. This is holy scripture, after all, given to us for our learning and benefit. Making us feel depressed about how much life sucks isn’t exactly keeping with that purpose.

Ecclesiastes 3: A Time For All Things

There’s a reason God put that tree in the Garden. Good and evil serve their purpose in this life. There’s a time, a season, and a purpose for all we experience. The writer of Ecclesiastes knew this.

Alrighty! I hope you like the flowers I found by a school recently, they’re really pretty. I think they’re called the Mexican Bird of Paradise or something similar, I dunno. That’s just what I’ve been told, correct me if I’m wrong XD

Anyway, I’m gonna get a little serious today. I was reading from Ecclesiastes 3, which many people can remember as the chapter that says there’s “a time and a season for all things.” You know, “a time to be born and a time to die, a time to love and a time to hate, a time to plant and a time to harvest,” all that good stuff. Sounds familiar now, ne?

Further into the chapter, a few verses really stuck out to me. I’m gonna focus on verses 16-17, because I feel these answer a question that always used to trouble me before I became LDS. Granted, I know the answer to that question now, but I didn’t realize there was biblical proof before.

Like A Broken Vessel: Depression And Similar Illnesses

Well, seems like a good time to use a picture from my trip to Utah.

I wasn’t sure what I would write about this morning. After doing my scripture studies, there was a bunch of topics I could’ve talked about. Ranted about, even. Some of these topics get me pretty fired up. But after cruising through the church website, a new video came up, and immediately I knew I wanted to talk about this. If you haven’t seen it, I’m including the link here; it’s called, Like A Broken Vessel.

The video is about 11 minutes long, and is told through the eyes of people who struggled with mental illness – particularly depression and anxiety. It’s a beautiful story of hope, and finding hope in the middle of these trials. I found out that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland faced depression in his own life too, something I hadn’t known before. At the heart of the video is a message for people struggling with either: Get help. Combining physical and spiritual treatment is the way to overcome.

As I viewed this, I found myself thinking of my own little sister. And also of myself.