#TheStruggleisReal

I think the life of a gazelle in the wild can represent life pretty wonderfully. You are born, bright eyed and beaming thinking that nothing could go wrong. You grow and you leap and you play and you run, then you get to the watering hole and BAM! Crocodile attack... whooeee that was a close one, better not go back there! You graze a while and SMACK! There is a lioness hunter chasin your best buddy Steve  and your screaming and yelling "Steve noooo, not Steve, he was too young" and so you go on your merry way and BLAM POW Hyeenas are hot on your tail, and your thinking "man does this ever end."

Let's be honest there is a struggle on every side, you are out with friends on our merry way and BAM someone close to you falls to the whiles of Satan. Then you are in a fight with your brother SMACK you say hurtful words to your brother that need repairing. Then you are go on with life and BLAM POW someone close to you passes away and you are thinking to yourself "man does this ever end?"  Why is it that the struggle is real?

THE STRUGGLE

First off, there is a sort of entitlement that I think we all as humans feel at least once in this life, I don't think there is one person who hasn't thought to themselves "I've done This big thing so I'm extremely entitled to receive this big thing in return" it's a sickness I like to call me-itis, it's a major pandemic that definitely has a cure, but we are the only ones who can choose to cure ourselves of it.

Now I have gone off on a tangent I know but let me bring it back, now if we were given everything, not having to work one day in our life would we ever feel the fulfillment of receiving, or would we believe that it was only something we deserved, and of minor importance. If we never felt the pain of loss, or the struggle of living paycheck to paycheck would we ever be grateful for those things we did have? I don't think so. I believe that it takes that hardship, that pain, that struggle, to feel that joy, and that comfort and that peace.

We are spirit children of our Father in Heaven, I know I have asked myself many times "where did I come from before this life?" and "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16.) I know parents desire the best for their children, they want them to grow, to progress, to become something, to achieve greatness! But on this path of becoming, children face challenges and the only way that they can grow is to be put under pressure and face opposition. Just as a lump of coal cannot become a  diamond without extreme heat and pressure, so it is with our souls, we cannot reach our eternal potential without the struggle placed in our path. Our Heavenly Father desires the best for us on our journey here on earth. This brings to light the question, "why do bad things happen to good people?" I would ask to those who ask that question "how can good people become greater without the pressure of trials?" Those who are not seeking for betterment will never find hardship because those who stagnate are not met with pressure but digression. Just as a muscle without opposition will not grow but decrease in size. Stagnation never brings opposition, it only brings retrogression

“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”
C.S. Lewis

OUR LIFE ON EARTH

Our life is interwoven with many other peoples, we see on the news the pain of the world, the sickness, the hardship... the struggle. We feel a deep pain for them, but why, why would we ever empathize with anyone that we don't know unless .....we did once know them and deeply care for them? Our spirit is like the hard drive of our being, it remembers everything we have ever done or seen or experienced, including the life before this, that is why for me this concept of living with our Father in Heaven resonates deep within my being. Feelings are so much more than just chemical reactions in the brain, they are a spiritual compass that guides us, and as we listen to them we are able to discern truths we once knew before we came into the amnesia of this world.

We are given a wonderful gift of agency, and there is a pattern that we see in the Book of Mormon (another testament of Jesus Christ) and the Bible, that as people choose Gods path their struggle is lessened and their "burdens made light " (Mosiah 24:15)

CHRIST LESSENS THE STRUGGLE

"The unique burdens in each of our lives help us to rely upon the merits, mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah - David A. Bednar

The Savior Once Said: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my Yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30) 

Consider if you will this unique message, he offers rest to those who struggle, but he does not automatically take away the struggle, it still remains. He asks us to take His yoke upon us, we don't entirely loose our burden but our Savior offers to pull alongside us, because he has already been through the struggle he can lessen the pain and make our burden light!

This is the power of the atonement, one can never know the joy that comes from following the savior if they never take the steps to come to know Him. I have come to learn this as I have seen the power of the atonement change my life and change the lives of others, it truly is a blessing to know that God is our loving Heavenly Father, that Jesus is the Christ, He lives, and he does have an infinite amount of love for us.
He doesn't want to see us struggle, but he does want to see us grow and that is why the struggle is real, because we need to learn, we need to become, and we need to come unto him to do it.

Where Is Your Focal Point?

I find painting and art to be fascinating, when I see simple artistic ventures I think to myself.... yeah... I can probably do that, then when I try to draw it the drawing looks like that of a five year old, so perhaps I should leave the art to those with that skill.

The Focal Point

When I was in 8th grade art, I drew a picture of a room, there were chairs and a bed and I made the lines all slanty like so that it would seem as if one was looking into a room and it made physiological sense. Well I turned that drawing in and needless to say I got a less than acceptable grade, and written on the top of the paper in red ink were the words "where is your focal point?"

In life we need a focal point, a goal or focus that draws us nearer to the eventuality of an ultimate goal, but what is our ultimate goal? I'm not talking about loosing five pounds this week, or becoming a big corporate guru, no, I want you to think and ask yourself, what is the end-all-be-all, when I lay my head down to rest for the last time, what will I have desired to ultimately accomplish in my life, and am I secure in where I am going after this?

God has a focal point for us, and prophets have told us that "by small and simple great things are brought to pass" and he wants us to reach our potential, that's why difficulties, people, and other things are put in our path, so that we can make the choices that will point us toward eternity. How do we take the next step to eternity spent with a loving Father in Heaven, What is the path that he has pointed us towards, Why do we want to be there? All of these are innate questions that we as human beings have, but we have recieved answers all we have to do is adhere to them, and one of those answers is Baptism. God has told us that it is an essential covenant to enter into his kingdom, and that baptism must be performed by someone who holds Gods authority to seal on earth and in heaven. We will get to the why later but first is a story of what it can do for us!

This next story of becoming is truly one that I love, because he sees a major shift in who he was and who he now is and because his focal point has shifted from himself to Jesus Christ he is forever becoming a better person

Growing up I never really cared to get to know who God was, and I never felt like I needed Him. At school and on the field I had life pretty well figured out. I had scholarships and offers to accomplish my lifelong dreams in baseball. To a lot of people it looked like life came easy for me. But at home I had a family that was falling apart due to alcohol addictions. To everyone around me it seemed like I had it all, but I wanted the home life that everyone else around me had. I thought that this was just the hand I was dealt for my life and that I needed to accept that. So I started making bad decisions and became content with the way my life was going. Throughout all of this a good friend and teammate of mine was taught by the missionaries and baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He saw me changing my values for the people around me, and thought that the message the missionaries shared would bring some clarity to me with the questions I had on what was going on in my life. Eventually I began meeting with the missionaries, but I wasn't open to what their message entailed because of the change it would require me to make in order to live the Gospel. But when they taught me the Plan of Salvation I had my eyes opened and felt like I was starting to understand what life was all about. Hearing that God has big plans for each of us and that we all have the opportunity to change our circumstances, gave me a vision of what life would be like if all the blessings that came from loving the Gospel were true. So I started keeping the commitments that the missionaries left me, and overtime I couldn't deny the blessings that had come from living the Gospel standards. I also saw that if we focus on accomplishing the goals and journey God has prepared for us, that He will take care of all of our other wants and desires; and that we would have a happier life here on earth, and in the life to come. Just like He has promised! Four years after joining the church, I have seen a kid who was caught up in every ungodly thing this world has to offer, turn into a full time missionary sharing the same great message that changed his life with people everyday. I have also seen a family that was falling apart become a family focused on the well being of one another. I have a testimony that God keeps His promises. If we follow the example our Savior has given us, we can know that God will take care of any other concern or trial in due time. I know that the Gospel of a Jesus Christ works and that it blesses the family as well as the individual, and all God asks of us is to seek Him and His counsel first so He can bless our lives (3 Nephi 13:31-33) :) 

Baptism has changed his life for the better, and I know that it is such an essential thing for us to take that covenant upon ourselves. It comes to the point in our life where we must choose where we stand and what stand we want to make, as we make that covenant with God we are telling him that we promise to follow our savior and in return we are blessed more then we could ever imagine. I know that I hold my covenant with God so dear to my heart, and it's such a blessing in my life, and as we strive to follow our savior we are baptized to show to our heavenly father that we are willing to unite our will with his.

On the Path to Joy

One of the things I have always been baffled about is how many people don't think that science and faith can flow together, well I must make the audacious statement that I believe that they are wrong, and I will tell you why. In the Book of Mormon there is a scripture that says "The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." (Alma 30:44) If "everything denotes there is a supreme creator" then I am going to use a physical scientific fact to represent a wonderful spiritual truth.

 

When I was in chemistry in high school I remember learning about catalysts, a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change. So the chemical change could perhaps happen without the catalyst it's true, but the reaction would be far slower and less complete without said catalyst. Follow me if you will to the spiritual truth that this represents for us. Repentance is a scary word to many, but I would like to bring it to a more hopeful light, repentance is the catalyst for our spiritual progression and mental and spiritual healing, yes we could perhaps forget the hurt and sorrow that our sins bring us as time goes on, but the residual effects of that sin will always be there, but through faith in Jesus Christ, and repentance we are boosted into a completely different realm of happiness that we could never have imagined. Repentance is our catalyst to true joy.

 

This brings me to my next story of becoming....

 Meet Gwen, she is an amazing daughter of God and through coming to know her and where she came from I am amazed at the eternal potential she has found and shares every day with those around her, she is an amazing example of the believers and she took a long road to get there, but I am so glad I had the opportunity to cross her path and feel of her amazing love and strength.  

 

 

Gwen's Story of Becoming

It all started with one of the greatest childhoods to be known. I lived in a world that I had created full of dinosaurs, gnomes, fairies and Disney characters. I had at least 4 imaginary friends, all being animals, and I always had a sibling to take part in any grand adventure that came to my mind. I had a father who worked hard to take care of our family. I had a mother who never showed me anything but love and always knew how to keep us happy and feed my imagination. I was raised to believe and feel that I was a child of God and had great worth. I grew up joyfully singing "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam." I lived in my own world where I was a hero and I was special until I reached middle school....that's when I started to see the world around me and myself in a different way. Through middle school and high school I had many disheartening experiences with my peers. Through the way I was treated, I began to believe less and less in my worth and began to believe more and more in the negative things that people would say about me. Throughout high school I would come to school in the most random outfits- each one depicting a different decade or genre- I did this in part because I'm naturally a pretty eclectic person, but I also had no idea who I was or who I wanted to be and it not only showed in the things I would wear but, also the people I would spend time with or the things I would do. Near the end of high school I began to take part in activities that were contrary to the things I learned as a child in church and in my home. As I grew, this only became more and more apparent in my young adult life. Nothing I did or said showed the world or myself that I was truly a daughter of God. I made a lot of decisions during those times that brought my family, those around me, and myself a lot of heartache. I had completely lost a sense of who I was and of who God was. Without a testimony of God, I spent a lot of years depending on substances and other poisoning sources for strength and peace. I was never able to find anything or anyone that could offer me the happiness and peace of mind that I was so desperately searching for. It wasn't until a trip to New York City filled with indescribable experiences that my heart began to be softened and I began to feel like there really was someone watching out for me and that they were trying to tell me something. I returned home feeling ready to come back to the God that I knew as a child. Although my efforts to do so were sincere, my heart was not truly broken and truly contrite and I again slipped into old habits and my comfortable way of living. Finally, I got to a point in my life where I felt cornered by everything and everyone I thought I loved and trusted. I had reached my rock bottom and felt like there wasn't a person in the world I could call to carry me out of the hole I had dug myself into. It was during this time that I learned what true prayer was. Through humble and inexperienced prayers, I began to understand who God was once again. I began to feel like I was truly His daughter and that He loved me. As I came to Him with a broken heart, He taught me how to make it whole again through my Savior, Jesus Christ. This was a life changing experience for me. Through the beautiful process of repentance, I finally came to know and understand what it means to have a Savior. I came to know who Jesus Christ is to me personally. I learned that Christ will always be there to carry us out of our darkest places and our holes, no matter how deep. Since that pivotal point in my life, I have still experienced heartache and trials, but now I have the strength and hope needed through my Savior and Heavenly Father's love. I understand my purpose as a daughter of God and I have received so much direction in my life.

My life has completely turned around to a bright path that I never could have imagined. God led me to serve a mission and I was apprehensive and afraid when I first felt prompted to go but my mission meant everything to me. I feel like my mission was a way to make up for lost time with my Savior and to show Him how grateful I am for all that He has done and continues to do for me. One huge blessing that has come from my testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is direction and inspiration. I finally have dreams, goals and aspirations! I have come to understand more about the unique gifts and talents that Heavenly Father has given me and how He wants me to use them. I truly believe now that I can do anything with God on my side. The biggest dream that I've gained from the gospel though, is my dream to return to the arms of my Heavenly Father someday. This has added more meaning to my life than I could ever try and put into words. My journey so far has brought me peace, joy, purpose and direction. I still have a lot of life to live and I look forward to what may come and who I will continue to become the rest of the way!

 

 

God will never leave us, he has always given us a chance to return to him and there is no such thing as too far gone! I like to say that "Joy is the eternal state of the soul," there may be things that bring us happiness for a time, but repentance, and turning to Jesus Christ is the only thing that can bring us that pure joy that so many people are seeking. 

 

"Lead yourself. If you must follow someone, follow the genuinely joyful. Joy is evidence that something is working." Eileen Lighthawk  

 

"Lean Not Unto Thine Own Understanding"

Becoming something is not always an easy thing, imagine if you will, a blacksmith toiling away in his shop. He first begins with a large hunk of metal, it is nothing to wink at, nothing that would make you look on in awe and wonder, but the blacksmith sees in his minds eye what that hunk of metal can become; the hunk of metal doesn't see it (most obviously because it doesn't have consciousness)  but this achievement of potential will take time and great care. He begins by heating the metal, putting it under extreme pressure, and beating it down to become a beautiful sculpture, or a tool that will be useful in days to come. The metal could not have become that tool or sculpture on it's own, it took the hands of the craftsman and patience and care to become what the master saw that it could become.

If the hunk of metal was not an inanimate object and had a consciousness of it's own, wouldn't it have had to trust that the master had a far better plan for it than it had for itself?

Now I know that this is a pretty far fetched metaphor, but hear me out. When we lived in the pre-mortal existence with our Father in Heaven he told us of our Heavenly potential, we had been shown the opportunity to become something far greater when we came to this earth and through his help we could become greater than we could when left to our own devices. So we accepted that it would be hard, that we would be under extreme pressure, and sometimes we would rather break than undergo the stress and the pain that this world has to offer, but the Master always is there to comfort, to uplift and to help us to see that we have a far greater potential than we have ever imagined.

This begins my story of becoming......

I figure that I will not share someone else's story of becoming if I am not willing to share a story of my own first.

As a child I didn't ever understand the point of Church, it was a boring thing that we had to do for 3 hours every Sunday, it was exhausting, and unless I had something to doodle on, you would most likely catch me sleeping, my mom would nudge me and quietly say "pay attention" but I never really understood the point of it all, why was church so special?

I continued on with this indifferent thought process and I continued to attend church, I would ask my father occasional questions and we would discuss intriguing gospel topics but never did I care to understand what was being taught because somehow I thought, "this doesn't apply to me."
Well, because my faith was lackadaisical I started to slowly slip away,
C.S. Lewis once wrote about this slow slipping in a book called the Screwtape Letters he says

"It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing... Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts"

This is the effect that I brought upon myself, things that I would never be comfortable with became the natural, and things that I thought I would never do became the norm, I had lost sight of my heavenly potential, and even my earthly potential, ultimately I was lost.
Finally I reached my lowest point, I had no idea how I had gotten there, I had no idea why I was there, but I knew something had to change, so I started to make things right, I knew something in me had to change but I didn't know what, so I left the life I knew and went to the other extreme and really didn't do anything except for school and work, I wasn't very social and I lost all of the people who I once thought really cared, I was devastated and I still was not of the belief that God, or Jesus Christ and my lack of faith could ever be the answer.
July 13, 2012 my world was turned upside down. Six weeks prior my sister had been admitted to the
hospital and she had been slowly getting worse, she had been put in a medicated coma because her seizures weren't stopping, and her brain was still seizing in the medicated coma, she was in a slow decline of her life, and my family and I watched helplessly from the sidelines. We were told that we would either have to pull the plug, or take her out of the coma and she would live as a vegetable for the rest of her life, so we made the decision to let her go peacefully on July 13. As we watched the life slowly slip from my sister, my heart was torn into a million pieces, this amazing wonderful girl was gone from this earth, and a spark was lit in me, that this life couldn't be it, there was assuredly more, I would see my sister again, and I knew at that moment that somewhere deep inside I had always known that.
My dad one day in his sorrow said pertaining to the gospel "if the gospel is true, then I hope I will see her again" and I responded "Dad, it's not IF it's BECAUSE it's true that we will see her again" suddenly the roles had shifted and my faith was growing and I could feel it, I had more of a desire in my life to align my will with God's then ever before because I knew if I did I would be able to be with my family for eternity as a result. As I began to do this I felt more joy, even though I had gone through this loss in my life I was at peace because I knew that there was a higher power that was there looking out for me and assuring me it would be okay,he was there the whole time shaping me to what I needed to be.

God has a plan for us, I testify that He is there, that he loves us, and Faith is only the beginning, Faith leads to great things and as we have Faith, and submit to the masters will, we are able to become something much greater than we ever thought possible!

If you have a story of becoming you want to share, send it to me at kaitlyn.king@myldsmail.net