Finding Peace in Difficult Times

Finding myself in a pretty good place in the time being, you might wonder what the title of this blog post is all about. It's a whole lot easier to find peace in life, when the winds of adversity are not blowing right into your face. What I have learned, though, is that life isn't always easy and simple. Sometimes we are thrown curveballs that we don't know how to take on right away. Life gets hard. It can almost seem unbearable at times. Whether the troubles come from finances, family, decisions, or anything else that you could possibly think of, they do come. And they push us to our limits, and stretch our comfort zones to the extreme. With trial and turmoil all around us, can we find peace in hard times? The answer is yes! We can find peace! Though it is easier said than done, peace in difficult times is possible. It starts with faith. Faith in our Father in Heaven, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Know that you are not alone. The Savior has walked the same path you are facing. He knows how to comfort you. He knows the pain you feel. He also knows how to help us in these times. Jesus Christ helps carry our burdens. Of course, he doesn't take the burden away,that would stop us from learning and growing, but what he does do, is he makes it possible. He takes just enough to where he knows we can handle it and triumph over life's hardships. We must also have faith in our Heavenly Father. Have faith that He has a plan for you. Have faith that He knows your strengths, weaknesses, and how much you can handle. Have faith that God is looking out for you and that He loves you. You must understand, complete faith is built trial after trial. To grow your faith you must act. You must push forward, taking one step at a time. Each step in the right direction will grow the light of your faith until it is clear the path that you must follow.
God is real. He is there. And, He is helping mold us into the people He knows that we can become. So, when life gets hard, look to him who knows all. Look to the master of all things to guide your very paths.



If you have a moment, I recommend this video. It's amazing and has a wonderful message.

Mormon Message- Mountains to Climb

Living in the Present

As I have been taking big steps to plan and prepare for my future, I look back and find myself missing the small and simple joys of life. I get so caught up in looking to the future that I forget to live for today. As I have caught myself doing this, I have also seen countless other people of all ages doing the same thing. From young kids eagerly anticipating the day they will move out, to young couples dreaming of the day when they have that dream home and children, even to the seasoned couples who can't wait for the day their children move out so that they can relax. If you look closely, you start to notice a pattern. No matter where you are in life, it seems there is always something else you are striving for or looking ahead to, telling yourself that happiness will be reached once you have that. Only to find yourself looking to the next big event in your life. I'm quickly starting to see the adversary in his work. He takes something good, (such as goals and aspirations) and he puts it in our minds that those things are greater than what we have at the moment. Though happiness can be attained in the big dreams that we have such as living independently, buying a home, and having money, there is no need to seek the future to find happiness. Look around you, God created everything that you see, and has given you everything that you have so that you can find happiness now, in this very moment.
My proposal to you is this. Live for today! Live as though today is your last one. Though we can dream and hope, we do not know what our future has in store for us. We do, however, know what we have now. Make the best of every situation. I promise to you that it's not worth wasting today for what you may or may not get tomorrow.

A Day to Remember

A year ago today I returned home from one of the greatest moments of my life. I returned home from my LDS mission in San Antonio Texas. I don't think a day goes by that I don't talk about these two years. My experience in the mission field changed my life forever. My perspective is different. I wouldn't trade those two years I spent out there for anything. If I could help encourage you to do one thing, that would be to serve a mission. There is so much joy to be found in sharing the Gospel that it overpowers even the hardest of experiences that you may face.

In the Very Details

Have you ever taken a step back and really seen God in the details of your life? If you haven't, then think about it.Think about the choices you made to get to the point you are at. Think of the people who have been placed in your life. Think about the trials you have gone through and the successes you have had. Can you see him in the details now? 

Currently I am preparing to take a great step in my life. I'm getting married in August to a girl that I love and can't imagine myself without. As the time comes closer and closer to this day, I find myself looking back in my life and seeing the hand of God directing not only my path, but my fiance's path as well. It truly is a miracle that both of us were led in the paths that we took. There is no other way to describe it other than divine guidance. 

God has a plan for each and every one of us, and He knows what each of us will need in order to grow and reach our potential as sons and daughters of him. Knowing that God's intentions are to make us better with every struggle and with every trial, we have a decision to make. That is, do we embrace what we are given and look forward with a steadfastness and faith in him, or do we give up, and give in when adversity fights back.If we acknowledge the hand of God in all things and we act in faith, then not only will we be led to greater happiness in our lives, but we will also learn and grow. 

Look positively toward the future. Have a brightness of hope, and see what God is creating you to be. You are a special son or daughter of a loving Heavenly Father. Though times may be tough, he is always their leading and guiding your every footstep if you allow him to.

A God-like Perspective

   I remember parts of my mission as if it happened yesterday. One experience that I had has been dawning on my mind for a little while now that I honestly haven't shared with many people. As any returned missionary would understand, you have times of great harvest in the field of missionary work, and then you have weeks and weeks of drought where you feel like you are just smacking your head against a brick wall hoping that it will make some kind of difference. I hit a dry spell in one of my areas that lasted quite a few months. I started doubting myself a little bit. I didn't see success so therefore I assumed that I must be doing something wrong. I started to feel unworthy for no reason at all. It seemed as though the faith I had relied on up to this point was dwindling in unbelief.
   After a long hot day of knocking on doors we came back and went to bed. I couldn't sleep, the thought just kept coming that I wasn't good enough. I also got the most aweful thought that I started having second thoughts about everything I had ever learned from church and from everything my parents had ever taught me as well. While I sat there I had an impression come to me that I just needed to write down every reason why I believed in God, and every reason why I believed this church is true. I won't tell you what I wrote down because it is too sacred to me to share on this blog, but I will tell you that my eyes were opened enough at that moment to push through the tough times we were having.
   Looking back, I wasn't struggling because I was being punished. No, I was given challenges because my Heavenly Father saw potential in me that required some stretching on my part. He knew it would be hard, but he also had complete faith in me that I could handle this task before me. The growth that came from those months of struggle have done me well even past my mission in ways that I can't even begin to describe to you.
   In the words of the well known John Bytheway, he says "When the winds of adversity come, remember one thing- kites fly the very highest against the wind. Kites don't fly in spite of opposition, kites fly high because of opposition. In fact, they couldn't fly without opposition... Similarly, adversity is what gives you a chance to soar".
   With all that I have said here, my thought for you is this; Rejoice in the sight of trials. hold your head up high and have a little faith. God trusts you enough with what he's given you, and he also sees great potential in you. Push through and ask questions later. I'm almost positive you will look back after some time has passed and you will understand the great plan that our Father in Heaven has for you. You will have an God-like perspective.
   I wrote a poem on my mission (don't laugh) that seems pretty fitting to the topic. It has to do with basketball, but also to trials:

       Heavy breathing and exhaustion, I step back on the line
       Coach calls for another and says, you'll do just fine.
       This is my court and we play like champions here
       You better fight the pain and the sorrow, and tears.
       I know what you want, so losing won't do
       You desire for success, I want that for you too.
       Your opponent isn't just taking a break
       If you want to be better, I know what it takes.
       You see, I've been there before through the trial and test
       I know what to do to become the best.

       Our Father in Heaven demands so much more
       Because just like our coach, He's been there before.
       He sees our potential and who we can be
       When we may get lost and not be able to see.
       Though life may get hard, and tiresome too
       Remember that God knows and loves you.
       So each day that you live, remember your prayers
       That soon you will see we are his children and heirs.

      

Never Give Up On Yourself or God

   There has always been one major struggle in my life that has held me back from reaching the things that I want to reach in my life. This struggle has put a halt on so many goals and desires that I have. My problem is this, I am just awful at following through with anything. It seems that I can be strong to a plan that I have for about a week before I'm thinking about something else and then I completely forget about what I was trying to do. Sometimes I don't even make it a week. It seems to me that there is a pattern that follows all of these attempts as well. It goes like this; I decide that I am going to read my scriptures everyday. For three or four days I am great, I remember every time and I just feel good. Then it hits, something comes up, I make an excuse to miss one time and as we all know once you make the first excuse, every other excuse becomes that much easier. Before I realized it, I have missed the last two or three weeks of reading. I feel like a failure, I feel useless and helpless because if God can't even trust me to do something as simple as read my scriptures everyday, then how will He ever trust me with any sort of spiritual experience or important calling that He has in store for me. Time and time again I do this to myself, and it is the worst. 

   Lately I've been doing this more and more, and it truly has led me to great contemplation about many things in my life. Every time I get down on my knees and ask God for forgiveness I wonder what God is thinking. Because of my human frailties if I was God, I may look upon me and grow very impatient. I would probably think something along the lines of, "I have given you hundreds of chances and yet the same result comes from each one. Why should I give you another chance now"? And that is why I am not God. As I've come to more fully understand who God is, I see so much love and care that He has for each of us. He doesn't want us to be afraid of him, He wants us to trust him and call upon him for ANYTHING and even EVERYTHING. Now, I don't see God as impatiently hearing me ask for forgiveness for the thousandth time, but instead I see him picking me back up every time I fall down and saying to me, "You can do it, you're so close. Have faith in me, for I have faith in you".

   I don't know about you, but that perspective makes all the difference for me. It reminds me of all of my days in sports actually. In all my years playing sports, I have had hundreds of different coaches. All of them had different ways of coaching, but what I realized is that I respond best to the coaches that didn't yell, but encouraged. I had one coach in particular that really understood how to coach. This particular coach saw great potential in me through the terrible rough that I was covered in. I had quite the attitude when I played and most coaches thought the best way to get rid of it was through fear. They figured if they yelled at me enough and made me run, then the attitude would go away. They were wrong, it made it even worse. This coach however coached me in a loving way to use that attitude and competitiveness in the right way. He taught me how to control it. It took years of him coaching before I really started to pick up on it, but he never gave up on me. 

   God is their coaching us along the way, and lovingly giving us advice. No matter how long it takes before we get it right though, God is not getting mad at us. My advice to you is this, don't give up on yourself. Change will take time. Turn to God for all things. Satan wants you to think that God will be mad at you for asking for forgiveness hundreds of times. That is simply not the case, God is happy that we have a desire to strive to be better. 

   Don't give up on yourself. Strive to reach the great potential that is in you. Have faith in God, for He has faith in You!

Line Upon Line

   On my mission I saw great changes in people including myself. They were such great and miraculous changes, but they happened over an extended period of time. Some times I would start to see changes after a few months of working with people and then I would have to leave, sometimes I saw the end result of a change that had already been taking place coming into a new area, and sometimes (but very rarely) I got to see the change from beginning to end. What a wonderful gift that was!
   I bring this up not to discourage people, but hopefully to encourage people. Since it is the new year, lots of people are setting goals (including myself). I don't know about you, but in the past I have found that I set these lofty goals and I am solid with them for about 2 weeks or so and then I just completely give up on them for one reason or another. The problem I catch myself in is this, I don't see immediate change, so I quit. Obviously it's not working right?...... Wrong, actually. Change was occurring, I just didn't realize it because it came line upon line and precept upon precept.
   This reminds me of one lady in particular from my mission that this same thing happened with. Beth was about 60 years old, living all by herself. She had major depression which led to a lot of things such as hording and smoking in particular. Her home was in terrible condition, and to make things worse, she was smoking about 30 cigarettes a day. As we taught her the gospel, we started to see change in her life. It started with her giving up a few cigarettes here and there, and throwing out a bag or two of garbage every few days. To Beth, the change wasn't noticed, or felt like it was making much of a difference at first because it seemed so small. It wasn't until after many weeks of working with her that me and my companion got her to take a step back and really see the progress she was making. She was a completely new person. Eventually, before she passed away, she had given up smoking completely, and her house was clean again.
   My thought for me and you here is this, set goals. Strive to be better, reach for that potential that you know is within you. That being said, don't give up on your goals. Just because you can't see the change right away doesn't mean it's not happening. Allow the atonement to work in your life. Christ paid the ultimate price so that we can become better. Don't waste this precious gift we have been given.