Strength and Life Each Day

At church today, right after the counselor in the bishopric, Bro Schmidt, sat down, like 5 people rushed up to the stand to share their testimonies and it was busy to the end. It was a full meeting and my heart was touched. I had thought of what I could testify of, but I ended up staying in my seat and allowing others to share their testimonies. I decided I'd share mine here after I got home, so here I am, and here is my testimony today ~

I was touched by the opening hymn we sang at church, "In Fasting, We Approach Thee" (Hymn 139) especially in verse two where it says:

Through this small sacrifice, may we 
recall that strength and life each day
are sacred blessings sent from thee
fill us with gratitude we pray.

On Friday night as part of our family scriptures, my family and I revisited a story shared by President Monson in a book we read last year called "Consider the Blessings". On pages 62 - 66 is a story called "I do not know how I can go on". President Monson briefly shared this story in his October 1994 message and also mentioned it in his April 2009 talk "Be Of Good Cheer". In the book, he tells of a widow from Prussia who, after World War II ended, had to walk 1000 miles to Germany with her four small children. Her children all passed away on their trek, from starvation and the winter cold. Her first child that died was her 3 year old little girl, and we had our little Katharine asleep on Natalie's lap in front of us to be our visual aid of that. The mother dug the child's grave with the only tool she had, a tablespoon. Next her seven-year-old son and five year-old son passed away. Again she dug their graves with the spoon. When her last child died, a small infant in her arms, she dug a grave in the frozen earth again, but this time the tablespoon was gone, so she dug into the frozen earth with only her frozen fingers. In the account from the book "Consider the Blessings", it says:

Her grief welled up as she knwlt beside the little grave, considering all she had lost. She wondered, Was it worth going on? How could she bear it, with her heart literally broken? Others were choosing to end their lives rather than continue in such despair. As she considered the awful possibilities for ending her own life, something within her said, “Get down on your knees and pray." She ignored the prompting until she could resist it no longer. She knelt and prayed more fervently than she had in her entire life. "Dear heavenly father, I do not know how I can go on. I have nothing left, except my faith in me. I feel, Father, amidst the desolation of my soul, and overwhelming gratitude for the atoning sacrifice of my son Jesus Christ. I cannot express adequately my love for Him. I know that because He suffered and died, I shall live again with my family. Because He broke the chain of death, I shall see my children again and will have the joy raising them. Though I do not at this moment, wish to live, I will do so, that we may be reunited as a family and return together to Thee." When she finally reached her destination of Karlsruhe, Germany, she was in the throes of starvation, but in a church meeting shortly there after she bore witness of her happiness and her testimony of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. She had no doubt that if she remain true to the gospel, she would be reunited with her loved ones in the celestial kingdom of God.

(Photo credit, just a pic via google of what I imagine the end of her journey looked like)

With all the problems that seem to overwhelm us in the world today, it has helped me to think of all that people have endured in the past. Despite the challenges we face, like those who have gone before us, we can find joy as we look to Christ. He will strengthen us. "Strength and Life each day are sacred blessings from above." We can show gratitude for the blessings He offers. Verse three of the opening hymn at church: 

And may our fast fill us with care
For all thy children now in need.
May we from our abundance share,
Thy sheep to bless, thy lambs to feed

I am really trying to focus this year on gratitude, I’ve been reading the Book of Mormon looking for times when gratitude is expressed and praise and thanks to the Lord is given. As I’ve been searching for that in the scriptures, I’ve also been searching for that daily in my life. I’ve been writing down five things at the end of every day that I’m grateful for, last night I finished my gratitude for just a small portion of the blessings I noticed in January, and I really think that gratitude is such a key to happiness and peace and trust. I've also begun to see that humility is the beginning of gratitude - humility and realization of how much we depend upon Christ. In the story that President Monson shared, that sister showed gratitude for Christ - that was something that she came to find in her wrenching trial of losing her husband and children and walking with the Lord for 1000 miles. We have journeys to go on as well, and may we also be prompted to pray, as she prayed, and let the spirit testified to us of the reality of the Savior's resurrection. We can be with our loved ones again because of Jesus Christ. When we are in the depths of despair, He is there and He understands and He can lift us. He can help be humble in our hard trials, and that will lead us to trust and have faith in Him. 

A quote shared in the Follow Him podcast by Elder Eyring "Remembrance and Gratitude" from October 1989:

Remembrance is the seed of gratitude, which is the seed of generosity. Gratitude for the remission of sins is the seed of charity, the pure love of Christ. And so God has made possible for you and me this blessing, a change in our very natures: “And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer, until the end shall come, when all the saints shall dwell with God.” (Moro. 8:26.)

Gallery of Works

Corey and I listened to the Follow Him podcast together while we were climbing top rope this evening. I really liked this idea of us being judged according to our creative works - like our life's art exhibit!

Yale School of Art

Follow Him Old Testament: EPISODE 4 (2026) with John Hilton III – Genesis 3-4; Moses 4-5 – Part 1, minute 28

Dr. John Hilton III 20:09: I think that that’s part of the creation process. Separating the light from the darkness, figuring out, okay, I have a limited time. Where’s God calling me to put my priorities? One of the places for all of us that he’s gonna call us to put priorities is in creating something. As I read Genesis one, I can almost feel God’s joy in creation. From verse 21, God created every living thing God saw it was good. God blessed them. I can just picture God blessing all of the creations. Verse 31, God saw all that he had made and it was very good. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, creating contributes to our heavenly Father’s perfect happiness. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of beauty. Our birthright is to seek and experience eternal happiness. One of the ways we find this is by creating things. I just love that for me, I’ve been picked up the guitar as a recent hobby. I will never be a professional guitarist. I will almost certainly never put anything on Spotify, but I can have fun experiencing the joy of creation and playing a little song. I hope for all of us we can experience this. President Uchtdorf finishes the quote, he says, what you create doesn’t have to be perfect. Don’t let the voice of critics paralyze you. Whether that voice comes from the outside or the inside, we can just experience joy in creation.

Hank Smith: 29:39 Occasionally John, when I read that God will judge all men according to their works, you could think of the word works there as like works of art. I will judge them based on their creativeness.

John Bytheway: 29:53 Their gallery.

Hank Smith: 29:54 Yeah, their gallery, their works.

Hank Smith: 29:59 I like the idea that God instead of "let’s look at the right and wrongs of your life", "let’s look at everything you made. Let’s look at all that you created." John Bytheway likes to say everybody has a book in ’em, at least one book John says.

pic above of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Creation

Listening on a ride again today, I loved this thought by Dr. Rebekah Call at 9:09 about the process of creation:

"When you’re reading the Come, Follow Me introduction, it talked about God creating. We talk about God creating the world, but I think also each of us is in the middle of Creation right now. My life is in process of being creative. I’m living my life as I’m going and if I’m choosing to live that with God, then God also gets to be creating in my life. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the creative process is messy. Go to any pottery studio, go watch a painter, or go watch the construction of a building. 

"The process of Creation is inherently messy. A lot of times in my life, when I’m like, man, I feel like my life is really a mess right now. I’m not holding things together and this fell through the cracks. I made this mistake. I think it can be helpful to remember that God created the world, and that was a messy process, and look what we have. Look at the beauty that has been given to us in this world. Sometimes the messiest moments aren’t because something is wrong. It’s because Creation is happening. It needs to be messy. There needs to be stuff added in and stuff taken away and stuff trimmed and shaped, and that’s really beautiful. However messy our lives are, we’re in the middle of Creation."

Listening on a Ride

I enjoyed listening to the Follow Him podcast on a ride today. A few parts that I took screen shots of that I liked... 

from Part 1 of D&C 125-128 cause I want this protection for my children - I want to help them search for their ancestors:

John Bytheway at 01:14:01- Remember too, there is another soul, another immortal soul on the other side that has benefited from your time in the temple. That’s huge. Someone else out there. That’s why I like when they call it temple service, a service that reaches across the veil. That’s kind of incredible to think about. I found a statement by Elder Richard G. Scott. He said, "Do you young people want a sure way to eliminate the influence of the adversary in your life? That’s a pretty big statement. A sure way to eliminate the influence of the adversary in your life. Immerse yourself in searching for your ancestors. Prepare their names for the sacred vicarious ordinances available in the temple, and then go to the temple to stand as proxy for them to receive the ordinances of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. As you grow older, you’ll be able to participate in receiving the other ordinances as well. I can think of no greater protection from the influence of the adversary in your life."

From part 2 - helping me cope with the hard time that I feel like I'm facing, and know that I should record what I'm learning.

Dr. Jordan Watkins 00:16:38 - What you say is so true. Thank goodness that Joseph was isolated at times. Hard thing to say. Thank goodness he was imprisoned. As hard as that is what comes out of his experiences in prison or in isolation are these teachings and practices that we prize so dearly.

John Bytheway 00:16:58 - I just had never ever considered what he’s going through legally with recording things and the power that has maybe impressed upon his mind. Let’s record all this stuff. This is out there, but it reminded me of Enos. You also quoted that a man filled with the love of God as not satisfied with blessing his family own. When Enos prays, he prays for himself. Then he prays for his brethren, then he prays for his enemies, then he prays for the records. I’ve always thought how interesting we’ve worked so hard on these records, preserve these records for even my enemies that it might bless them.

Adoration

This quote stood out to me because I’ve been thinking about worship - this from page 1 of chapter 1 of “Near Death Experiences” by P.M.H. Atwater

Worship = adoration

“Research is the highest form of adoration.”

- Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

So we are worshiping God as we study/research his word in the scriptures

The Three Transcendentals

“Beauty is not something that’s just in the eye of the beholder. It’s an objectively true thing. In Catholicism, we call it one of the three transcendentals, along with goodness and truth. Beauty helps to prove God exists.” - Jordan Ring Sakabe

From this article that I just read. I really like that. It's true that beauty exists. Babies and roses are simply more cute and beautiful than anglerfish and fleas. Beauty exists. Goodness exists. It's bad to murder. That was something that is a part of my testimony. In 2005 (I remember I was pregnant with Wesley) I was struggling with my faith, and the tv show COPS came on one day, and thinking about that made me realize there is good and bad. Life = good. Murder, drugs, violence = bad. And those things are TRUE, so truth exists too. ;) The Three Transcendentals: Beauty, Goodness, Truth. I like it.

Comfort

I listened to the Follow Him podcast this afternoon on a bike ride (I was going up the canyon for over 2.5 hours...) The guest was Morgan Pearson. I really liked (at 54:09 of part 1) John talks more about the command from the Lord in D&C 25:5 "the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness." If you look at the etymology, comfort means together strong. Just from my knowledge of Spanish I could see that: Com - with and Fort like fortaleza - strength. 

The word "comfort" originates from the Late Latin "confortare" meaning "to strengthen greatly," itself derived from the Latin "con-" (together) and "fortis" (strong), evolving through Old French "conforter" and Middle English "comforten". 

Here's a more detailed breakdown of the etymology: 

• Late Latin confortāre: "to strengthen greatly":
  • Latin con- : An intensive prefix, meaning "together" or "intensively".
  • Latin fortis: "strong"
• Old French conforter: "to comfort, to solace; to help, strengthen"
• Middle English comforten: "to strengthen spiritually, inspire with courage, exort, cheer up, encourage, invigorate"

They said that Emma said once that some people didn't like the influence she had with her husband, but I really like this idea that she was there with him, making him stronger. They were stronger TOGETHER. Joseph and Emma, together strong. Be a comfort. Be together strong.

It also made me think of how Christ called the Holy Ghost "The Comforter". (John 14:26) The Lord was not just thinking of helping us have a soft place and make us warm. As a friend Jill Gygi said years ago at a study group "I'm learning that the Lord doesn't really care about my comfort..." He doesn't want us comfortable, he wants us STRONG! And strength usually comes from hard things that are NOT comfortable! God's purpose is TO MAKE US STRONG! We are STRONGER with the Holy Ghost with us! Wesley said that in their mission they have been trying to emphasize not just the baptism, but the gift that we receive after baptism - the gift and blessing of having the companionship of THE HOLY GHOST with US ALWAYS! We are stronger when we have the Holy Ghost with us - when we are together with the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the spirit of TRUTH, and truth makes us strong too. Anyway, I really liked that insight.