Sunday, January 10, 2010

This is what it's all about

Hey family! So I've been giving some thought these past 24 hours about family and our purpose here on earth. If you didn't get a chance to watch Elder Andersen's talk on our spiritual destiny, then watch it here:

Elder Andersen's Talk

I loved his advice to read our patriarchal blessings to kind of show us where our Heavenly Father wants us to go in our lives.

I've also been reading the book Left to Tell by Imaculee Ilibagiza. It's a great book on the story of finding faith and hope in God during terrible times. In the book, Imaculee is hiding from a race of Rwandans that are out to kill her race. She is hiding without her family and wondering where they are and how she will find them. Instead of turning to hate for those who have killed her family, she turns to God, knowing that she will never be alone, she will never be without family, because her Father in Heaven will be her constant companion.

Finally, I was out with some girlfriends in my ward last night and we were talking about how families are such an integral part of the reason that we are here on this earth. It was a good perspective shifter for me because I think it can become easy to get caught up in the idea that just because I'm mormon, I'm supposed to have a lot of kids. I find it far healthier to look at it from a spiritual perspective rather than the peer pressure perspective :)

All of this thinking has lifted my spirits as I face the challenges of every day. I am sad that I don't live by my family, but my children and husband are very healthy, happy, and safe. Instead of looking at my children as a burden that provide some glimmers of joy, I can look at them as beautiful children of our Heavenly Father that provide so many wonderful opportunities for me to teach the gospel, to teach love, kindness, forgiveness, etc. There are hard times, as Elder Andersen said there would be, but we can't grow, we can't know what we are capable of, without those hard times. Hard times will either draw us closer to the potential God sees in us or will make us fall further into sin. May we all choose to be the Sons and Daughters of God that He sees in us.