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Category: Faith

Faith,Family,Lessons Learned

Grateful For Prayer

posted on : November 23, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

Many years ago my husband was driving down a street in our community in his pickup truck towing a heavy load.  As he was driving along he had the words come strongly to him “Stop Now!” and so he slammed on his brakes.  Just then 2 little girls on bikes came racing out into the road, rounded the corner and obliviously pedaled away.  He told me that if he had not listened there was no way he could have stopped in time with the heavy load he was towing, and he was sure he would have run over those little girls.  He was very emotional and upset while telling me of this incident.  The little girls on the bikes however were totally unaware that their lives had been in danger.  They rode off having fun together and went home to parents who were also unaware that their daughters had been in grave danger.  I have thought about this a lot over the years.  Those girls probably had parents who prayed for their children’s safety each day and didn’t know that on this particular day their prayers had been amazingly answered. I also pray for my children every day.  I pray for the blessings they need, for their safety, for their happiness.  Because of this situation I have wondered how many times my prayers have been answered without me being aware of it.  I have wondered how many times my children have been watched over and cared for without my knowledge. And from this I can suppose that there are other ways my prayers are answered too that I am oblivious about.  Perhaps part of having faith is trusting that God will answer my prayers whether I know it or not, and knowing that my prayers are not always answered the way I want.  My faith is strengthened through prayer and receiving my Father Heaven’s help, not always in the way or time I expect it.  As I have gotten older I have come to depend more on prayer and realize more of it’s importance.  This Thanksgiving Season I am particularly grateful for the opportunity I have to pray to a loving Heavenly Father and to know He hears and answers my prayers, even when I am unaware of it.  I am grateful to feel the power of prayer in my life and to have the source of strength and comfort it offers.  I am thankful for prayer.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/the-souls-sincere-desire?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/pray-always?lang=eng

Faith,Life

Finding Comfort During Migraines

posted on : November 13, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

Last week I wrote about migraines and how they have plagued my life for over 40 years.  I also wrote about a 6 year time frame where I had migraines almost every day, most of them excruciating and so bad I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep on living.  Several months into this time frame I had an experience that helped me cope a little more with the situation.  It didn’t help with the pain or lessen it but it did give me a new perspective.  I had a migraine and was sitting in church at a funeral of a neighbor, and the speaker was talking about the scripture of how God has told us He will not leave us comfortless during our hard times.  I felt so forsaken as I sat there in great pain.  I was silently crying to myself and thought “You have left me comfortless.”  Immediately I had the thought come to my mind “I blessed you with a love for church music to help you through this time.”  I thought of how I have always loved to sing church hymns.  Even as a little girl I would go around the house singing them as loudly as I could.  I walked home from school every day singing Primary songs.  I joined the Ward Choir when I was 12 and was a dedicated member until I left for college where I also joined the choirs of the various wards I was in. As a teenager when I was bored in church I would read the words of the hymns and sing the songs in my mind. The words somehow filled me with comfort and peace as well as teaching me doctrine, and they sank deeply into my soul.  By doing this I ended up memorizing many of the hymns.  When I had severe migraines I would lie in bed or sit in the hot water of a shower and sing the hymns that I had inadvertently memorized. Sometimes when it hurt too much to sing out loud I would sing the words in my mind.  I felt comfort and my Heavenly Father’s love as I focused on the words and music of the songs.  At this funeral when I had this thought about being blessed with a love for church music I instantly felt humbled and chastened.  It taught me that for some reason that this was part of my Heavenly Father’s plan for me. It also taught me that He knew me and knew about my pain and the hardship I was enduring.  It taught me that He had prepared and strengthened me to be able to endure this affliction. It also taught me to look for the ways my Heavenly Father has quietly blessed my life to deal with the difficulties and challenges that I personally face.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2000/04/finding-a-safe-harbor?lang=eng

 

Faith,Life

Making Me Something More

posted on : October 30, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

One of my favorite Bible stories is told in the New Testament of Christ feeding the 5,000.  In Luke we read that Christ had taken his apostles to the desert near the city Bethsaida and when the people heard where He was they followed Him to the desert.  He received them, spent the day teaching them, and as it says in Matthew, had great compassion on them and healed any that had need of healing.  As it got late in the day the apostles were worried and asked Christ to send the people away to find food and lodging. But Christ had something else in mind.  He asked His apostles to feed the people and the apostles replied that they only had 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, not nearly enough for 5,000 people.  Christ had them organize the people into groups and then took the bread and fish and looked to heaven, and blessed it and gave the food to the disciples to set before the multitude.  The people ate and were filled, and the remaining bread and fish filled 12 baskets.  In the Hands of the Savior miracles happen.  And just as Christ took the offered bread and fish and made them more than they were, when we offer to Christ what we have in our time, talents, and abilities He will take them and multiply them and make them more than they were.  In all of the aspects of our lives, in our own personal strivings He will take us where we are and the little we have to offer and make it more than enough, with much left over.  President Thomas S. Monson said “When we qualify ourselves by our worthiness, when we strive with faith nothing wavering to fulfill the duties appointed to us, when we seek the inspiration of the Almighty in the performance of our responsibilities, we can achieve miracles.”  The miracle in this case was the feeding of 5,000 men with their wives and children with only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.  The miracle in us happens when we come to Christ and place our lives in His hands, when we trust that He will take us as we are and make us more than we ever thought possible. The amazing thing is that there will be more to us than we started with!  This story teaches me that Christ is a God of miracles, that he is all-knowing and compassionate.  It teaches me that He can, through the redemptive powers of the atonement, take me and fit me for the kingdom of God.  It teaches me that He can take me, with all of my flaws and inabilities and make me something more.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/10/i-have-a-work-for-thee?lang=eng

Church,Family

Change Is Good and So Is Family History

posted on : October 23, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

I have decided to do just one posting a week instead of two.  Sometimes I scramble to find something I think people will be interested in reading. Obviously I don’t know as much as I thought I did!  This will also free me up to work more on my family history which has taken a backseat to the blog since I started writing it a little over a year ago.  When I was younger family history seemed a mystery to me, and expensive.  I didn’t understand the process of finding information and knowing for sure it was the right information.  It was also expensive to send away for records and there was a lot of wait time.  My church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, places a lot of value and emphasis on family, both living and dead.  We believe that all need to hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ and that those who have died without the opportunity to hear about the gospel are taught it in the next world after they die.  Since they weren’t able to receive saving ordinances while they were alive we perform the ordinances for them as proxies. They have the choice to accept the teachings or not, but we do family history to find family members who need to have their work done giving them the opportunity.  While in the past it was difficult to do family history, now it’s very easy.  Almost everything is available online and I have yet to need to send away for a record.  Since my family is second generation members of my church there’s a lot to be found and I have found many people in which I can have their ordinance work done.  I can spend hours and hours doing it, which is interesting to me because I never thought I would like doing it.  Sometimes I find so much information that I have to force myself to pull away and go to bed or eat or do necessary tasks of life. One of the things I like about it is finding personal information about a relative.  The person becomes real to me and I feel connected to them, and it’s interesting to see patterns in families that are carried out in subsequent generations.  I have had many spiritual experiences with family history, sometimes feeling like I have been guided to find certain information which had been so elusive.  Recently I have been blessed to find information about my great-grandfather who came to this country from Bulgaria in 1913.  Bulgarian records are hard to come by and we now have information that dates back to 1730, but it’s all in Bulgarian which is Cyrillic writing!  Studying this information and trying to translate it will take a lot of time. Somehow I feel driven to do it and so now I will have more time by only posting once a week. So, change is good and so is family history.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2018/04/family-history-and-temple-work-sealing-and-healing?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/generations-linked-in-love?lang=eng

Down syndrome,Faith,Lessons Learned

Imperfect Singing Is Okay

posted on : October 18, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

My daughter with Down Syndrome loves to sing.  She sings with the radio, TV shows, at church and in choirs both at church and in school.  Sometimes she even has the right tune, notes and words.  I think she loves to sing so much that sometimes the correct words or tune get in the way of expressing herself.  She truly takes joy in singing.  We are fortunate that people around her accept her singing the way it is.  She’s always welcomed into the choirs she sings in and even though her school choir teacher consistently produces  award-winning choirs, and I’m sure he cringes sometimes at her lack of blending.  At church you can hear her sometimes singing in the choir standing out on not quite the right note but the choir directors always express how much they love having her sing with them.  She especially loves to sing church music and when she sings, she sings it with her whole heart.  I think that when God hears her singing He hears her love of it, sees her joy in it and takes great pleasure in seeing one of His daughters enjoying something so thoroughly.  I think her offering is acceptable to Him even though it is not even close to being perfect.  This thought gives me hope that in the many things I’m not great at, not close to being perfect in or just sometimes lousy at doing that God sees my efforts with love and acceptance. Sometimes my efforts are pretty feeble too and I fall short of my expectations and His. Then I have to pick myself up and try harder to do and be better. Sometimes the things I fall short on are the same things I have been falling short on for years.  It’s taken me a while but I have figured out that as long as I’m honestly trying I’m doing okay.  Efforts don’t have to be perfect to be good. God loves me even with all of my imperfections and I don’t have to do things perfectly for Him to accept me. Yes, He wants me to improve and to consistently work at being better but I think I am harder on myself than He is on me.  When I don’t measure up I often beat myself up with negative self-talk.  Sometimes I tell myself that I will never get better, that I will never conquer a certain problem, and this negative self-talk is actually what keeps me from rising up and doing better.  I need to remember my daughter and her love of singing and to remember that God takes joy in my efforts even though they are not perfect.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/happiness-your-heritage?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2018/10/believe-love-do?lang=eng

Church,Faith

Fasting When It’s Difficult

posted on : October 1, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

In our church, on the first Sunday of each month, we fast for 24 hours from food.  There are two main reasons for fasting.  One is that the money we would have spent on the meals is given to the church to help those in need, and we are encouraged to be very generous with our donation.  Another reason for fasting is to learn to have our spirits in control over our bodies, because going without food for 24 hours can be very difficult.  Since I have migraines I have had difficulty in fasting.  When I don’t eat I get migraines, sometimes very severe ones, which can last for days.  They not only affect me but also my family.  I tried eating lightly to still obey the essence of the fast but I still got migraines.  One time a friend told me that she got headaches too from not eating but found that when she started and ended her fast with a prayer she did fine.  So I tried that and got a huge migraine.  Obviously what works for one person does not always work for another person.  I struggled for many years with how to fast and be obedient to the principle. I felt like I was missing out on the blessings that come from obedience, even though I felt good that we were at least doing the donation part. One day a friend suggested there are many things I could fast from besides food, which hadn’t occurred to me before.  I started thinking about this and decided I could fast from technology-no games on my phone or iPad, no reading newspapers on my laptop, no TV and no radio programs. I decided I could still do family history and my journal on my laptop, because they were not entertainment based. Basically nothing that is entertainment oriented involving technology.  I have been doing this for many years now and believe it or not, it’s very difficult to do. It’s amazing how hard it is to not get my iPad out and play a game, or to watch a TV program.  In some ways it helps me realize how much time I actually spend playing games. Because it is hard to do it is actually a fast and something that my spirit has to be in charge of.  I have to remind myself what I hope to gain from fasting, which in part is to show my love for my Savior, Jesus Christ.  I would like to say that it has gotten easier over the years but it hasn’t.  Every Fast Sunday I still struggle with the no technology fast but I think that’s what makes it a true fast.  If it was easy it wouldn’t really be a fast.  I do believe that when I make an honest effort to be obedient to a principle, especially when it’s hard, the Lord blesses me for my efforts.  As I learn to master myself I gain greater strength to help me in other areas of my life. Fasting is another example of a commandment that is really designed to bless those who follow it.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/is-not-this-the-fast-that-i-have-chosen?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2001/04/the-law-of-the-fast?lang=eng

Church,Lessons Learned

Looking For Answers

posted on : August 30, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

A friend of mine told me about a Family Home Evening lesson she did. To prepare for it she inventoried her chest freezer and made a list of hard to find items.  Then she put other food items on top of those food items on her list.  For the lesson she handed out the list of things and had her kids go look for them in the freezer.  They found a couple of the easy ones but couldn’t find most of the items.   Now she knew they were there so she told them to go look again. They came back still only finding a few of the items on the list, partly because they didn’t really want to find them.  Together they went and found everything on the list.  She compared this to searching for answers to gospel questions.  She told them that some questions are easily answered while others take perseverance and a lot of digging to find the answers and sometimes help is needed from someone with a lot of gospel experience.  Just like digging for hard to find food items in a freezer we have to more than casually look for answers to our gospel questions and we need to really want to find the answers.  For most of the questions we have, we are able to find the answers with a little effort.   Some questions though take a lot of effort, pondering and prayer.  They may take years or even a life time to find the answers and some may only be answered in the next life.  But I have found that when I find answers to my questions it strengthens my faith that the harder to find answers are there and to keep searching for them, and to accept that for some I may have to wait until the next world to receive my answers.  I have also found that when I have to work really hard for an answer that I value it more, I really appreciate the answer and sometimes I even treasure it.  In some ways I think this is part of the plan.  Our Heavenly Father knows that as we look for answers our faith grows and our knowledge increases and not always just in the arena of the questions we have.  He also knows that when we have to work hard for something, we value it more. I know the answers are there if we faithfully persevere and look for them.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/faith-is-not-by-chance-but-by-choice?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/waiting-on-the-road-to-damascus?lang=eng

Church,Lessons Learned

Ordinary People And The Good They Do

posted on : August 27, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

Many years ago I read the biography of Camilla Kimball, the wife of Spencer W. Kimball who was the President and Prophet of the LDS church.  My favorite part of the book is when it describes a date that Camilla went on to a dance with a boy she didn’t want to be with.  She made an excuse, went to the bathroom and climbed out of the bathroom window and left the dance and the boy.  I loved that story because it was such a normal teenage thing to do and it left me feeling that if she could do something so normal and turn out so great that there was hope for me. She went on to bless the lives of many people and do a lot of good in the world despite being very human. Sometimes when I see people who appear to always have been perfect it’s hard to relate to them. But when I see people who have weaknesses and who have made mistakes in their lives and they are doing great things, it gives me hope that I too can do better and be better. My husband’s current calling at church is the Stake Clerk.  He gets to work closely with the Stake Presidency and I have gotten to know them a little better than other Stake Presidencies. They are good men but in interacting with them it’s very easy to see that they are also just ordinary men who desire to serve the Lord and do their best.  They are willing to give of their time and efforts to serve others but because they are normal they also make mistakes, have their own weaknesses and are not perfect.  Sometimes people look at church leaders and complain because they make mistakes and have weaknesses and decide the church can’t possibly be true because of it.  I think it’s amazing that God can take ordinary, fallible people and use them anyway to further His work here on the earth, despite their weaknesses. It gives me hope that even with all of my problems and weaknesses, He can use an ordinary person like me to do a little good in the world too.

Faith,Lessons Learned

Migraines and Spiritual Growth

posted on : August 23, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

I have had migraines for over 40 years, some of them so severe I didn’t want to be alive anymore.  I have been to every kind of doctor, tried every cure and done everything that seemed reasonable and even tried some things that were unreasonable in trying to rid myself of this plague.  There have been moments when I thought that if all my life offered was pain, it would be better to die.  At times I have thought that I couldn’t stand anymore pain and felt desperate to end the pain but it continued on with nothing I could do.  In desperation I have cried out to God many times for relief, knowing that He is the ultimate source of relief.  Sometimes I have had an immediate answer on what I could do for relief.  One time as I stood trying to relax in the hot water of a shower I was begging God for help. Quietly the thought “get into bed and relax” came into my mind.  I turned off the water, got dressed and got into bed, relaxed, and as soon as I did my migraine was gone.  I have pondered about this occurrence many times. God easily could have taken away my migraine while I was standing in the shower, so why did I need to get into bed and relax?  In the bible there is the story of the captain of a Syrian army named Naaman who had leprosy.  He came to the prophet Elisha to cure his leprosy and Elisha told Naaman, through his servant, to wash himself in the river Jordan seven times.  Did the waters of Jordan have miraculous curing powers?  Elisha could have blessed Naaman or cured him some other way, but washing in the waters of the Jordan required Naaman to act, to do something. For miracles to happen there must be faith and faith requires action.  Just as Naaman had to act to be cured, I had to show my faith by acting.  God could have taken away my migraine in the shower but He wanted me to show my faith through my actions.  He already knew what I believe and how strongly I believed it but sometimes I need to be reminded, I needed to find out how strong my faith is.  That night as I laid there with a grateful heart for the relief from pain I was also grateful to know I have a loving Father in Heaven who hears my prayers and gives me experiences to help my faith grow.  I absolutely hate migraines but I am grateful for the spiritual growth I have had because of them.

Faith,Friendship

Good Friends

posted on : August 6, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 0 Comment

I have always been intrigued with the story about Christ found in the Bible in Mark 2:2-12.  It tells of a man in Capernaum who had palsy.  Christ was teaching in a home and it was so crowded that people spilled out of the doorway into the outer court.  The man who had palsy had 4 friends that carried him on a litter and tried to get him into the house.  They were sure that if they could get their friend into the house that Christ could heal him.  When they couldn’t get into the house because of the crowd of people, they took him up to the roof and made a hole in it and then lowered the man down through the hole to Christ.  In verse 5 it says “When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.”  Now there were scribes who were there listening to Christ teach and they “reasoned in their hearts” as the scriptures said, that only God could forgive sins and that Christ was speaking blasphemies.  Jesus knew their thoughts and in verse 8 we read that He said “Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?  But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.  And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God…”   One of the things that I like about this story is that the man with palsy had very good friends.  They obviously had great faith and were willing to do whatever it took to bring their friend to Christ and they didn’t let obstacles stop them in their quest.  So questions come to my mind: Do I help my friends come to Christ?  Am I an influence for good in the lives of others?   Sister Linda Burton, who was the Relief Society General President, asked “How can we expect to strengthen families or help others unless we first have written in our own hearts a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ and His Infinite Atonement?”  So in order to be a good friend, I must work on having a deep and abiding testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and apply the blessings of the atonement to my own life.  I can do this by increasing my own faith through obedience to the principles of the gospel.  Sister Burton also told this story: “A woman walking along a road fell into a pit so deep she could not climb out.   No matter what she did, she could not get out by herself.  The woman called for help and rejoiced when a kind passerby heard her and lowered a ladder down into the pit.  This allowed her to climb out of the pit and regain her freedom.”  She goes on to say “We are like the woman in the pit.  Sinning is like falling into the pit, and we can’t get out by ourselves.  Just as the kind passerby heard the woman’s cry for help, Heavenly Father sent his Only Begotten Son to provide the means of escape.  Jesus Christ’s atonement could be compared to lowering a ladder into the pit; it gives us the means to climb out.  But the Savior does more than lower the ladder, He comes down into the pit and makes it possible for us to use the ladder to escape.  Just as the woman in the pit had to climb up the ladder, we must repent of our sins and obey the gospel principles and ordinances to climb out of our pit and make the Atonement work in our lives.  Thus, after all we can do, the Atonement makes it possible for us to become worthy to return to Heavenly Father’s presence.”  I love this analogy, especially that Christ climbs down into the pit with us, He not only gives us the ladder but helps us climb up it. In Mosiah 18 it teaches us to “mourn with those that mourn, comfort those that need comforting and to stand as a witness of God in all times and in all things and in all places.”  It is interesting that comforting others is linked with standing as a witness of God.  Being a good friend involves both.  So other questions to ask myself are: do I do these things?  Can I do them better?  Am I like the friends of the palsied man who had such great faith that they brought him to Christ and didn’t let anything stand in their way?  I know this is the kind of friend that I would like to have and that I would like to be.  My faith in Jesus Christ is strengthened through the atonement that not only enables me to climb out of the pit but also gives me power to continue on the strait and narrow path that is enriched through good friends who help bring me to Christ.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/is-faith-in-the-atonement-of-jesus-christ-written-in-our-hearts?lang=eng