Secret Gratitude

I hate seeing people take the blessings in their lives for granted. I'm guilty of this all the time, I know. I just, I hate to see someone not realize what they have. I know that it's easy to take something you've had all your life for granted, and sometimes it takes seeing people who don't have what you do to make you realize how important those things are. Sometimes it doesn't eve click THEN, I just wish it didn't take so much for us to be grateful.

So do me a favor, think of something that you take for granted and make a decision to try to never take it for granted again. I'm going to do this too.

I'm really lucky, I mean life isn't what I want it to be, but whose life is exactly the way they want it? We don't always get what we want when we want it, but we always get something we need and probably something better. I'll admit, I have a tendency to focus on the things that I don't have. I think it's easy to get discouraged when you see others getting everything you've ever wanted and you don't, but maybe there's something else coming, something better? Maybe the secret to happiness is to just ride the wave, go with the flow, put your trust in Heavenly Father and let him steer you where you should be. Maybe that's something I haven't been doing enough. I mean it takes some effort on our part, we have to do what we can and just let the rest go. Faith is an interesting thing, it's something I've done a lot of thinking about in the past few months.

Faith is a principle of action, you have to act in order to get results. It's interesting that you have to have hope in something in order to grow faith, but from faith you gain hope. "Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things, wherefore if ye have faith, ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true."

I find the concept that we must have faith to be healed. We see this in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon and all around us even now. But it's not just from physical ailments, Christ healed the lepers and the blind, through our faith he can heal our spiritual blindness and make us clean. "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." This shows us two things, one, we have to have the faith that if we will turn over our imperfections the Lord can take them from us, it's not ever instantaneous like the leper in this story, but I know it will happen. Two, we have to turn our will over to Him.

My Mission President told us a story that Elder Bednar had told him, there was a young couple who went to Elder Bednar seeking an apostolic blessing for the husband because he had cancer. Elder Bednar interviewed the couple and he asked the man "Do you have the faith to be healed" the man said yes, he did. Elder Bednar then asked him "Do you have the faith NOT to be healed?" In other words, did he have the faith to align his will with the Lord's? The man wasn't so sure about that, so Elder Bednar told him to pray and study and once he believed he had gained that faith, he would give the man the blessing. A while later the man and his wife came back and the man said that at first he did not have the faith to not be healed, but that he had done as Elder Bednar had asked and he felt he now had the faith to be healed. Elder Bednar didn't tell our Mission President what the outcome was, but the point was made.

As I was listening to that story, I thought about all the difficulties in my life that I had prayed in the past to be taken away, to be healed. I realized that what I lacked was the faith not to be healed. I realized that I wasn't willing yet to turn my will to the Lord and want the same outcome that He wanted for me. That was a very large turning point for my mission and I've found, for my life. I've changed the way I speak with the Lord. I try harder to find out what He wants me to do. I want now, more than ever to be the person He knows I can be. I want to reach that full potential. I don't want to settle anymore. I didn't think I was settling before, but see, potential is a funny thing, with out some idea of what it is, you don't plan on going far. It's interesting that once we learn just how much the Lord loves us, we can see that potential much clearer. As we align our will with His we have the chance to see ourselves the way that He sees us. It's beautiful, it's humbling but at the same time incredibly uplifting.

Before my mission I thought I knew how much the Lord loved me, and everyone on the earth. Now I look back and I had no idea. I had no idea that that is what all of this is about, it's about how much He loves us. We have the scriptures because HE. LOVES. US. We have families because He loves us. Thousands of missionaries go around the world because we know how much He loves us. Because there are so many people who don't know. I mean, just because you don't think the same way I think, or believe the same things I believe doesn't mean you're going to hell. Nothing is that black and white.

Wow I've gotten on a tangent. I can't even remember what I started this out as!
Anyway, I'm just grateful for so much, I hope I never take that for granted.