The War in Heaven and the Two Plans

I always try to make it a priority to keep God's Spirit in our home, and I generally start by doing all I can to keep His Spirit in my own heart. For the past week or so, however, I have been struggling with this. It would seem that every time I think I am doing great, and I can feel God's Spirit, a negative thought will pop into my head and I will focus on it so much, that there will no longer be room for Heavenly Father's Spirit to stay with me, and I will be left with anger, frustration, and doubt.

I was thinking about it this morning, wondering why it is that I have to work really hard and make a conscience effort to feel Heavenly Father's Spirit, but with absolutely no effort at all, Satan's spirit can show up out of the blue, forcing his way into my thoughts and my heart, lingering for hours and ruining my entire day. I realized that it all comes down to the war in Heaven and the two plans that were presented.

You see, before we came here, when we all lived in Heaven, God presented a plan that involved us coming to Earth, gaining a body, and learning how to make good choices using our gift of agency, but some of us would choose wrong, and not all of us would return. Lucifer also had a plan. His plan was to force everyone to make good choices, therefore guaranteeing we would all make it back to God, but Lucifer wanted the glory for it. Well, we all know what happened. Christ volunteered to carry out God's plan and to give the glory to God. There was a war in Heaven, and Lucifer was cast down to Earth along with one third of the hosts of Heaven and became Satan. He is now here to torment man, and he is doing it daily, using the plan he wanted.

Satan's plan is a plan of force. He forces himself into our homes through media and music lyrics, he forces his way into our thoughts with negativity and complaining, and he forces his way into our hearts with judgments on one another, with self doubt, and with unbelief. He doesn't have to be asked, he will just show up, and with a little entertaining on our part, he will become a full-fledged member of our day to day life. 

Christ, however, is carrying-out God's plan. Therefore, He will never force His way in. He will never enter where He is not invited, He will never come where He is not welcome. His is a plan of agency, and we must choose to let Him in if we want Him to be a part of our daily life. It requires work, and effort, and most of all, it requires us to make a conscience choice to allow Him into our thoughts, our hearts, and our homes. 

In the Old Testament, Joshua said, "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15). We must make the choice to serve the Lord, because if we do not make the choice to serve the Lord, then we will be subject to Satan's plan which is a plan of force. Whether we choose it or not, he will force his way into our lives and the lives of our children, and he will never let go. So today, I am taking a stand. I understand now that each day, I must make a choice. I must choose to use my agency and serve the Lord, because if I do not, Satan will try to take my agency from me. Today and everyday I stand with Joshua and I boldly declare, "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." 

Welcome and Thank-you!

I have been fascinated for some time now with the amount of people who have been visiting my blog, and from the different countries that those people represent. To all of you who are visiting, I say Welcome and Thank-you. I hope to make this a place where everyone feels welcome and important. I want you to feel comfortable visiting and commenting. You are the reason I write, you are the reason I share, and you are the reason I want to keep sharing.

Isn't it amazing to know that we are all connected? To realize that someone from India, or Russia, or Australia, or France, or any number of other countries can be reading this right now and we can understand one another and feel connected when we live so far apart. To recognize that God is the God of all of us that He understands my prayers and your prayers and a child's prayer, and that they are all precious and important to Him. To know that we are living under the same sky, that we bask in the same sun, that we sleep under the same stars, and that we share the same Earth. It is amazing, really, to realize just how close we are to one another and how connected we can be.

This month has been jam-packed with so many things that I have had little time for writing on my blog. But we are nearing the end of school, and I am hoping to post more regularly come June and share those things that I learn along the way. If there is anything you would like to discuss, any questions you would like to ask, any topic you would like me to write about, please leave a comment and I will do my very best to respond. I am looking forward to more opportunities to write and more chances to hear from you, my readers. Thanks again for all you do. You truly bless my life each time you click on my blog to read it. Have a wonderful day, and please come back, again and again. :)

Our Thoughts Define Our Journey

I have to admit, it has been a few months since I have been out walking. It's not that I don't like to exercise, it's that I despise walking in the cold of the winter. Now that the weather is changing, though, I was excited to get back into the groove of things. My kids generally come with me on my walks, and they ride their scooters while I walk with a friend. Most of my children enjoy the experience, but I have one who hates it, no matter what the weather is. It is about a four mile walk, and I can understand that the length of the walk can seem overwhelming for a young child, but he is one of my older children, and I figure that if my 5, 6, and 7 year old aren't complaining, and they are girls, then he should be okay too. I told him we would be walking again and gave him plenty of time to process that it was coming, but for days, he was whining and complaining that I was asking him to do such a hard thing. 

The morning of the walk came, and I knew it would be a fight. He was dragging his feet, making the morning miserable for everyone as we tried to prepare for our 8:00 AM departure, pointing out every negative thing he could think of about the walk. I said a quick prayer that I would be able to help him understand the importance of attitude, hoping Heavenly Father would give me the answers. The answer came as soon as I finished my prayer. From outside my window, I heard the birds whistling their happy tune as they prepared for their day, building their nests and foraging for their food.

Immediately, I stopped my son and told him to listen. The bird song came in loud and glorious. I explained to him that the birds don't have all of the luxuries we have. They fly south every winter (they don't have a car to take them there) and then they fly back every spring. Once they get here, they don't even have a home, they have to gather the things to build their home, then build their home themselves. Every morning, they have to get up early to go out and look for their food in order to take care of their babies and make sure their babies are protected from predators. They don't have an easy life, and yet every morning, you can hear them singing. They are singing because they are happy, happy that they are alive, happy that there is sunshine, and happy that they are together. They never complain and they never give up, because if they did, they would never survive.

I then asked my son to look around him when we were on the walk and think of all the things he was grateful for, all the things that brought him joy and made his heart want to sing. The walk was a different walk for him today. He was smiling, and joyful. When we came home, I asked him how the walk was. He said, "Well, I didn't complain." I asked him if he felt happy. He said, "I did, and I think I want to do it again tomorrow." 

I thought about his answer, "I didn't complain," and  it made me think about the scripture stories. There are so many stories in the scriptures where wickedness and destruction first began with murmuring. Remember the children of Israel? They were given so many miracles but when they started to complain, the Spirit could no longer comfort them because they no longer left room for Him to comfort them. Once we begin to complain, we lose the ability to feel the Spirit, and once we lose the ability to feel the Spirit, so many greater sins can creep in until we are consumed by them. I am pretty sure that is why we are told time and time again that our thoughts will define us. They really will.

It wasn't just a lesson for my son this morning, it was a lesson for me too, and all of us. There is power in positive thinking, but there is power in negative thinking too. The question is, who are you going to give the power to? Who are you going to let define your journey? My son had a joyful walk today because he let the Spirit in simply by not complaining. We can all do the same. If our thoughts really do define us, then I choose to be happy. :) 

Facing the Light

Last week for home-school, my son finished reading the book on space that he had been reading me, and he decided that wanted to tackle , The World History of Geography next. I was game, so we began. Generally when my children read to me, the information is nothing new for me, I'm not saying I'm a know it all, but my kids are all still elementary age, and I know some things. The book began by explaining how the Earth worked, the location of the planets, and how the seasons came to be based on the way the Earth tilted towards the sun. It was interesting, but nothing I hadn't heard before.

The book then explained day and night. Here is where things got interesting. The book explained that the Earth rotated around the sun. Well, of course I knew that, there was no new information there, so I am not sure why this next part was such an Aha moment for me, but it was. The book then explained that most people believe that the sun rises in the morning and it sets at night..... yes, I believe that..... but this is all an allusion......What? Because the sun always stays in one place and the Earth rotates around it, the sun does not rise and set, but sunrise comes when the Earth turns to "face" the sun, and night comes when the Earth "begins to turn away" from it.

When I read those lines, instantly I got chills. There was an amazing spiritual lesson in that geography book. My whole life, I had always thought that the sun rises and sets, but it is not true at all. The light comes when the Earth turns to face the sun, and the darkness comes when the Earth turns away. If we applied that to our own life, we can learn a great lesson. The light comes when we face the Son and the darkness comes when we turn away. It is really that simple. We are told in scripture that there is a type and shadow of Christ in all things. Even in the creation of the Earth, God has shown us who is at the center, what we must do to obtain the light, and what happens if we turn away.

How incredible it is to recognize God's handiwork and understand His love for us and for all His children. I hope that when we are in darkness, we remember that all we have to do is to face Him, and He will bring us light. He will shine the warmth of the morning sun upon our face and His light will dispel the darkness. We all have trials, and we will all at one time or other have to walk in darkness. It is part of our testing here on Earth, but I hope that, just as the Earth turns every morning to face the sun, that we will be just as reliable. When we are in darkness, may we always and forever turn to face God's Son so that we too may see the beautiful light of the morning.

Workways With the Wind

This past week was my birthday, and for my birthday, I wanted to fly kites with my family. Although the weather was a little more windy than usual, I was excited that there was wind to make our kites take flight. Because of the wind, our kites caught hold immediately, and they were off, soaring through the air, dancing upon the wind. They were beautiful and majestic to behold. It gave me a desire to dance on the wind myself.

The trouble my children had, though, is that instead of keeping their kites workways with the wind, they kept trying to force them to fly against the wind, at which time, the kites would promptly and unapologetically fall to the ground with such force that it would almost destroy the frame of the kites. They would then run to the kites without winding their string and, as the wind continued to blow, they would yell at the wind blaming it for their tangled mess.

As I patiently sat untangling kite string, listening to one of my older children blame the wind for all of his troubles, I started to think about the irony of it. We needed the wind that day in order to have the joy in seeing our kites soar high into the sky, yet when things got hard, it was the very thing that was blamed for all the problems. My children wanted the wind, yet they hated it at the same time.

I think that we are sometimes like this in our everyday lives. Often times, when hard things come into our lives, we see them as burdens and we "curse the wind" so to speak. But if we took a minute to understand the value of the wind in our lives, and learn to move workways with the wind, rather than fighting against it, we just might find joy in the journey. Not only will we be able to use the wind to carry us, but it may even give us flight and carry us to a place higher than we ever dreamed we could go.

Let me give an example. My childhood was not easy. Often times I wondered why God would place me in such difficult circumstances. After my mission president helped me see my mother differently, I learned to work with the trials I had been given and they have literally taken me to a place higher than I ever dreamed possible. I have been able to publish a book and become a motivational speaker to hundreds and thousands of people to help them learn the importance of love, trust and forgiveness, and hopefully help them see the value of the wind in their own lives.

So the next time you are flying a kite, and watching it dance upon the wind, remember the importance of the wind, and take joy in it. God has sent it just for you so that you can learn to dance upon the wind too.

You Really Can Move Mountains... One Dirt Clump at a Time

I have always been told that I can move mountains if I just believed hard enough, but no matter how hard I try, I can never quite get my Jedi mind skills to work when those big mountains come into view. I feel that I "believe" and yet, I can't seem to pick up an entire mountain and move it out of my way as if I were Moses parting the Red Sea. I'm not saying that it can't happen, it obviously happened for Moses, but I have been pondering lately on exactly how this phenomenon can happen for me.

In all my pondering, I have come to this conclusion, I really can move mountains in my life, but rather than moving them all at once, I must move my mountains one dirt clump at a time. Let me explain. When I was a young mother, I would look into the eyes of my young children and think to myself, how am I going to teach you everything you are going to need to know to get you through such a difficult world ahead of you? I was scared at the thought of climbing that mountain and of taking my children with me, for fear that we would all fall because I would fail miserably. In reality, though, I don't have to climb the mountain, I can remove it one dirt clump at a time until the mountain is no longer obstructing my view.

How do we move the mountain? It begins with a change of attitude. Instead of looking at the mountain as a whole, look at it piece by piece, and it becomes more manageable. Each lesson I teach my child is a dirt clump I remove from the mountain that is blocking my path. We teach our children one lesson at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time. Each of those defining moments chisel away at the mountains that we fear are blocking our progression. We don't have to move everything all at once, it comes one step at a time.

Another example is how I have been able to lose nearly 80 pounds. I have always been over weight. It has always been a challenge and I never thought I would ever move this mountain from my view. It happened though, one choice at a time. Each day, each meal, each moment I put something into my mouth, I had to ask myself if I was nourishing my body or sabotaging my goals (was I moving my mountain or was I helping to build it bigger)? Each choice we make can either remove our obstacles or aid in the obstacle becoming bigger. It is all dependent on the choices we make in the moments we make them.

So the next time a mountain blocks your view and you find yourself stuck, unable to move forward, don't get discouraged. Stop telling yourself there is nothing you can do because, after all, you can't move mountains. Change your attitude and you will change your life. Life happens in moments and what you choose to do with those moments that you've been given. Believe in yourself. You really can move mountains, one dirt clump at a time. :)

Chocolate and Other No No's......

It has been a particularly difficult few days for me, and last night, after things finally quieted down, I went to my bedroom closet, reached into my stockpile of chocolate (not just any chocolate, Costco toffee, my very most favorite, and the only kind of chocolate I hide from my children) and shaking like some kind of drug addict, I took a piece and placed it in my mouth. Immediately, I felt calmer as if eating the chocolate somehow took away all the stress I had been feeling and made it magically disappear. My husband, watching the act, started laughing. I immediately defended myself by explaining that my actions were perfectly acceptable because I was pretty sure God made chocolate just for me because he knew that alcohol was against the Word of Wisdom. There was more laughter, the comment that I ought to get that put on a T-shirt, a good-night kiss and he was off to sleep, but I was not.

As I lay in bed with my mind wandering, I began to think about that piece of chocolate and how important it is to me each night after a long hard day. I only ever eat just one, but it gives me something to look forward to. You see, over the past year, I have been working hard to lose weight. I have lost nearly 80 pounds in that year, and, yes, I have still lost the weight by eating my one piece of chocolate. 

It then lead me to think about this in comparison to our children (if you're wondering if I ever got to sleep, I eventually did, but it took a while). Anyway, in losing the weight, our whole family has been learning to eat healthy. It is a lifestyle change and we are all open to it. The thing that makes us open to it, though, is that we still allow our children those things that are considered no no's in this type of lifestyle. We don't give it to them all the time, they get it once a week. We do our best to eat really well most days of the week, but every Friday and Sunday mornings, the kids get sugared cereal for breakfast, and every Friday night is our pizza and movie night. We order pizza, get snacks (candy is involved) and we watch a movie together as a family. My kids have no problem sticking to the healthier things during the week, because they know that come Friday, they are going to have a really fun day, and I am not going to lie to you, Friday is their favorite day of the week!

So here is the lesson I learned in all of this, it is okay that you aren't perfect in everything. So what if you allow your children computer time once in a while when people say they should be outside. So what if you feed them pizza for dinner when the neighbors look on in horror. So what if you buy a wagon full of girl scout cookies and hide them in your closet (okay, I didn't do it, but I was tempted. Moderation, of course, is still important in all things). It's okay to participate in the pleasures of life once in awhile and to allow your children to participate in them as well (as long as they are not against the law or against the Word of Wisdom. I am not condoning sin here). I am simply saying that you can still lose weight by eating chocolate.