An Eleven Day Journey Took Forty Years

Today I would like to add to my previous post by sharing something that struck me hard in our last stake conference. One of the counselors in our stake presidency was talking about the children of Israel and how the journey from Egypt to the promised land was only about an eleven day journey, yet it took the children of Israel forty years to get there.

I found this startling. I wonder if the children of Israel had any idea that the promised land was so closely within their grasp. I think that if they did, they would have stopped complaining, accepted what the Lord had given them, and moved forward with faith. The Lord provided so many miracles for them, yet time and time again, they complained that it was not enough, or that the Lord did not provide for them exactly what they wanted when they wanted it, in the way they wanted it. Take their food for instance. The Lord provided manna from heaven for them to eat. They did not have to work for it, he fed them freely every day, except for Sundays, for forty years. The children of Israel, however, complained. They did not like the taste of it, they lusted for meat instead of manna, and they were upset that it did not fall on Sunday. Every time God gave them a commandment, or asked them to do something, they fought him on it or complained. If they had just let go and let God lead them, they would have made it to the promised land in the eleven days and they would have saved themselves a lot of trials. They turned an eleven day trip into a forty year journey because of how they chose to react.

I think that more often than we realize, we are much like the children of Israel. I know that Sean and I have been much like them. We have been wanting to be full-time writers for 13 years now. All it took was us making tithing a priority and putting God first. We turned a short trip into a 13 year journey because of our inability to follow a simple commandment. You see, God is willing to grant us the promised land if we just do what he asks. 

I have also learned that not only is God willing to grant us the promised land, but he continually provides for us until we get there despite our disobedience. He just wants us to acknowledge him and all the miracles he is already providing on our behalf. Take the children of Israel for example. Not only did God feed them daily for forty years, but He clothed them by not allow their clothing to wear out, nor did he allow their feet to swell as they walked. He provided water from a rock and healed them if they but looked upon a staff. He was continually providing miracles for them but they were so self-centered that rather than thanking him for those blessings, they constantly murmured that they were not enough.

So here is today's advice:

• Count your blessings so you will realize what you have.

• Be grateful for what you have. God has given you more than you know.

• Evaluate your life and see if you are making an 11 day journey last 40 years.

• Try to learn the lessons God's trying to teach you so you don't have to keep wandering in the wilderness. The promised land is closer than you know.

I love reading the scriptures and applying them to my life so that I don't have to keep repeating their mistakes. That's what they were given to us for. We don't have to make the same mistakes as the children of Israel because we can read about them, see their mistakes and make better choices than they did. I am so glad for an inspired counselor who helped me understand this simple story of the children of Israel because for me, it has changed the way I look at things. It's amazing how one simple thought can make all the difference. I hope it makes a difference for you, too. :)

My Simple Testimony

It has been a month since I have last posted and I hope never again to go that long before I share my thoughts with all of you. School is out now, which means my husband, Sean is once again home for the summer. This isn't like every other summer, though. For us, it is a summer of new beginnings, which has also lead to my lack of writing.

My husband and I are both writers. This year marks our 13 year anniversary, and for those 13 years, we have had the desire to be full-time writers. We have looked into so many different ways of making this happen, but we never could find a way to support five children on such a questionable income.

Let me also explain that we have never really had a perfect testimony of tithing either. We paid tithing, but we always paid on our net income and we never made it a priority to pay it first. Often times, we would use what was allotted for tithing as our grocery money with the justification that we would just make it up with the next check. We always made it up, but never put it first.

Last December, Sean and I were both studying and pondering and separately received revelation that we needed to start making tithing a priority. I read something somewhere that said if you wanted the net blessings you should pay on your net income, but if you wanted the most blessings, you should pay on the gross. In December, we made the decision to write a check that would make up the difference between our net income and our gross income and paid it on the last day of the month. We had confidence that God would bless us for our sacrifice.

We also made the decision to put tithing first. It is the first check we write and we do not even question whether or not we should hold on to it "just in case" there won't be enough for everything else. As we continued to pay our tithing, our trust in the Lord increased and again, Sean and I both received revelation separately that he should not renew his contract as a teacher and that we should start looking for writing jobs to fulfill our desire to be full time writers.

Sean was blessed right away with a part-time job writing science and math curriculum while he was still teaching high school. Since February, he has been working both jobs in order to prepare for the transition. I, however, could not find anything. I have a BA in English, I am a published author, yet I could not find a writing job that didn't pay more than pennies a word. I began to get discouraged but kept doing all I could to trust in the Lord.

I continued to write for FamilyShare and I noticed some of my articles were very popular. I then noticed heavier traffic to my blog and I began posting more often. I began to feel the Spirit inspire me with thoughts and ideas as I thought about what to write. Writing those articles and writing on my blog is where I find joy and a greater dose of the Spirit. My only concern was that while I enjoy writing on my blog very much, it was not going to provide for my family and I had to stop and look for real work. That's why I stopped posting.

At the beginning of June, school ended. I could still find nothing by way of work, and to make matters worse, the company Sean had been working for part-time started giving him projects quoting a payment that was so low that there was no way we could ever provide for our family. Even though we had felt the Lord inspire us to move in the direction of full time writers, we had no idea how we were going to provide for our family. I began to be angry and frustrated; angry with my husband for quitting his job, even though I told him I felt the same as he did, and angry at God because we had been paying our tithing faithfully for six months without seeing the promised blessings that come from it. I felt He had abandoned and forsaken us. I began to doubt myself, wondering if what I felt was revelation was just me and not really the Spirit at all.

One of Sean's final checks came from the school and it came time to pay our tithing. It wasn't even a thought in my mind. I may have been frustrated with God, but I was not going to undo everything we had worked towards by doubting now. I paid it, believing that some day, those promised blessings would come. I have always held on to hope. It is what got me through as a child.

Three days after I paid the tithing, those blessings did come and they have changed not only the way I look at tithing, but the way I look at Heavenly Father as well. The company that Sean was writing for came back and raised the price of the projects 2 1/2 times what they were originally going to pay him. Not only will he be able to make more money than he was as a teacher, but he will be able to do it in just a few days a week and he will be able to spend the rest of the week writing the books that he wants to write.

Because we made tithing a priority, I won't have to write for money at all. I can write for me, and for you, and continue to write the things of my heart.

What I learned from this is that God has a plan for all of us. We may not understand what it is, but if we listen to the promptings of the Spirit, and keep the commandments and covenants we make with our Father in Heaven, He will not let us down. He is bound to keep His promises when we do what He asks.

So my testimony is simple and it also serves as my advice to you:

• Listen to the promptings of the Spirit and follow Him.

• Do not doubt yourself! This is Satan's way of getting you to stop doing what you ought to be doing.  

• Keep the Commandments! Do what Heavenly Father asks and you will be blessed.

• Trust Heavenly Father. He has a plan for you, and His plan is much better than yours.

I know God lives, I know He loves me, I know He watches over me and blesses me. The remarkable thing is that He doesn't just do this for me, He does this for you too! So let Him!

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.