Where Can I Turn For Peace?

Where can I turn for peace?

Where is my solace when other sources cease to make me whole?

When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice, I draw myself apart, searching my soul?

Where when my aching grows, where, when I languish, where, in my need to know, where can I run?

Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?

Who, who can understand?

He, only One.

He answers privately, reaches my reaching in my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.

Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.

Constant he is and kind, love without end.

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Life's Callings

I feel like I have had just an extremely ungrateful attitude about me lately and I need an opportunity to be humbled. When I get emotional or extremely passionate about something, I write. I have about a billion zillion different journals that have a full rainbow of emotions written inside. But it feels lately that I only write during the hard times and I don't want it to be like that. I have my trials and I learn to handle them as every day passes, but to me, regardless of what else is going on around me, my trials feel like the most important and most difficult thing going on in the world. But the reality of it is, it's not even the smallest fraction of what others are going through.

I had an interesting talk the other day with the most amazing guy in the world. He was in a lot of pain due to some health problems, it was crippling to watch him lay there in agony. But through it, he told me how at that moment in time, he had a much bigger understanding and appreciation for the pain and suffering Jesus went through for all of us. He said while at that moment, the pain he was feeling was the worst pain he's experienced in his lifetime, he knew that meant the our Savior felt that same pain for him. On top of the huge amounts of pain he suffered for everyone else too. He then asked me if I was the only one in the entire history of human kind to have ever sinned, do I think that Jesus would have suffered and died for me? If I was the only one to ever to sin, would the Savior have bled for me? Yes. He would have. He didn't suffer for the human race as a whole. He suffered for each individual person. He knows each individuals pains and sorrows and he felt that with us. He knew and knows my name and knows every trial I go through that I feel is the worst and most painful trail in the world, and he felt the same way for me. He felt it for everyone.

That being said, I am grateful for so many things I never give real credit to enough. Like the opportunities I am getting through nursing school for one. The things I learn, the patients I take care of, and the experiences of being there to improve another person's life in the little and big ways has completely shifted the way I look at the healthcare system and my future as a healthcare provider. I could not have picked a better calling in life. While there may be many other people around who go into nursing, I can whole heartedly say that this is where I belong. While I could go on for days about other things I'm extremely grateful for, just know that today especially, I appreciate everything, big and small, that I have in my life. I was dealt a far better hand in life than many people and I can never be grateful enough for it all.

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Patriarchal Blessings

My life right now isn't what you would call easy.  I know everyone goes through trials in some form or the other.  And certain people have bigger trials than others.  Well, I will have to admit, some of the trials I have been dealt are pretty up there in difficulty.  Some days are harder than others.  There are times that I feel like I have no where to go and no solution to any of the problems I have to deal with.  It can be so overwhelming that I don't even know where to start.  And for me, that is where the gospel HAS to come in. 

I don't think I realize how important and necessary the gospel is to my life until I am forced to turn to it in times like now.  When people tell you to pray, for me, sometimes it is really frustrating.  I don't always want that answer, I'm the kind of person that would just like my answers written out in plain English.  A prayer takes time, effort, patience, faith, and complete trust in the Lord.  While I like to think I have some of those attributes, I know I am lacking in some of those also.  However, the best part about the gospel is that the Lord knows us so well.  And He definitely knows I am an impatient person.  While I think He likes to push me to my limit sometimes, He also knows when enough is enough and when I need a lifeline thrown out to me.  Tonight was one of those nights. 

I was sitting at work, bored as ever, thinking about everything going on in my life.  When I have lots of extra time on my hands to think, that's when I start to really freak out about the situation I have in my hands.  I was worried, scared about all the things I have to face ahead.  Well, I was cleaning out my room yesterday (still unpacking from moving back home) and I came across my patriarchal blessing.  It was in an envelope that I have not opened in many years. I didn't read it right then, I just put it in my purse. At work tonight, I remembered I had put it in there and decided to pull it out and give it a little look.  

It's incredible the things you find when it's inspired by the Lord.  Call me crazy, maybe it was coincidence that I found and decided to read my blessing now when it's been so many years since I even glanced at it.  But I don't think so.  I think this was my lifeline I needed.  I think the Lord has finally said, "Okay.  You understand the things that I needed you to realize.  Now I will give you a little string of hope to help you through it all."  Did reading my blessing finally answer all my questions and solve all of my fears I was feeling?  Of course not.  I wish, but no.  What it more was, was a punch in the gut, a slap in the face, a major wake up call.  It was my way of being told, "Hello! Here are these blessing I have given you.  Blessing that not everyone gets, just you.  You specifically.  And I gave you the most important blessing you need for what is going on with you right now! Why the heck aren't you using it?"  

I have had two huge questions on my mind lately.  Two huge, life changing questions.  Reading that blessing completely answered one of them.  Easy.  Done and done.  And the other?  I now know that I do not need to worry or focus any more energy or pain over this question.  Will it get solved?  Yes.  Do I have some homework to do for this one?  Yes.  But do I need to strain myself over it, heck no.  What an amazing, successful night tonight was.  I don't know how people who are not a part of the gospel get things done.  Any time I forget to use the gospel as my resource, I get nowhere.  I go in circles and circles and freak out more than I need to until the Lord throws me that little lifeline.  If I weren't able to recognize and appreciate that help from Him, I don't know where I would be.  Probably still in the same problems all the time because they would not be solved to any kind of satisfaction. 

I love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints so much.  I know I am so terrible at telling my non member friends how important this gospel is to me.  I am terrible at telling my member friends also for that matter.  I think it can be easy to just fall into the motion of life and forget about the important things.  But when all is said and done, I know when I go to bed every night that I have the Lord on my side in everything I do.  When I feel like I am all alone in handling my problems and decisions of life and that I have no where to look for an answer, that I can get that answer by relying on the gospel.  So many times before when I have thought there is no hope left, I get that little glimmer of hope back from something that happens at church, through reading scriptures, or even just the kindness and service of the members of church.  I am so happy and so proud to be a member of the LDS church and I know it's something that will be a part of my life forever.  Without it, I would not be the person I am today, which although I have many faults, many more than most people I am sure, I know I can be proud of who I am and the things I do in my life thanks to the gospel showing me the example and leading the way for me.  :)

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Heavenly Father,

Are you really there? And do you hear and answer every childs prayer? Some say that heaven is far away... But I feel it closer everytime I pray.

Heavenly Father,

I remember now. Something that Jesus told disciples long ago. "Suffer the children to come to me." Father, in prayer I'm coming now to thee.

Pray, he is there. Speak, he is listening. You are his child. His love now surrounds you. He hears your prayers. He loves the children. Of such is the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven.

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