Sunday

I was able to go to Sacrament Meeting today.  What a blessing!  I left feeling renewed physically and spiritually.  How grateful I am for the commandment to meet together oft - cause sitting in a room with that many people is not something I would naturally seek.  But I was so blessed to be renewed today.

This little light...

I have joined a new group on Facebook. It’s for local birders. They take these amazing photos of cardinals, house finches, bald eagles, local birds, and I love it! I love the color, the grace, the symmetry. There is so much beauty to admire.

Sitting here tonight, not wanting to go to sleep, fearing what the these dark hours will bring for Bella, I kept noticing this little light under her hospital bed illuminating the tube carrying the highly oxygenated and highly pressurized air to my baby girl. 

It’s not a female cardinal against a snowy background, but it’s a God send to my baby’s lungs as they attempt to recover from their lastest assault.  There is beauty everywhere if you look for it.

From my studies this week…

President J. Reuben Clark Jr. said: “I believe that our Heavenly Father wants to save every one of his children. . . . I believe that in his justice and mercy he will give us the maximum reward for our acts, give us all that he can give, and in the reverse, I believe that he will impose upon us the minimum penalty which it is possible for him to impose.”

(J. Reuben Clark Jr., in Conference Report, October 1953, 84.)

When I was a child I often had [a] toothache, and I knew that if I went to my mother she would give me something which would deaden the pain for that night and let me get to sleep. But I did not go to my mother—at least, not till the pain became very bad. . . . I did not doubt she would give me the aspirin; but I knew she would also do something else. I knew she would take me to the dentist next morning. I could not get what I wanted out of her without getting something more, which I did not want. I wanted immediate relief from pain: but I could not get it without [also going to the dentist].

Our Lord is like the dentist. . . . Dozens of people go to Him to be cured of some one particular sin which they are ashamed of . . . or which is obviously spoiling daily life. . . . Well, He will cure it all right: but He will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if you once call Him in, He will give you the full treatment. . . . “Make no mistake,” He says, “if you let Me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have [free will], and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. . . . I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect—until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with Me.”

And yet—this is the other and equally important side of it—this Helper who will, in the long run, be satisfied with nothing less than absolute perfection, will also be delighted with the first feeble, stumbling effort you make tomorrow to do the simplest duty. As a great Christian writer (George MacDonald) pointed out . . . “God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.” . . . On the one hand, God’s demand for perfection need not discourage you in the least in your present attempts to be good, or even in your present failures. Each time you fall He will pick you up again. And He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection. On the other hand, you must realize from the outset that the goal toward which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal.

(C.S. Lewis)