And the spiritual side of things..

Last night I read Mosiah 14:3, which is a quote of  Isaiah 53:3

He is ^adespised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

The phrases "we hid as it were our faces from him" and "and we esteemed him not"
kept floating around in my head.  I thought about my Savior and wondered if I was turning to Him as much as I could be, should be.  And decided I probably wasn't.  

The next morning (this morning) I read this from a group I follow on Facebook:

It was one of those days when my kids, my house, and I were all about to simultaneously explode.
It was noon, and I opened the freezer.

Reaching for the good ol’ chocolate ice cream.

Cause, hot dang, I deserved it.

And a thought came:
.
“You reached out to ice cream before you reached out to me.

Maybe you deserve ice cream..
But you really deserve Jesus.”
.
The thought didn’t fill me with guilt.
It brought relief.
And made me pause.

And as I ate my ice cream..which I also deserved.. I wondered, why is it so easy and natural to lean on other things instead of our Savior?

The power of the Savior’s atonement is not just the redemptive power of making a bad man good, but also His enabling power to make a good man better.

It is easy to think about the Savior’s atonement when we screw up.

But when we are in the thick of school or motherhood or tiredness or anxiety or life...sometimes it is easy to forget we have a source of everlasting strength waiting for us to use.

———
“Grace is not our booster engine that kicks in once our fuel supply is exhausted. Rather, it is our constant energy source. It is not the light at the end of the tunnel, but the light that moves us through the tunnel. Grace is not achieved somewhere down the road. It is received right here, right now. It is not the finishing touch, it is the finisher’s touch.” Brad Wilcox
———

Whatever you are suffering today, Christ has already suffered it.

Now he is waiting quietly by our side.
Hand outstretched.
Peace, waiting
Light, waiting
Strength, waiting

For us to reach out and grab.

Obviously, the Lord wasn't finished teaching me about that verse last night.  I am grateful that He loves me enough to send me so many messages that He is there and waiting for me to turn to Him through all of my trials.

So naturally, being a Mama, I had to share this beautiful truth with my babies!  So here is our scripture study tonight, doing our masks, eating our ice cream (Yes, I was setting them up for the feels), and then reading from the scriptures and from this devotional.  What a blessing to be a mother and be allowed to share the Gospel of Peace with my children!