Thoughts of an Every Day Christian

I had a recent conversation with a close friend about Faith and Fear. This person was stressing about the future and feeling worry and wondering if things would work out the way he was wanting them to. He was struggling and feeling overwhelmed. This is what I shared with him. Faith CANNOT exist where there is fear and worry. God says over and over again to "Be not afraid, only believe." and "ask in faith and it shall be given you." These phrases are repeated quite often in the scriptures.  God wants us to place our faith in Him. He has promised that when we chose Faith over Fear, then He will be with us, He will bless us, and He will answer our prayer. I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES. I ASK for Miracles. I have learned two things through my trials growing up. 1. God WANTS to bless us. 2. When I choose Faith, God takes care of me :) I want to invite you, the next time you feel overwhelmed worrying about the future, take a deep breath and ask for a Miracle. T...

I didn't write this, I got this forwarded to my email by a friend. God is Aware of Our Lives. When GOD solves our problems, we have faith in HIS abilities; When GOD doesn't solve our problems HE has faith in our abilities. God's accuracy may be observed in the hatching of eggs. . . . . -those of the canary in 14 days; -those of the barnyard hen in 21 days; -eggs of ducks and geese in 28 days; -those of the mallard in 35 days; -The eggs of the parrot and the ostrich hatch in 42 days. (Notice, they are all divisible by seven, the number of days in a week!) God's wisdom is seen in the making of an elephant. The four legs of this great beast all bend forward in the same direction. No other quadruped is so made. God planned that this animal would have a huge body, too large to live on two legs. For this reason He gave it four fulcrums so that it can rise from the ground easily. The horse rises from the ground on its two front legs fir...

I have a dear friend on a mission right now. I am always inspired by her words of faith and joy! Here are a couple thoughts form her last email. I just wanted to give you all a life tip that REALLY helped me yesterday.:) When you have a hard day, at the end of the day, write in your journal, and only write all the beautiful things of the day and all the moments when you felt God's love. It will flip the state of you heart upside down. And you will reflect on things in a totally different light. Will you do it? I promise if you do, you will look back on your day and think"wow, that day was actually incredible. Heavenly Father loves me so much.:)" Something Else that will be helpful to you* Take time to slow down, and PRAY sincerely. IF you feel bothered or upset just TELL Heavenly Father about it, don't pretend everything is fine and just thank him for a billion blessings(though being thankful is amazing) but just get it ALL out, all off your chest. Preac...

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we have been given a commandment from God to give 10% of our income back to the church as tithing. " Tithing funds are used to build churches and temples, to sustain missionary work, and to build the kingdom of God on earth." -LDS.org  So lately, I have been pretty behind on my financial obligations....BUT I have also been pretty behind on my tithing as well...So, I had to make a decision today, do I pay my tithing or do I pay my rent?... I chose to pay my tithing.  Let me tell you why. I hear a lot from people, "Well I pay my tithing because I want the blessings." This is true as we find in the scriptures. 3 Nephi 24:10  (also found in Malachi 3:10) Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be  room   enough   t...

General Conference is an event held every 6 months at the Conference Center in SLC. It is broadcast live and published in the Ensign magazine the following month. It is where Latter-Day Saints gather to hear the words of our Prophet, his apostles and certain leaders in our church. Such an inspiring weekend!! From our Prophet Thomas S. Monson : "As I make Christ the center of my life, I need not fear!" He gave us 6 Attributes to live by. 1. Be an example in word 2. Have Charity 3. Be an example in Spirit (kindness, forgiveness, good will) 4. Be an example in Faith 5. Read and Study, Pray 6. We must be pure, our body is a Temple 1st Counselor Henry B. Eyring : "When we accept the Spirit to always be with us, The Savior can teach us eternal truths." -He emphasized that we must keep strong our knowledge and hope in the Savior and Resurrection when death comes. It will give comfort to our grieving souls. 2nd Counselor Dieter F. Utchdorf: "Living the G...

Depression, Anxiety, Suicide...There are so many ideas and words attached to them. I am not going to claim I know what it is like to want to kill yourself...but..I would like to share some thoughts and ideas that have been accumulating in my head since the suicide of a very close friend just a month ago yesterday... Sigh....The day before he went through with it, he spent that evening with a group of friends (I wasn't with them that day) and from their accounts, they said he was happy. Totally fine...they had no clue. -I heard from one person, "They are happiest right before they carry through because they know the pain is about to end.." I don't know if that is true or not. So, Many people don't know this, but I was very much involved this last year of his life trying my best to be his friend and help him get through the darkness he felt. -Some days I would get a text or call from him telling me he wasn't safe. I would then proceed to call him...

My Book of Mormon teacher gave us one last assignment for the semester. We were each to pretend we were writing a letter to our posterity and family and tell them our final words. If you were gone tomorrow, what would you want your loved ones to know? This is a bit long but this is what I wrote: I have witnessed great miracles in my day, many with my family and very personal ones in my own life.  Through every trial, I have never been alone. I was not forgotten. My Savior is with me always. I testify that God’s timing is perfect, because He knows us personally and He knows what will serve us best. This semester has been a semester full of depression and ups and downs. I changed the words to a scripture a bit but this is what it says.  “ Now when my heart was depressed, and I was about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted me, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success”(...

This topic has been on my mind lately, not because I am contemplating it, but because I have had close people and friends in my life who have. Times like this, I really feel hopeless and unknowledgeable on the subject because I have never reached a point of contemplating suicide. I struggle with understanding why people reach those points and, on occasion, act on those thoughts.  I have struggled with depression on and off but I have never felt the need to think that ending my life would be the way to go. So, I have been talking to different people close to me and reading some articles from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on the subject.  The First thing that I learned is that killing yourself is still murder, because you are ending a life. Suicide is a sin. The thing is, God gave us life, and it is not our right to take away any life, that is for God to do. So, in some cases, the person who commits suicide will, to an extent, be held accountab...

I was sitting in one of my classes here at BYU Idaho and the speaker got me to thinking... He was a great speaker, but throughout his whole talk, he kept making comments such as him being ugly, or a bad speaker, or "you have to suffer through me talking..." etc. IT DROVE ME CRAZY!! If you are going to be putting yourself down like that, why are you speaking in the first place?! He was a great speaker but if he is going to reassure us from the very beginning that we have to "suffer through" him talking, of course people are going to tune out. Here is a tip: No matter how bad a speaker or how ugly you think you are...Don't apologize for it! What that does is make people tune out from the start and it totally discredits you. You are a college professor, so act like it. Even when you are not a college professor, you don't need to apologize before you say anything. It's ok not to be perfect. DISCLAIMER: He actually gave a great talk, and I learned a...

"Christ isn't the Light at the end of the tunnel, He is the Light that guides You through the tunnel." 

I was hating myself over the weekend... Just when I thought I had moved past old mistakes, they came back. I messed up again... Why Does that seem to happen to me every time I decide "NOW I am never going to do that again!!" ? I feel like I am always coming up short...I didn't want to talk to my Father in Heaven about it because I was embarrassed and ashamed that I had failed Him once again. Again, God stepped in and gave me the Miracle I needed. I went to Women's Night at Deseret Book and I won a free book from a raffle!!! The Book is called The Continuous Atonement-For Teens  by Brad Wilcox.  If you have not read it PLEASE! Go buy this book, it is very worth it. His main focus is on helping the reader understand that you are going to make mistakes. It is part of life. This is WHY Christ gave us the Atonement. Even though we are not perfect, God loves us PERFECTLY, and as long as we have a desire to be perfect and do our best, he accepts that. Here is a th...

Haha yes, this is an ice cream cone from Chick Fil a... I was completing an assignment from a personal development seminar I was attending with my two older siblings. This assignment was very hard for me because it caused some self realizations and they were not the easiest for me to admit....or move past for that matter. So I was sitting there, very close to tears to tell you the truth, and a girl walks up and tells me they made an extra cone. "Do you want this?" she asked. I smiled and replied, "YES! I would love it." To me, this was a little present from my Heavenly Father letting me know He loves me. I love little miracles in my day!

"Do I love God more than _______?" Recently I had a realization about that statment. I realized that I didn't love God as much as other things in my life. I thought back to all the times I chose to sin, or didn't do what I knew was right, and I realized that if I love God more than whatever it is, then I won't desire to sin anymore. So today I decided that I am going to LOVE GOD MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN MY LIFE! This is still going to be hard, but I really want God to know that I love Him more. This talk helped me a lot as well. He teaches about how we can come to this mighty change of heart, in order to love God more. I realize that this change of heart is a life long pursuit which is why I am going to start now, and not wait to work on this. Mighty Change of Heart-Ezra Taft Benson: 1. You must have a desire to change!!! Then you begin working on building your relationship with your Savior. -Faith in Christ -Reading scriptures -godly sorrow (reco...