Lifted

Alright here's a long winded story about a little girl named Jill. (Yes, it's me.) Let's go back to grade 9. One morning, on my way to school, my hand and leg on the left side started going numb, followed by tingling. I didn't think anything of it, until it spread to my face. I couldn't talk right, I was slurring my speech, and I was scared. Shortly after the tingling sensation, a pounding migraine set in. Little did I know that would be the first of many.

I went to the doctor, who didn't really know what was going on, so he sent me to a lot of specialists. After many appointments, MRIs, and lots of days spent in my basement, I was done. I was done emotionally, physically, and mentally. My desire to keep fighting was wavering; there wasn't an end in sight because we didn't know why they were happening in the first place. 

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland came to speak in Lethbridge, Alberta at a youth conference that spring. I don't remember much about the talks, but he left an apostolic blessing that the righteous desires of our hearts would be fulfilled. That blessing gave me a sliver of hope to hang on to, something to grasp when I just wanted to feel better. My healing wasn't immediate, but it was miraculous. I didn't change anything (I had tried but nothing was working), yet I was able to function. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, holding to that promise and holding to Christ. The migraines spread out, and the daily headache nearly vanished. I am still affected by them, but they are no longer nearly as crippling. 

If you're still reading this, props to you. I'm almost done, but I have to tell you something. God does what He says He will do, whether it be through Him or through one of His servants. His love is real, it is wonderful, and it is saving. The gospel of Jesus Christ lifts us up, and empowers us daily, whether we are struggling or are more stable at that point in time. The redeeming power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ to forgive us of our sins and mistakes is real, we can repent and He will remember them no more. The only way to find true, lasting joy is through Him. He will lift us up when we can no longer walk alone. I'm grateful for His love, and the peace He brings to me!

He Will Help Us

The best way to know if the gospel of Jesus Christ is for you is to live it as fully as possible. 

If you're struggling with anything, He will teach you through the Holy Ghost. 

If you are lost, lonely, afraid, sorrowful, hurt, angry, broken, bitter, anxious, depressed, scared, or resentful, He will help you overcome those feelings. He has felt them, and He is mindful of you this exact second. 

If you are struggling to find peace, joy, comfort, patience, love, faith, or hope, turn to Him, and He will fill you with those things as we come to Him with a humble heart and are willing to change. 

If you have a desire to change, and be forgiven of the wrongs you have done, He will help you. You haven't gone far enough that His redeeming power can no longer reach you. 

If you are struggling with your testimony, read the word of God, whether that be ancient scripture, or the words of modern day prophets. In fact, April 1st and 2nd, our prophets and apostles, who are God's humble servants and mouthpieces will speak to us live at 10 am and 2 pm. Tune in! 

If you are in the same boat as me, and struggling to know what the best plan is for you, and what paths you should take, hang on. As we strive to obey God's commandments and align our lives so our will and His will are parallel, we will be guided and He will direct our paths. We can't just sit and wait for an answer, we need to keep acting, and keep working hard. 

If you don't know if God actually cares about you or has a hand in your life, I challenge you to find a notebook or journal, and write, "Today I Saw The Hand of The Lord in My Life When:" At first, it might be one line things where you know it could not have been a coincidence, but as you keep working on this, it will become apparent how huge of a role God plays in your life. Miracles will be recorded on those pages, both small and grand, and you will gain a testimony that God cares about you, and that He knows you personally. 

I know that as we turn to Christ, and make an effort to feel after Him, and find Him, we will find He is not far from every one of us. We will be empowered by the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we will be so overwhelmed with love for Him and for the gospel, we will want to share it with everyone. It saved me, still saves me literally on a daily basis, and I know without a doubt it can change your life for the better. 

CHS Gym

Dear Cardston High School Gym,

Thank you,

Thank you for being the first place I made friends when I moved here seven years ago. I attended a basketball camp, one of many you have hosted, and met some lovely people who shared my love of the game. These people I first met there are still some of the best friends I have and I am still close to them.

Thank you for teaching me about patience. I have realized that the game takes hours upon hours upon hours of work to become better, and that it doesn't come overnight. My shot won't be 100%, but it is better than it was when I started shooting. The world right now seems to think that everything needs to come fast, or it isn't worth it, but you taught me otherwise.

Thank you for teaching me to work hard, and not just hard, but harder than everyone else. I refuse to be outworked, and part of that came from you. Sometimes that work is put in alone, and sometimes it is when Coach (whoever that might have been over the years) says, "On the end line." I have dreaded those words for years because of what was coming next, but I will miss it, because that end line has been where the success of any team I have been on has been earned.

Thank you for letting me fall, and teaching me how to get back up. I have rolled ankles, hit my head hard, and left copious amounts of skin on your floor, and I appreciate you being kind enough to let me fall. It may have hurt both of us, but now I know that regardless of what occurs in my life, I will be able to get back up, and keep fighting. I have taken my fair share of falls on the basketball court, but they haven't been in vain.

Thank you for giving my teammates and I a place to bond. I don't know how many times I have been nearly on the floor from laughing so hard, or how many buckets of sweat I have shed, or how many tears have fallen in an effort to make each other better, and be there when one of us needs the others. We have each others backs no matter what.

Thank you for letting me interrupt your quiet moments. I know they are few and far between, as you are used for many, many hours a day, but those times where it is just me are wonderful. Bounce, bounce, two feet landing and taking off again, ball released, net snapping, repeated over and over and over. There's something special about that, something therapeutic, something that makes me feel the energy that lives in you, something that makes me feel strong again.

Thank you for always being there for me. Whether it be the morning after a loss, or one of the times I felt like that was the last place I wanted to be, or when I felt broken, or when I needed to relieve some built up stress, you have always been there, steady and consistent.

Thank you for being there for my teammates. It doesn't matter if we are going through breakups, or insanely hard classes, or health problems, or tough family situations, you are always there, ready for our chaos.

I feel the same energy inside you when the gym is packed and the crowd is wild and the score is close, as I do when I walk through on the way to class. It's just part of the magic, and the spark ignites regardless of the situation. I'm going to miss being inside of you every day, as my basketball career is coming to a close.

Thank you.

God Wants to Hear From You

God wants to hear from you.

In D& C 18:10, it says, “Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.” He cares about you, he cares about your issues, he cares about the days you can’t put one foot in front of the other, he cares about the days our joys overcome us, he cares about the trials and the struggles we have, and he cares about your testimony. Why? Why would God, an Almighty Being who has created worlds without number, care about you? Because you are His child. Dieter F. Uchdorf said, “Just think of it: you are known and remembered by the most majestic, powerful, and glorious Being in the universe! You are loved by the King of infinite space and everlasting time!”

God wants to hear from you even if you don’t feel good enough. There are days where I don’t feel like I’m good enough, or smart enough, or strong enough, or kind enough, or pretty enough to accomplish what God has set in front of me to do. These days are days it is essential to hit your knees and ask God to help you overcome your weaknesses, and He will. He understands that this world can be overwhelming, as we are constantly bombarded with everything imaginable from all angles of our lives, and He is willing to help us. In fact, He wants to help us. He wants to help us see our worth, as His child, and if we turn to Him, He will allow us to understand and recognize our worth. If you don’t feel like you are good enough to talk to God, that is precisely when you need to. There is a quote from H. Burke Peterson that I love. It says, “You were preserved to come to the earth in this time for a special purpose, not just a few of you but all of you. There are things for each of you to do that no one else can do as well as you - if you will let Him, I testify that our Father in Heaven will walk with you through the journey of life and inspire you to know your special purpose here.”

God wants to hear from you when you feel joy. He wants to celebrate them with you. He wants to hear that you overcame an obstacle, no matter the size. He already knows, but He wants to hear it from you. Maybe your exquisite joy derived from a baptism, or a birth, or a marriage, or graduation, or any other monumental event, but perhaps your joy is found laughing with family after a long and stressful day, or going to visit a wonderful place, or attending the temple, or helping a friend, or sitting in a sacrament meeting. No matter the grandeur, He wants to hear about your joy. Don’t be afraid to pray because you don’t feel like you know what to say, or how to say it, or what the proper way to pray is. Those things will come as you pray more often.

God wants to hear from you when you don’t feel worthy to pray to Him. Recently, I have been studying the New Testament, and I love the parable of the prodigal son found in Luke 15. In the story, there are two sons. One remains righteous, and steadfast, while the other leaves his family, spends all his money, and returns home willing to be his father’s servant. When his dad sees him walking, he runs to him, and proceeds to prepare a large feast for him. Glen Fitzjerrell said it best, “Jesus told the story of the Prodigal Son to make a simple point: never mind what you’ve done, just come home.” The son was not expecting a feast, he was willing to be a servant for the rest of his days, he just needed a place to go. He was lost, and looking for a home, and he found one with his father again. Similarly, we can each turn to God in search of a place to go, and He will take us in and take us back. He will not forsake us. In Acts 17:27-28, it reads, “That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being...for we are also his offspring.” Sometimes, we each find ourselves feeling lost or unsure of the next path to take, or door to go through. God isn’t far from each of us, He just requires us to feel after Him, which requires trusting in Him and His plan. God still wants to hear from us even when we have made mistakes, some of which we may feel are “unforgivable.” Besides murder, or denying the Holy Ghost, that simply isn’t true. Christ suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, died on the cross, and was resurrected, sealing his mission, and atoning for our sins. He has already suffered for them; they have already been paid for. We need to humbly return to Him, and He will make us clean again. I have been the person laying in bed, staring at the ceiling all hours of the night, feeling lost and alone and, for a lack of a better word, empty. I felt that God wouldn’t want to hear from me until I had completely and totally repented of my mistakes, and overcame each of my temptations, because God is perfect, so why would He want me to speak to Him when I had so many shortcomings? I felt that God expected me to overcome all my temptations and trials on my own, and after I had done this, I could return to Him. I felt broken. I had a friend tell me that God will pour out blessings, literally opening the windows of heaven, so much so we don’t have room enough to receive them, and he also said that the amazing thing about this gospel is we get credit for trying. God will forgive us as many times as we humbly turn to Him and ask for forgiveness, He will help us heal, and He will cleanse our souls. Sometimes, we put up an umbrella through pride, or not obeying His commandments, or allowing Satan’s lies airtime in our minds, resulting in blocking the showers of blessings from heaven. I realized this was what I was doing, and that God did want to hear from me, and He did want to help me through the process of coming back to Him, because of my worth to Him as His child. I felt so much love for Him, and my Savior, and peace in my heart. This feeling is indescribable and in that moment, the suffering of both mind and spirit we have endured will be forgotten in the joy the Atonement brings. Satan and his followers would have us believe once we have sinned, God no longer wants to hear from us, and that is a lie. God wants us to return to live with Him, and He wants us to come back, because we are of great worth to Him.

God wants to hear from us when we feel broken. Those days we don’t feel like we can put one foot in front of the other without falling are crucial days to speak to God. God’s love is incredible, and it knows no bounds. It cannot break the irrevocable laws of heaven, but it is available to anyone who is remotely searching for it, no matter how lost they are or how broken they feel. God is always good, even on the really tough days. Perhaps broken is a broken heart, perhaps broken is a broken body, or perhaps broken is a mind which feels broken. In Luke 15, the Savior also teaches about the lost sheep. The shepherd will leave the ninety nine in search of the one, because of it’s worth to the Master. Dieter F. Uchdorf said, “The sheep is worthy of rescue, simply because it is loved by the Shepherd.” Maybe the one we are searching for really is lost from the group, wandering in wayward paths, but maybe the one is lost within the group, unsure of its place or role. Maybe the one is lost because it feels it has failed, and we need to find it to remind it that failure is not fatal, and it is not final. Maybe the one is lost because it feels lost in its own mind, unsure of how to go about controlling the emotions which overcome it. Whatever the case, God is searching for the one, so the rest of us probably should be to. More often than not, someone is praying for these lost sheep, begging God to bring them home. Sometimes, in order for this to happen, God needs someone who is willing to be an answer to someone else’s prayer. That’s where the ninety and nine come in. At some point, I feel the majority of us are the one, lost and broken, and looking for someone to help us, because we are unable to help ourselves at that point. Continue to press forward, continue putting one foot in front of the other, continue keeping your focus on the Savior, continue in search of God. The Atonement of Jesus Christ not only has the ability to cleanse us from sin, but to enable us to go on longer and farther than we thought possible. It can carry us when we cannot walk on our own anymore, and I am forever grateful for it.

God wants to hear from you. You are His child, you are enough, and you can do whatever God sets in front of you through the Atonement, and through praying and turning to Him.

Jeffrey R. Holland said, “No one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another. I testify that He loves each of us - insecurities, anxieties, self-image and all.” I add my testimony to his, and testify that God knows each of you, He knows your joys and sorrows, your successes and your heartbreaks, and He loves you.

Please know that God wants to hear from you.