Expedient, Faith, Power

Hello my lovelies.
I gave a talk this Sunday. I can’t copy and paste the text because I have been trying to be more like a High Councilman and come prepared, but let the spirit talk through me instead of reading all the clever little things I had written down. So I went in there with just a few notes, scriptures, and a lot of prayer. I wanted to share some of it with you though, because this talk… I feel like it encapsulates this pivotal moment in my Eternal Progression.
The verse that the Bishop assigned me was Moroni 7:33, which reads:
And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me.
Now, go back and read it again. Done? Okay.
This verse has three key words that I will touch on today. The first is Expedient, the second is Faith, and the third is Power.
Expedient is used several times in the scriptures. Now, I need you to open up another window and read the following verses on LDS.org or get out your scriptures and do it old school, D&C 88:63-65, D&C 18:18, and D&C 122: 6-9. Go ahead, I’ll wait, and you may want to mark them.
Yes, I know the word expedient wasn’t in that last one, but the definition was, in a way. You see something that is expedient, as defined in the dictionary, is something that is useful in bringing about a desired result.
Now, what is God’s desired result for us? My 9 year old knew that right away, go read Moses 1:39. The entire purpose of God’s existence is his children, to bring about our immortality, but more importantly, most importantly, our Eternal Life.
God’s purpose is not to see us all live in mansions, it is not to make sure that we never go hungry, it is not to protect us from hardship or sorrow. He sees that our trials are EXPEDIENT.
I want you to do something for me (I made the congregation close their eyes, but obviously in print you can’t do that). I want you to picture the thing in life you fear the most, be it death, or deprivation, be it losing your kids, or living in the streets, whatever your personal hell-on-earth is, you picture that.
Now, the worst has happened. Is God still with you? Does God still love you? Is his hand still outstretched for you?
Yes.
Then what are you afraid of?
Let’s talk about Faith. We all know that miracles are brought about by faith. Right? Christianity 101 there, faith precedes the miracle; Christ didn’t do miracles that he didn’t connect with the faith of the recipients. This leads us to ask ourselves, “What miracles am I denying myself by my lack of faith? If I had more faith, if I was better at having faith, would I have more miracles?”
And that is where we go wrong.
You see Christ does not expect our faith to be perfect. He expects us to grow our faith, constantly improve it, but he knows it is a process (if you have any questions about how this process works, go read Alma 32.) The thing is though, he is so anxious to bless us, he loves us so much, he will do as much as he can to meet us, to “reach our reaching.” In Mark 9 there was that boy who was taken by an unclean spirit, and his father asked Jesus to heal him. Jesus asked about the father’s faith and he said, “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.”
Help thou my unbelief, I cannot tell you how many times I have said the same words in the last few months. I can tell you that as much faith as you have, if you will extend it, and sometimes you have to extend ALL of it, but if you will extend it, it will be enough, he will make up the difference.
Now let’s look at 1 Peter 1:7, done reading? Good. So here our faith is likened to gold and he spells out that it has to be refined. Refining gold is an incredibly harsh process. Google it, you’ll see, repetitive heat, acid washes, beatings. Well, that’s what your faith has to go through, because it is expedient.
I know, it sounds scary, but that leads us to my favorite part.
If we have faith we will have the Power to do whatsoever is expedient.
Knowing what is expedient in your life is hard. I mean, is this a trial we can dance around, avoid? Or does God need us to go through it? It’s a highly individual, personal question every time, and it always has been.
When Jacob faced Esau, after all those years, it was personal, and Jacob’s prayer for help was answered in the most powerful, personal way. When Moses faced Pharaoh, it was personal, he had personally rejected this man whom he had grown up with. When David faced Goliath, it was personal, it was individual, but he had the power of God’s promises and commandments and his faith in the expediency of his actions.
That power through faith was with Daniel in the lion’s den. It was with Micah, Jeremiah, and Lehi as they cried repentance. Things didn’t go all skipping through daisies for them either, but that’s okay, because it was expedient for them.
The apostles found it was expedient to cast out devils and heal people, and through the proper application of faith they had the power. Stephen was transfigured and stood with great power before the Sanhedrin. Nephi faced Laban, but more difficult and more personal, he faced Laman and Lemuel again and again with faith and power, and through that he accomplished the expedient, he crossed an ocean, he lead his people in righteousness.
By that power of faith Ammon preached to Lamoni, who had a nasty habit of killing people. And Alma, oh beloved Alma, Alma the Elder, who cried to the Lord over his wayward son, he had such faith too. When his son was carried into him, when his son laid in basically a coma for three days, he rejoiced inside, because he could see, where most of us would not, that this was expedient. His faith gave him power and peace to get through that.
Now, I want you to read 2 Timothy 1:7.
This verse means so much to me, because a dear friend quoted it to me at a moment when I needed it so very, very much. I wrote it on my hand, in permanent ink, and I kept refreshing it until it had sunk into my soul. Power, love, a sound mind, those are the gifts of the spirit that are available to us through our faith during times of trial. Those are the things we have access to if we refuse to allow Satan to cloud our minds with fear. Those are the things that are just a moment away.
Reach for them. Extend your hand into the darkness and I promise you that God’s hand is right there ready to grasp yours, because he has been reaching for you the whole time. I know he is, because he loves you like he loves me, and he has reached my reaching and performed a million miracles for me. For this I will be eternally thankful and love him all the more every day.
In the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

This Strange New World

I'm sitting here in my little nook at the library, listening to Scott McLean crooning "Time" in one ear while the cars on main street play a different kind of melody in the other ear.
I would be writing, I'm nine thousand words into the book I started on November 27th, (code named mmmm) but the errands between shifts took too long today, so here I sit, piddling on the Internet because there isn't enough time to really write.
It's a strange sort of existence I live these days. I get the kids on the bus early, really early, then tidy up the house, maybe throw the ball for the dog. I head in to work, run errands, work some more, get the kids, feed them, and fall into bed earlier than any grown woman likes to admit. I come to the library every chance I get, check the emails and networking sites, miss friends I never get to chat with anymore.
The librarians are getting to know the kids quite well. There is an ever growing tower of books and DVDs on the counter at home of things we need to return. Tali is reading two at once I think, either that or she has given up on one and I need to find it. James goes through them like water. He waited over a week for the latest "Wimpy Kid" and had it done in a day. He must be related to me or something. Jordan is less happy with the library, but she is just getting her reading fluency up, someday, someday.
I'm still waiting for one of them to fall in love with Potter.
Every few days something happens to churn up the waters again, and I deal with it, or just let God handle it if I can't do much about it.
It's hard, but it isn't, and I haven't really thought about it enough to put it eloquently I'm afraid. It's like I'm one step away from survival mode at all times, and yet have been blessed with an extraordinary amount of peace and other forms of God-sent aid.
The generosity has been staggering, but it isn't the generosity or the deprivation that has forced me to learn about humility. No, what I am learning from is the walking in the dark.
I don't know my next step, and it is terrifying not to have at least that much pinned down or plotted out. I do know one thing though, there is this little pin prick of light at the end of the tunnel, and God would not shine that light at me if I wasn't supposed to go towards it. So I'm not going to worry about what dangers lay at each side. I'm just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other and trust. Every time my foot lands on solid ground I am thankful, and often a little surprised. This is the scariest thing I've ever done, but I trust the one who laid my path, so I'm going to keep walking it.
My love to you all. I am so sorry that I am not there for my internet friends like I used to be. I miss listening, I miss helping from afar.
Hugs,
Thora

Nothing to say

I'm sitting here at the library. The kids are lost in the children's section. I may have to send a search party soon. I have Internet, I have my laptop, and I have nothing to say.
Well... nothing positive anyway, nothing worthy of saying. I could say a lot of things about a certain someone who takes delight in hurting me and, even worse, hurting the kids. I won't say them though because there is no point in putting more darkness out in the world... and besides he is having me blog stalked. (Ludicrous I know! Oh the things he can talk people into, lol.)
So I sit here biting my tongue, wishing I had something of value to contribute to the world, wishing... wishing oh so many many things... but I suppose I shall be content that right now, this one small instant, my children are not fighting each other, they are not fighting me, and that the house at home is reasonably clean so I can just spend time with the kids today.
They really are my favorite people in the whole wide world.

My Theory on Dinosaurs

The other night the kids at work were all about dinosaurs… well really all about debating if a T-rex and a komodo dragon of the same size got into it which would win… but I digress. I got out the big book on dinosaurs and we spent some time going through the pages looking at different dinosaurs. Feathered and scaled, plated and spiked, long long claws that weren’t at all sharp, the book kept relaying that “scientists think” that this was how such and such dinosaur used its various body parts, though they can’t be sure.
I was thinking about that afterward and had to wonder… were dinosaurs like spirit pre-school for us? Maybe that’s why dinosaurs are such a fascinating thing for little ones… because they remember them from before.
I have this picture in my mind of sitting down with Heavenly Father one afternoon and making a dinosaur together.
“Okay, Thora, what kind of dinosaur do you want to make today?” He asks as he pulls me up on His knee.
“A big one!” I say.
“A big one, as big as your brother’s T-Rex?” He asks with a grin.
“No, much, much bigger!” I tell Him.
“Oh double-much bigger, like this?” He asks.
“Yeah!”
“Okay, now what should your dinosaur look like?”
“Umm… a long long tail and a long long neck,” I say in that cute little girl voice of mine.
“Long tail, long neck, anything else?” He asks forming my dinosaur before my eyes.
“Put the nose on top of the head!”
“On top of the head? But why?” He asks with a laugh.
“So when it goes swimming it can always breathe,” I say matter of factly.
He twists His mouth to the side and looks at the dinosaur we have formed, “Well we have a problem there, Thora. If we make it as big as this, for it to go under water it would go very deep, and the water pressure would make it impossible for it to breath, even with the nose up on top.”
“Oh,” I say disappointedly.
“So do you want the size, or the nose on top?” He asks after I have had a moment to consider.
“Just tell it not to go swimming,” I decide.
“Okay, are we leaving the nose on top then?” He asks me.
“Yeah, it looks cute like that,” I say, and of course, because I designed it and we made it together, my loving Heavenly Father leaves my dinosaur that way and thinks it looks cute too.
Of course I know this is insane speculation and merely a flight of fancy, but still… something in this rings true, if only the fact that Heavenly Father once, or a million times, took time for just Him and me, because He loves me, and He’s a good Dad like that. And really, what else matters?

The Mountain

This will be a little hard to enter from my phone... but what better thing is there to do when you are sick at home on The Sabbath?

THE MOUNTAIN

I came unto a mountain on the straight and narrow way
And thought the Lord would move it, for it did block my way.
I raised my voice on high and when my prayer was through,
Beheld the mountain with a sigh, and knew not what to do.

Perhaps if not to remove it, He wanted me to find,
A way around this mountain, a shortcut to behind.
Up to the foot I walked and looked far left and right,
But found the paths fraught with perils that by now I knew at sight.

There was no going around it, and no whisking it away,
So I started to climb that mountain a little bit each day.
At first I slipped with every step for the path was buried in sand,
But when I sunk my feet down to the bedrock I was sure enough to stand.

Once upon the slopes I could no longer judge or see
How much further up the mountain that was taxing all of me.
Still I knew from trials past, that all trials have an end,
And every trial brings me closer to the Friend at journey's end.

I came unto a place where the path was all hemmed in
By rugged walls unrelenting, a strait way very thin.
I grumbled all the way through it, how narrow was the way,
How a person needed more elbow room, or at least a little say!

Then I looked back and learned, to my gratitude and shame,
While I bemoaned the boundaries, they protected me all the same.
For steeps and slides and dangers did lie on every side,
And the horrors of those dangers those sturdy walls did hide.

So now I trust this path, and up this mountain climb.
I begrudge it not the steepness or the lengthiness of time.
I just climb each day, placing foot, over foot, over hand,
And I've begun to wonder what happens when at the peak I stand.

Do I find a great plateau, or perhaps a downward slide?
Will I find another mountain, to test her already tried?
Do I slide freely down the other side, a brief thrill after my long try,
Or feet planted on the pinnacle, will I mount up and fly?

On Loving Yourself

This is more a vent than anything because today I decided why the standard, much passed about affirmations irritate me so much.

It isn't about loving yourself. It's not. True self worth is about getting a single glimpse of how and why God loves you. If you can even begin to understand that... if you can grasp just the tiniest particle of that knowledge then you will never need affirmations. You will have self esteem because you will feel your worth. You will have strength in ways you cannot imagine. You will love others with a depth you cannot describe and never would have thought possible.

Stop thinking you can do things to change the way God loves you. Start seeing that your choices can hurt him and prevent him from being able to bless you but they will never make him stop loving you. You are his child. He is a perfect parent and will love you infinitely deeply no matter where your choices take you or how far you push yourself away from Him. He will always ache to hold you, to comfort you, to save you, BECAUSE YOU ARE HIS!

I wish more people understood that. I wish more people got how little it matters what you look like or have accomplished or how many talents you think you have.

If you take a thousand dollars worth of gold and wrap it in burlap, is it worth less? NO! If you bury it is it worth less? NO! If you take it and shape it and make it pleasing to the eye or useful then, yes, it is prettier or more useful and brings pleasure to the owner... but the core value does not change. It is still a thousand dollars in gold.

You are so much more valuable than gold. You have immense value in just existing. Every good work pleases God and you are of such good use to him every day... but it doesn't change your worth. He would still move the world to save you. He loves you that much.

Stop doubting Him. Stop trying to make excuses for why you have less value and let the Master Craftsman, who knows your value and potential, make something of you.

My Patronus

You know, sometimes I think I know everything about Harry Potter, and then other times life sets me straight and I realize I have only scratched the surface.

Take the Patronus, for instance. Everyone knows that a Patronus is a being of light, created by a spell (Expecto Patronum!) and fuel by holding onto a happy thought.

Many people, fans like me, also know that this spell is close to Rowling's heart, as she herself has death with depression in the past.

Earlier today it kind of just popped into my head. Still only half thinking about it I thought, "Hmm so a Patronus for Harry is like Jesus is for me."

Only then did the layers of the Patronus become apparent to me, and I've been walking around thinking, "Duh, Thora," ever since.

The root of Patronus is PATRON as in Patron Saint, as in something we believe in and would EXPECT (expecto) to come to our aid when we are faced with our greatest fears, with depression, with darkness over which we have no control.

Then I realized that Harry's Patronus is his father.

Wow. The parallels, the subtle references to Christ, just wow!

Once again, I tip my hat to J. K. Rowling, the master plot weaver.

So, author worship aside, from now on, if someone asks me what my Patronus would be, I'll have to answer, Jesus Christ.

When darkness and depression was overpowering me, sucking the soul out of me, I reached for my Savior, and he saved me.

He is my light.
He is my happy thought.
He is the one that I trust to be there for me in my toughest moments, because he always has been.

Expecto Patronum

Dear Mr. President

A few months ago I clicked on a link that took me to this article. I'm not very politically inclined, but I read it anyway, out of curiosity. As an LDS I like to know what people are thinking and saying about us... to an extent.

To sum it up, the author is LDS and was invited to The White House along with a bunch of other LDS people for a round table discussion. The White House wanted to know "in what ways do Mormonism and this administration share the same goals and how can The White House better communicate these overlaps with the Mormon demographic?"

The article ended up concluding that the President should recognize the positive contributions that LDS people make, and if we know about any, we should pass the word along.

Since reading this article I have thought about it on occasion, and this morning, while putting on my mascara before church, I finally decided what it was that bothered me about the whole thing.

LDS people believe in doing good. We more than believe, we do it, we live our lives trying to make a positive impact. We love this about ourselves.

Here's the glitch though. We believe that good works should be done in secret (see Matthew 6:3-4) (and yes the Matthew in the bible, there is no Matthew in the Book of Mormon.)

This belief doesn't just cover charitable contributions. It's about making sure that we are doing good for the sake of good and not to be seen doing good.

When I think of something nice to do for someone, I do it. I don't want to be thanked, most of the time I go to a lot of effort to not be seen. I want the glory to go to God for the good I do because, let's face it, if I'm a good person it is all God's fault.

Just having the opportunity to give is reward enough. Knowing I helped someone is enough. I know people want to return thanks, and that's a good thing, but I would really rather not be thanked, it's embarrassing.

So... well meaning as the conclusion of your round table discussion was, it kind of missed the point. LDS people don't want recognition for doing good, we just want it to be generally recognized that we are good.

We don't want to be pointed out in speeches, we don't want awards or certificates.

What we do want is very simple, to not be mocked or vilified.

To tell you the truth, I don't think there's much you can do about that, not even you President Obama.

Thanks for trying to understand though, I appreciate the gesture.

Sincerely,

Thora