Tag Archives: Challenges

D&C 4: To run and not be weary

Posted in Come, Follow Me, Doctrine and Covenants 2021 by

As I read Doctrine and Covenants section 24 last night and considered what to share with my kids for family scripture study, I honed in on the Come, Follow Me study guide suggestions to look at how the Lord lifts us up out of afflictions. I read through some of the suggested companion scriptures, spending a little extra time with Isaiah 40:28-31, OT. Years ago I “discovered” these verses towards the end of my mission. They perfectly encapsulated much of my mission experience waiting on the Lord, receiving His strength and being lifted up from some very challenging situations.

This morning with my kids we read in D&C 24:1 “I have lifted thee up out of thine afflictions…thou hast been delivered from thine enemies, and thou hast been delivered from the powers of Satan and from darkness!” We discussed some of many challenges Joseph Smith faced prior to and after organizing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830. Molly remembered that people tried to steal the gold plates from Joseph Smith and he was forced to hide them in and around his home. Joseph had to move his family several times to escape persecution while translating the Book of Mormon. When Joseph was in the middle of baptizing his wife and several others, he was arrested for preaching from the Book of Mormon.

I followed up by asking what afflictions or challenges we have faced as a family? I reminded Rachel of her experience in fall 2019 when she rode the bus to school from our friend’s house since I had to take Molly to preschool and couldn’t get back to our town to drop Rachel off at school on time. She was assigned a seat on the bus with two other girls who would push her off the seat. She wrote a note to me and my husband one day begging us to find a different way for her to get to school. Then one day she spontaneously prayed for help with her situation. Weeks passed and things got better. She remembers that she made some new friends which improved her situation. I suggested that the pandemic was also an answer to her prayer. We were running ourselves ragged getting Rachel to our friend’s house, Molly to preschool on time every morning, turning around to pick up Molly, and all without the daily help of my husband who was gone Monday through Thursday working. The sudden lockdown lifted us out of these challenges. We also discussed how sick I was while pregnant with Abigail in early 2020 but, after praying for help, the Lord lifted me (and our whole family) out of that affliction through proper hydration (you can read my blog post about this experience).

I testified of the blessings we received as we turned to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for help in the midst of our afflictions. We read together:

Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31, Old Testament

I pointed out the conditional blessing expressed in verse 31: if we “wait upon the Lord,” He promises to bless us with renewed strength, that we will “mount up with wings as eagles,” run “and not be weary,” walk “and not faint.” For my children’s benefit I recalled how exhausted I was when I began my mission in the Netherlands in January 2009. It was freezing cold, dark, and windy every morning when my assigned companions (colleagues) insisted on running outdoors for our daily exercise. I was not prepared for this physically or in the way of accessories and only had a short sleeve athletic shirt and some thin, baggy jogging pants. Luckily I had also brought a junky sweatshirt that I wore every morning. After the morning run, we would ride our bikes and walk all day in skirts. I suffered from jet lag (and likely from dehydration as well); it wasn’t unusual for me fall asleep during the day if we were invited into a home to share a message or teach a lesson. I would crash in bed every night around 9:30/10:00 pm, then I would wake up at 6:00 am and do it all over again. I waited on the Lord, praying for relief and placing my life in His hands, as I struggled through these challenges. He gave me strength to push through the difficulties: He lifted me out of bed and helped me run every morning, He gave me energy to crisscross the city on my feet and bike every day, and He brought me back to our apartment in one piece every night. By the end of the transfer (six week period), I could sing while biking and I had even improved my running time (my senior companion was keeping track). I know that the blessings the Lord promised through the prophet Isaiah thousands of years ago were fulfilled for me.

No matter the afflictions you face right now, if you will wait upon the Lord, He will lift you and strengthen you.

BoM 1: Excitement for the 2020 Come, Follow Me Curriculum

Posted in Book of Mormon 2020, Come, Follow Me by

I am thrilled we are studying the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ in 2020 as a worldwide church! I love the Book of Mormon. Last year the most difficult part of adapting to the Come, Follow Me home study curriculum was working an additional daily reading/study of the Book of Mormon back into my schedule. My spirituality definitely suffered from pretty much dropping Book of Mormon reading.

While taking President Nelson’s October 2018 challenge to read the Book of Mormon in 86 days, I felt his promises take effect in my life and my family.

In his talk, President Nelson promised, “the heavens will open for you. The Lord will bless you with increased inspiration and revelation….

“You and they [your loved ones] will be drawn closer to the Savior through this process. And changes, even miracles, will begin to happen.” (Nelson, “Sisters’ Participation in the Gathering of Israel,” Oct. 2018.)

Increased spiritual power may be what I marked most. I felt incredible spiritual power as I implemented the new Come, Follow Me curriculum in our home. The Holy Ghost blessed me with ideas about how to share the scriptures with my children in effective and meaningful ways. When my husband began his new job and went to Europe for two weeks of training, I felt bolstered by God and successfully raised my children for two weeks by myself without the stress, anxiety, or feelings of hopelessness when challenges arose that I had fully expected to experience. The heavens opened for me and miracles happened.

That spiritual power is what I missed most as 2019 progressed; it ebbed noticeably as I dropped the Book of Mormon from my daily scripture study. I gradually lost steam with Come, Follow Me, I began to suffer some mild anxiety, I bobbed in and out of depression, I lost my zeal and rediscovered my fear of missionary work. I am not saying that dropping Book of Mormon study caused these things, but that because I wasn’t studying the Book of Mormon, I did not have access to the spiritual power that could have helped me through these trials.

Already in 2020 with my reintroduction of daily Book of Mormon study I feel spiritual power flowing back into my life.

I hope that as your family undertakes individual and group study of The Book of Mormon this year, you will feel more connected to each other and to God, that you will have an abundance of spiritual power to face challenges or lift up others, that your homes will be filled with the peace and love of Jesus Christ.

NT 7: Temptation, Mortality, and Hope

Posted in Come, Follow Me, New Testament 2019 by

img_2650I made bread today. This is my late grandma’s recipe and every bite brings a wave of nostalgia. And it’s just really, really delicious bread.

Today I studied the temptation of Christ following His forty-day fast in the wilderness (cf. Matthew 4:1-11, NT and Luke 4:1-13, NT). The temptations Jesus experienced seem to reveal a pattern of human frailty: physical hunger, desire for control over life and death, and lust for power over external things and people. If we have Christ’s perspective of the reality of earth life and eternity, that perspective quickly exposes Satan’s lies about the supposed importance of satiating physical hunger at the expense of more important things, his lies about mortal ability to control anything, and his lies about the need for “power.” Satan knows mortal weakness, though, and knows just how to get us.

Like today. Some of the “magic” I have felt the last few weeks has rubbed off and I’m left to my own strength again; left to fight those temptations that are uniquely mine. But are those temptations only mine? Going on the strength of 1 Corinthians 10:13, maybe our temptations and sufferings really aren’t that unique. “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man…” (1 Corinthians 10:13, NT). If temptations fall into a pattern of human frailty, maybe our temptations and sufferings aren’t that different from people around us.

We sometimes wonder if Christ really did experience every pain, affliction, sorrow that every person on earth has ever or will ever experience. The conceit of suffering suggests that no one can know, no one can possibly fathom just how difficult this temptation or challenge really is. The conceit of suffering also convinces us that if no one has experienced exactly what we’re going through, then no one can possibly help. And we effectively cut off the only real source of comfort, help, and healing that exists: Jesus.

He really did experience EVERY pain, sorrow, affliction, sickness, disappointment, temptation (Alma 7:11-12, BoM). He KNOWS. He understands what we’re going through. He wants to help. If we acknowledge His prior experience and accept His knowledge, we can open ourselves to help, healing, and change.

As for my temptations today, I don’t know if Jesus had any of His own kids to yell at, but He did experience mortality and I believe that He understands (at the very least) the weakness at the heart of my temptation to yell. He provided “an escape” for me several weeks ago (when I didn’t yell at my kids for a whole week!) and He can help me learn how to overcome my weakness, stop giving into temptation, and change my behavior to something more godly.

Day 30: Trusting in the Lord

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Mosiah 21-24

There is so much to admire in Alma the elder who risked his life to try and save Abinadi, then defied King Noah to teach the Gospel, and eventually become a prophet in turn. Mosiah 23-24 present a neat parallel to Mosiah 21-22. These chapters compare how Alma’s people deal with the same challenges as Limhi’s people, both groups having become client kingdoms in servitude to the Lamanites. Where Limhi’s people feared the Lamanites and tried to fight their way out of bondage, Alma’s people replaced their fear of man with trust in the Lord, prayers for help, and patience in His plan.

Nine and a half years ago my mission companions and I created a lesson based on Mosiah 24:13-16. The message really touched our friend (for whom we originally planned the lesson): she identified with Alma’s people in bondage (she was in advanced schooling at the time and studying for a difficult exam), and felt strengthened by their example of faith in God, the promise of eventual deliverance, and the help God provided in the midst of their trial while waiting for the right timing.

What I really want to share, though, is that as our week progressed, we taught this lesson no less than four other times in different appointments. It seemed everyone we met with needed this message that week! I have seen this happen in other settings where multiple people I know are going through the same or similar difficulties at the same time. But I also want to highlight the universality of the challenges explored in Mosiah 21-24. So much of mortality is a fight against bondage. Our spirits are in bondage to sin, our mortal bodies are predisposed to doing things that create additional scenarios of bondage/limitation of freedom. My takeaway from Mosiah 21-24 is that I can either rely on my own strength to free myself (like Limhi’s people), or I can ask God for help and trust in His mercy and timing (like Alma’s people). Both groups were eventually freed but Alma’s group shines in their faith, patience, attitude, and the comparative ease with which they succeeded––all because they trusted in God and waited for Him to work His miracles.

Day 7: Patience and Timing

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1 Nephi 18:8-23

Nephi, ever stalwart, records in 1 Nephi 18:23 that “after we had sailed for the space of many days we did arrive at the promised land.” The preceding verses tell of the family’s embarkation and the beginning of their journey to the promised land. The Liahona shows Nephi where to steer, they have plenty of provisions, and everything is going well, fair weather and all. But then Laman and Lemuel stir things up, eventually getting mad enough at Nephi that they tie him up. Bad weather engulfs the ship and the Liahona stops working. After four days of tempest tossed seas, Laman and Lemuel finally release Nephi.

In the midst of this family drama at sea, and even while tied up in a lot of pain, Nephi maintains his faith and trust in God: “I did look unto my God, and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions” (v. 16). I remember years ago when God made me a promise at the outset of my mission that everything in my life would work out afterwards. Everything working out was my promised land. And even though I could literally count the days until then, I couldn’t have fathomed what lay between the delivery of the promise and its fulfillment. I in no way anticipated the challenges of those months, thinking and then wishing that I had already finished and reached my promised land.

Nephi’s perspective is so much healthier (temporally and spiritually) than mine was. Where I felt a tremendous amount of bitterness and impatience, Nephi felt gratitude and trust. Where I asked “why me?”, Nephi prayed for his oppressors and for the power of God to be made manifest. It will always be true that when the Lord makes a promise, He will fulfill it in His time. It is up to us to live worthy of the fulfillment no matter what challenges or length of time lies between.