Stronger Through Him

 The other day I was working on cutting out an item I was using as a teaching aid for a home bound student I needed to teach. She is academically behind and needs some simple and yet powerful lessons to help close those gaps. But as I was cutting I was getting frustrated.  My swollen and painful knuckles were making it difficult to adeptly maneuver the scissors around the scalloped design.   My tremors were also requiring many stops and starts and deep breaths and steadies.   I found myself slamming the scissors down in frustration and saying “I can’t do this!” But then I looked again at the project and this time I saw the bold lines around the heart.   Were the scallops even necessary? No! Now, was there anything wrong with the “extra”? Not as long as it didn’t get in the way of the true focus on simplicity!  But if it meant I wasn’t actually getting to the core then it needed to go!  So I picked up my scissors and soon had all 20 hearts cut out and r...

 Are we Christians? It’s the question and controversy taking the country and internet by storm this week.   One of the best responses I know how to give, and the most Christ-like is this: I can’t speak to the Jesus you say you know and love and worship.  But I can tell you about the Jesus who I know and love and worship. He is the son of God and willingly gave His life out of love for all of us, even me. He paid for our sins and conquered death and came as a mortal man to give us the gift of the Atonement in which he suffered ALL THINGS so knows perfectly how to uplift and support us. He wants to welcome us each back home to our Heavenly Father’s presence and has offered us a higher, holier way to live that will not only get us there - with His help- but will also bless our lives and make us happy in mortality.   That is my Jesus.   Tell me about yours!

 Sometimes there are no words.  Just good people trying to follow the words of Jesus Christ.  Because as we read in Alma 37:45: “For just as surely as this director did bring our fathers, by following its course, to the promised land, shall the words of Christ, if we follow their course, carry us beyond this vale of sorrow into a far better land of promise.”