Last Sunday was Fast Sunday. Due to circumstances not exactly beyond his control, but which he handled with courage and love as a father, Zack ended up at the pulpit. Only one of the two boys who cajoled him up there managed to do the same.
When Zack speaks he has this awesome habit of speaking exactly what he thinks and feels, regardless of how others might perceive him or judge him because of it. I love this about him.
In his testimony he talked about how he has been struggling with Knowing. How can we truly KNOW something is true? He also talked about how when we share our testimonies with each other we strengthen each other. Sometimes we carry others with our testimonies and other times we are carried. He has been feeling very much carried lately. This resonated with quite a few people in the congregation and I love that so many of them approached me and/or Zack afterwards with gratitude to Zack for voicing something they have often felt also.
I wanted to get up and bear my testimony after that. To share my little piece of learning and understanding that I have come to know through my struggles and triumphs. But I just couldn't get my thoughts in order to be able to express things clearly. So I vowed to myself that I would share my testimony, or the piece I have come to understand really well lately, online so that it would still be shared, just not vocally. I know some of my strengths, and speaking isn't one of them. I sound like an idiot sometimes when I speak, but when I write I can manage to sound somewhat coherent.
The Friend magazine showed up this week for our kids. As I was flipping through it, I saw a page on testimony. It compared a testimony to a puzzle and said, "Gaining a testimony is like a putting together a puzzle- it's something you add to piece by piece." The piece I have been working on lately to understand and gain a better testimony of is the Atonement. The Atonement has become many things to me over the past few years. I have seen and felt the strength, or grace, that the atonement provides. I have a strong testimony of that. I believe there is a power beyond our own that lifts us, gives us strength, comforts us and propels us forward in our times of need. This is grace.
Lately I have begun to recognize and understand another power of the atonement. I believe that through the atonement of Christ, we can change. Every single one of us has the ability to change. This may sound simple and something we've heard all our lives, but I'm just now starting to SEE it in my life. It's easy to hear something like "We can all change!" or read Ether 12:27 where it says "..I will make weak things become strong unto them." and believe it is true and good- but not really GET it. But it changes when you feel you find yourself at the bottom (you know what bottom I'm talking about, and if you don't, you probably will someday...) and can see all your failures and weaknesses and can only see that your attempts to get better have just resulted in more and more failures, each one feeling worse then the last. When you can't see how you can possibly do anything different and yet it's still not enough. When you've felt those feelings and when you feel like you have nothing left of yourself to try, that's when those words start to become real. Can the Lord really take my weakness and turn it into a strength? Can I truly change? Can I? So you take one step. You have faith that when He says you can change if you humble yourself and have faith in Him He's telling the truth. You trust His word. You pray, even when it seems like it's not helping. You read scriptures even when you feel helpless. You read them to your family, even when it feels like it's not helping. You go to church even when it feels so hard. You keep trying. You keep praying. Did I mention you keep praying? Even when you feel like a hypocrite because you aren't teaching or sharing any of it with your family and if you really believed it you would talk about it all the time. You don't give up. You fail. You get on your knees and plead for forgiveness and strength and help and then you get up and keep trying. You try to listen for promptings and help. You try to act on those promptings. You take it day by day. Sometimes minute by minute or just moment by moment. Always believing that the Lord is with you- that He is a partner with you in your struggles. He will change you. He promised. Just LET GO and stop trying to do it by yourself, Carrie. And gradually you start seeing how He's changing you. You see it, you feel it, and you KNOW that it wasn't through your strength and effort that you are changing. You know you are not left alone. You know whose strength is carrying you and changing you. You know it. I know it. Once upon a time I believed it But now I've put it to the test, and I know it.
But I also know that this is just a piece. My understanding and dependence on Christ needs to keep growing. Line upon line. I know that I need to keep feeding this testimony because just as it can grow and thrive, it can also wither and die if I ignore it.
I believe that many of us, through our own grit and determination can change many things, but I now believe that, through Christ, we can change anything. There is no habit, no weakness, no addiction, nothing, that can't be changed through the Atonement of Christ.
When Zack speaks he has this awesome habit of speaking exactly what he thinks and feels, regardless of how others might perceive him or judge him because of it. I love this about him.
In his testimony he talked about how he has been struggling with Knowing. How can we truly KNOW something is true? He also talked about how when we share our testimonies with each other we strengthen each other. Sometimes we carry others with our testimonies and other times we are carried. He has been feeling very much carried lately. This resonated with quite a few people in the congregation and I love that so many of them approached me and/or Zack afterwards with gratitude to Zack for voicing something they have often felt also.
I wanted to get up and bear my testimony after that. To share my little piece of learning and understanding that I have come to know through my struggles and triumphs. But I just couldn't get my thoughts in order to be able to express things clearly. So I vowed to myself that I would share my testimony, or the piece I have come to understand really well lately, online so that it would still be shared, just not vocally. I know some of my strengths, and speaking isn't one of them. I sound like an idiot sometimes when I speak, but when I write I can manage to sound somewhat coherent.
The Friend magazine showed up this week for our kids. As I was flipping through it, I saw a page on testimony. It compared a testimony to a puzzle and said, "Gaining a testimony is like a putting together a puzzle- it's something you add to piece by piece." The piece I have been working on lately to understand and gain a better testimony of is the Atonement. The Atonement has become many things to me over the past few years. I have seen and felt the strength, or grace, that the atonement provides. I have a strong testimony of that. I believe there is a power beyond our own that lifts us, gives us strength, comforts us and propels us forward in our times of need. This is grace.
Lately I have begun to recognize and understand another power of the atonement. I believe that through the atonement of Christ, we can change. Every single one of us has the ability to change. This may sound simple and something we've heard all our lives, but I'm just now starting to SEE it in my life. It's easy to hear something like "We can all change!" or read Ether 12:27 where it says "..I will make weak things become strong unto them." and believe it is true and good- but not really GET it. But it changes when you feel you find yourself at the bottom (you know what bottom I'm talking about, and if you don't, you probably will someday...) and can see all your failures and weaknesses and can only see that your attempts to get better have just resulted in more and more failures, each one feeling worse then the last. When you can't see how you can possibly do anything different and yet it's still not enough. When you've felt those feelings and when you feel like you have nothing left of yourself to try, that's when those words start to become real. Can the Lord really take my weakness and turn it into a strength? Can I truly change? Can I? So you take one step. You have faith that when He says you can change if you humble yourself and have faith in Him He's telling the truth. You trust His word. You pray, even when it seems like it's not helping. You read scriptures even when you feel helpless. You read them to your family, even when it feels like it's not helping. You go to church even when it feels so hard. You keep trying. You keep praying. Did I mention you keep praying? Even when you feel like a hypocrite because you aren't teaching or sharing any of it with your family and if you really believed it you would talk about it all the time. You don't give up. You fail. You get on your knees and plead for forgiveness and strength and help and then you get up and keep trying. You try to listen for promptings and help. You try to act on those promptings. You take it day by day. Sometimes minute by minute or just moment by moment. Always believing that the Lord is with you- that He is a partner with you in your struggles. He will change you. He promised. Just LET GO and stop trying to do it by yourself, Carrie. And gradually you start seeing how He's changing you. You see it, you feel it, and you KNOW that it wasn't through your strength and effort that you are changing. You know you are not left alone. You know whose strength is carrying you and changing you. You know it. I know it. Once upon a time I believed it But now I've put it to the test, and I know it.
But I also know that this is just a piece. My understanding and dependence on Christ needs to keep growing. Line upon line. I know that I need to keep feeding this testimony because just as it can grow and thrive, it can also wither and die if I ignore it.
I believe that many of us, through our own grit and determination can change many things, but I now believe that, through Christ, we can change anything. There is no habit, no weakness, no addiction, nothing, that can't be changed through the Atonement of Christ.
