The New Year!

2010 was a very up and down kind of year. I went through a lot of experiences that caused me to lose my way. Although I've never been one to regret things I feel a lot of remorse for what has happened. Yes, a lot of people have hurt me, I have hurt some people, and I have even mentally, physically, and spiritually injured myself, but I look forward to this new year as an excuse to make amends, and to give myself a better life. I have spent the past while contemplating how to achieve this better life. There are so many things I wish for myself and have no clue on how to get them or even where to start. I am LDS and it is a very important part of my life. Sadly in 2010... that's one thing I lost sight of. However, the best thing about being LDS is the gift of repentance! Repentance is not an easy journey, but probably one of the most significant journeys. Repentance is about more than just slapping your self on the wrist and saying you'll never sin again, it's far more than that. Repentance is about learning why the sin we have committed was wrong, and gaining a feeling of spiritual sorrow. Spiritual sorrow is an interesting concept. Many people don't fully understand spiritual sorrow. Yes we are supposed to feel bad because we injured ourselves and we see for ourselves what went wrong, but it's also about seeing through God's eyes. When we experience spiritual sorrow it's a way to become one again with God. He invites us in to see from His point of view the value of our life and the damage we have done to it. Spiritual sorrow is such a sad, disappointing, humbling time in our lives, but it's also a reassuring time. Christ shows us the extent of damage we've done, but he also lets us know that we can come back and we do have the opportunity to be closer to him again, and that hope isn't lost to return with him in the Celestial Kingdom. It saddens me to think that most people, when going through spiritual sorrow, fail to see the hope. Fail to see the love he has for us and wants nothing more than for us to want to be with Him, and prove to Him our love for Him. So this year, this period of time in my journey I am going to focus on proving my love to Heavenly Father and His son. I'm going to learn how to truly live again, and I'm going to come out better than I have ever been before. Now since I'm only 19 this doesn't mean that my life will be a breeze here on out, but hopefully the goals I set this year will be a foundation for up coming events I have in my life. Events such as marriage, starting a family, future callings in the church, and whatever else God has in store for me! Now in the LDS church we are each given the opportunity to receive a patriarchal blessing! Which is a very special, personal blessing given from a patriarch that concerns your life. It basically can apply to any moment of your life. It also gives you your lineage, which tells you what tribe of Israel you come from, but we can get into that another time. When I moved out of my mothers house I lost mine... So I had not read it for over a year. Recently I received a blessing from my friends dad and in the blessing it specified to go to my patriarchal blessing for guidance. So I went to the Church History Library and got a copy. I didn't want to wait to read it so I sat in the Lobby and just bawled as I read it to myself! The influence of the Holy Ghost was so incredibly strong that I felt complete spiritual sorrow, but I also felt hope for a brighter future. The only problem with hope is that I had no clue where to start! Sure I knew I could, but I didn't know how. So I went to receive another blessing and it appeared that the main subject was faith. As I talked to my best friend Devan about it, I realized I had lost a lot of faith in my life. So I talked it over with Heavenly Father, and we made a plan that each month I would make a copy of my patriarchal blessing to mark and study, and I would have a specific focus I needed to improve on, and on the back, I would write 10 goals for each week. 5 spiritual goals, 3 temporal goals, and 2 physical goals, and these goals would help me take the steps I need to gain a better self. As you read you may think some of the goals are small and simple, but I think that's the major issue in my life. I always want to take big giant leaps and fall straight down into the canyon. I need to slowly build a bridge, brick by brick, to cross over to a better life. The thing I learned today about the gospel is that it is very simple, and that people tend to make it too complicated and they end up justify the wrong thing to do. In The Book of Mormon, in Jacob 4:14 it talks about how the people of Jerusalem despised the words of plainness. They wanted a big, complex way to explain the ways of the gospel and wanted to head straight for the things that people could not understand. So in a result God took away the simple things and gave them things which they were not ready to understand. In result the got more confused. Now God did do this to be cruel. He did this because that is what the people of Jerusalem kept asking for. So he showed them and now us that baby steps must be taken to achieve greatness. Things that seem complicated to us now will be more plain and simple if we take the steps to understand the more simple things before! So I am going to start with smaller goals, that will grow into bigger yet simple goals as well. I am somewhat scared for the outcome, but I know that if I remain close to my Heavenly Father I will come out stronger, and wiser than I have been in the past year. So lets start with January! :)