Category: hope

Courage to stand for truth and rightousness

Kind of a little along the lines of what we talked about yesterday.  Today I want to talk about the courage to “stand for truth and righteousness”.

Yesterday we talked about how easy it is to get caught up in Satan’s snares of distraction, discouragement and doubt.  He would have us be miserable like himself so he will do everything within his power to discourage and distract us from the things that are most important.  He will tempt us in every way and make evil sound good, and good sound evil.  It’s his job to make us miserable.

The world and all it’s ways make us feel that when we stand for truth and righteousness that we are somehow wrong for believing the way that we do.  It can cause doubt to overwhelm us and have us question who we are, and why we are here.

When I was growing up there was a famous quote by Malcom X “Stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”  

I grew up believing that what we stood for as believers in Christ was worth standing up for.  Even though I struggled during my own crisis of faith.  I firmly believe that standing up for the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is definitely worth standing for and keeps us grounded and immovable.  Less capable of falling for anything.

Is it easy? Goodness no.  If it were, everyone would be doing it.  Christians in this day and time seem to be rare.  And many are faltering in faith.  But in Joshua 1:9 we are reminded Have not I commanded thee?  Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed for the Lord they God is with thee withersoever thou goest.

In 1 Timothy 4:12 we are told  “…  be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”

We are reminded over and over again throughout the scriptures and my living prophets and apostles that we have armies of angels all around us to help us stand for truth and righteousness.  Even when It’s scary.

In the recent April 2021 conference S. Gifford Nielson emphasizes “Heavenly Father sees us as fearless builders of His kingdom. That is why He sent us here during this most decisive time in the world’s history. This is our time!”

President Russell M. Nelson said shortly after becoming President of the Church: “Our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, will perform some of His mightiest works between now and when He comes again. We will see miraculous indications that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, preside over this Church in majesty and glory” 

But none of this can happen unless we, as believers of truth and righteousness are too afraid to stand up for what is right.  

Quoting again from S. Gifford Nielson’s talk “When winds blow in our lives, where is our focus? Remember, there is always one reliable source of strength and courage. The arms of Jesus extend to us, just as they extended to Peter. As we reach for Him, He will lovingly rescue us. We are His. He said, “Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine” (Isaiah 43:1). He will prevail in your life if you let Him. The choice is yours. (See Russell M. Nelson, “Let God Prevail,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2020, 92–95.)

My invitation to you today is that you will have the courage to stand for truth and righteousness under all circumstances.  That you will let God prevail in your life and begin to see that light that will aid you in all of your decisions, and choices in life.

That’s it for this week my friends.  If you like what you’ve heard please be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share with friends.  Let’s get the message out that it is through our Savior Jesus Christ that all things become possible. Talk to you all again on Monday!

XO, Wendy

Courage to Forgive

Today I want to talk to you about something that is really, really, difficult to do.  Especially when you feel like you’ve been wronged or betrayed in some way.  But if you can “just let that go” your life will be so much better!

President Gordan B. Hinckley once said “A spirit of forgiveness and an attitude of love and compassion toward those who may have wronged us is of the very essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Each of us has need of this spirit. The whole world has need of it. The Lord taught it. He exemplified it as none other has exemplified it.”

I’m going to be real and share a story with you about my own experience with forgiveness.  It is an experience that affected my life in a much larger way than it needed to and one that I’m not proud of.   It took me nearly 15 years to forgive someone who I felt had wronged me in a deep and personal way. And sadly, it all happened because of gossip!

It involved a very dear and loved friend of mine.  She was actually like a sister to me.  We talked everyday on the phone, we were partners in a great “adventure”, and spent time with eachother’s families.  We were nearly inseparable. She meant the world to me.  But, sadly, I chose to walk away from her over something someone told me that she had been doing behind my back for years.  

I was devastated!  I was heartsick, but most of all I just felt betrayed.  How could she do such a thing?  But at the time puzzle pieces began to fall into place of why others had treated me in such a negative way.  I was told she had twisted my words and turned them into lies so that others would think poorly of me. This person went so far as to give me specific experiences, people, places, and things that had happened.  How could I not believe them?  They had proof, or so it seemed.  I immediately confronted her with it over the phone.  She had no explanation.  She denied it all, sobbing uncontrollably that she would never do such a thing.  But it all made so much sense to me about the way I had been treated through our little joint “adventure”, that I didn’t even give her a chance.  I was so hurt and so angry. So I did the worst thing anyone can ever do to someone they love.  I walked away. 

I cried for days over our lost friendship.  And the lies grew easier to believe. Our adventure had ended and I moved on with my life.  Or so I thought. 

For years and years I would play the scene in my head.  How could she hurt me that way?  She was so dear to me.  Why would she do it?  She was my friend.  How did I not see it?  Night after night I would think of how much I missed her friendship.  Over the years the pain faded but I would think about it often and would grieve again for the loss of such a dear friend.

Then years later, when I was returning to the fold of Christ I realized that it was time. Truth is, it was way past time.  It was time for me to just let it all go.  It was the only way to move forward and be free of the pain.  So one night I mustered up all the courage in the world and I sent her a heartfelt plea to forgive me for not giving her the chance to explain.  I told her how sorry I was. And that I was wrong for behaving the way that I did.  And that I hoped someday she could forgive me for behaving in that way. It certainly was not Christlike.  I told her how much I missed our friendship and that I hoped she was doing good.  And then I pressed send, not expecting to hear anything in return.

When I hit that button I felt peace flood over me for the first time in all those years.  No matter what had really happened I was no longer going to let it hold space in my life going forward.  It is not God’s way to carry such feelings in our hearts.  The only place that comes from is the adversary.  He wants nothing more than for us to live with regrets, remorse, anger, and hurt.  Because then, he wins.  Don’t let him win!  You may not be able to control other’s agency to act in the way that they do, but you can control your agency! Have the courage to use your agency to forgive and move on with your life. There are bright things awaiting you.

Do you want to know the craziest part of this whole experience.  A couple of days later, I received a message back from my long lost friend.  I was afraid to open it.  

But I think her words are the best way to end this podcast.  (I hope she won’t mind).  The message read:

“I too am sorry for the way things ended up between us. I do apologize from the bottom of my heart for the heartache I caused you. I NEVER, EVER would have done anything to intentionally cause you harm or heartache. In fact to this day… I’m not even sure what the whole-what’s, when’s or how’s this situation all happened?!?! What I do know is we all made mistakes and then our friendship was over. It broke my heart too. 

As for forgiving you…I pray you can forgive me of the heartache I caused you?! I am so deeply sorry! All I know is… life is too short to hold on to any grudges. We need to put our arms around each other and push forward. Just so you know… I’ve always held you in high regard and have always considered you my friend. Even though we’ve had this little “hiccup” I let it go along time ago. You will always be considered a friend and my heart and door are always open to you. ….There’s no need to ask for forgiveness or worry about this anymore. You have always been good in my book.”

How’s that for Christ like behavior?!  She definitely is great women in the body of Christ! She taught me the true meaning of forgiveness that day.  It’s all about love!

So today my invitation to you is to muster up the courage to use your agency to forgive someone that has hurt you.  It may not end the way that mine did.  But I promise you that if you will just let go, and let God take the wheel.  It will bring a peace to your soul that can not be matched!

Have a great day my friends.  Talk to you all again tomorrow!

XO Wendy

Courage to overcome

Sometimes as humans on this side of Heaven we are faced with incredibly difficult challenges to overcome.  They can be physical, mental, or spiritual in nature.  And can require so much of you that at times you feel hopeless, and without joy. Your path seems bleak and you get to a point where you feel you just don’t have the strength to take one more step forward.  It can be a very lonely place to be.  

Sometimes you may even feel like you are trudging through a deep thick muddy swamp just trying to get to dry land. And with each step you sink deeper and deeper and the path gets harder and harder. Your task at this point then, is to gather the courage to overcome. But how?

That is the question for today?  How do I have the courage to move forward when it all seems so pointless?  I’m not sure who this message is for today.  But I know there is someone that is listening today that feels like everything I’ve said so far is directly for you.  Because that is how God works sometimes.  He puts someone in your path (a messenger) to let you know that you are His.  He’s got you. He wants you to know that He loves you.  He sees you.  He hears your cries.  And you are NOT alone.

I will be reading from Psalm 27 today, verse 1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life: of whom shall I be afraid? 

I have heard many stories of people who have overcome great challenges as I’m sure have you.  But today I wanted to share a story that I found that had such a powerful influence on my life.  Her name is  Cambry Kaylor.  From a very young age she picked up the love of horses and gymnastics.  And began a career of Equestrian Vaulting which is dancing and gymnastics on the back of a horse.  Sounds daunting and scary doesn’t it?  She quickly grew as a master of her art.  Training for 10 years to become an international competitor. She was involved in dance as a ballerina, and in gymnastics.  And competed on her high school diving team.  Very much a talented and vibrant athlete in all aspects of athleticism.  However, while practicing a move on her horse there was a terrible accident and she ended up landing in a way that broke her neck and severed her spinal cord.  She became paralyzed from the waist down. I’ll link her story so you can get the details.  

Can you imagine what you might be feeling when you realize that everything you’d ever worked for, everything you’d ever dreamed of, could suddenly be taken from you all in an instance? You can imagine the despair she must have felt.  

She began to have horrible fear and terrible nightmares about her experience. When she woke up she would hope it was all just a bad dream and that her parents would say she just had a broken leg or something a little less severe.  She wanted anything but the truth!  She just wanted something she could wake up from.

But in all of that pain and heartache that she was experiencing, there was one thing she had in all of her fear.  And that was courage.  She had the courage to want her situation to change.  She realized after months of trying to find what she thought she needed, that what she wanted more than anything was to feel joy again.  And she didn’t have to walk to be happy.  She could create her own happiness and joy.  What an amazing example of courage that took.

Cambry went on to become very successful, taking the reins of her life back into her own hands.

It took time and a lot of patience and hard work.  And I’m sure there was a lot of waiting on Lord.  

In Psalm 27 David finishes his psalm by saying 14: Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart;  wait, I say, on the Lord.

So even though you may be in the mud and muck right now trying to put one foot in front of the other, be of courage… because the Lord WILL strengthen your heart.  Today is the day to take back the reins of your life.  Decide that with God all things are possible to Him that believes!

Have a great day my friends.  I’ll talk to you again tomorrow!

XO Wendy

I will hope in Him

This week has basically been about how we can get direct access to the Lord.  And today I wanted to focus on a section in the Bible, it’s Lamentation chapter 3.  In this Chapter the author is unknown and some believe that it is a personification of the city of Jerusalem, but others believe that it is simply referring to the author himself and his own desperation.

This man speaks about all the horrible things that are happening to him and then he says in verse 22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. 24 The Lord is my portions, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. 25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. 26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

And I chose this to finish off the week because there are times that no matter how hard we try or how much we pray, or how hard we are knocking there is still no relief to our suffering.  We are asking, seeking and knocking and stretching and drawing near and learning and pondering and studying and yet, we still feel that utter desperation of, why do these things keep happening when I’m trying so hard to reach out? 

When I was first diagnosed bipolar, my husband and I were already going through some difficulties. So this diagnosis was kind of like the last straw of our desperation.  And then came the problems of trying to find a medication or recipe of medications that would work for me.  I was a photographer and while I was in the hospital my husband had to go through my calendar and cancel all of my upcoming sessions and get by business in order, take care of himself and take care of me.  His business was struggling and there were a lot of things going on there that required his attention.  Plus we have the two boys (his sons) that required a lot at that time due to their young age.  To say that there was a lot of stress was a huge understatement.  It was hard on both of us.  But especially difficult for Him. He was just trying so hard to hold it all together.  I remember him coming home from work one day after another long and less than fruitful day, and saying with utter desperation in his voice, “over this past month I feel like I am constantly getting punched in the gut and getting kicked when I’m already down.  I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I just want to quit getting punched.”  

But the punches continued to roll in as we struggled through this crisis.  The stress was weighing heavy on him. He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t sleeping well, and he was losing hope and losing weight! And I became extremely worried about him.  

One day after much stretching and reaching and asking and knocking and pleading with the Lord.  We came to the conclusion that something was physically not right with him and that he needed to seek medical attention.  This was the last thing he needed on the long list of things to take care of.  But he followed his impressions and went to see a Dr.  Turns out he had what is called a stress reaction, brought on by everything that he was dealing with.  The dr. was able to help with it and he was able to slowly get back to his normal self.  He was finally able to find the “peace” that the Savior brings to us in our hour of great need.

As we close out this week I just want you to know with a surety that our Savior is behind that door.  Even when it seems like there is not one more thing you can take.  He will find a way to bring you the peace you are searching for.  To quote Elder Holland’s words, “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. Of this I can attest.”

Take hope in the Lord my friends. 

Have a beautiful weekend and I’ll talk to you again next week!

XO Wendy

Draw Near

Staying on our topic for this week, I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about how we can grow closer to Christ through our efforts of preparing to receive answers to our questions, to our trials, to our struggles.  

And I wanted to start by sharing a couple of verses from my favorite sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, section 88.  And I think that the reason that it’s my favorite is BECAUSE when it was given to the prophet Joseph Smith he said that it was given as the Lord’s message of peace  to us.  And I just truly feel that peace in several verses of this section.  But today I just want to read verses 63-64.  It says:

63 Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

64 Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name it shall be given unto you, that is expedient for you;

So in these verses what stands out to me is  the words DRAW NEAR”.

What does it mean to draw near? Well if  I were to break this down let’s look at the word Draw.  First it is an action word.  The Lord is asking us to make an effort to do something to come closer to Him.  The definition that I believe is being used here is : To cause to move in a particular direction by or as if by a pulling force;  to bring toward oneself, as if by inherent force or influence. 

And I just thought that definition was so interesting because it really expresses a need or a force to be pulled toward.  It makes me think of a big windstorm where you have your back to the wind and it is actually pushing you in a direction.  So we draw near to Him and then He will draw near to us.  So it’s as if the force from the wind at our backs is pushing us toward the Savior.  He’s asking us to let that force move us to come closer to Him.

I came across another talk by President Nelson from april 2017  He describes several ways that we can draw near to the Savior.  But this is the one that stood out to me 

“An element in drawing the Savior’s power into our lives is to reach up to Him in faith. Such reaching requires diligent, focused effort.

Do you remember the biblical story of the woman who suffered for 12 years with a debilitating problem? She exercised great faith in the Savior, exclaiming, “If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.”

This faithful, focused woman needed to stretch as far as she could to access His power. Her physical stretching was symbolic of her spiritual stretching.”  He goes on to say.

“Many of us have cried out from the depths of our hearts a variation of this woman’s words: “If I could spiritually stretch enough to draw the Savior’s power into my life, I would know how to handle my heart-wrenching situation. I would know what to do. And I would have the power to do it.

When you reach up for the Lord’s power in your life with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air, power from Jesus Christ will be yours. When the Savior knows you truly want to reach up to Him—when He can feel that the greatest desire of your heart is to draw His power into your life—you will be led by the Holy Ghost to know exactly what you should do.

When you spiritually stretch beyond anything you have ever done before, then His power will flow into you.”

And so today as you think about that word and how it is like a force, almost an urgency to get to the Savior.  Think about what we talked about on Monday about the hike to see the Savior.  Imagine that the last stretch is the most difficult of the entire journey, it takes everything you have to get to the door where He awaits.  But then there will  be peace.  I promise you that He longs for you to draw near to Him with such force that He has no choice but to enfold you in his waiting arms.   

Guys, have a great day and remember that He loves you and you can do this! We’ll wrap up this topic tomorrow! Talk to you then.

XO Wendy