Tag: spirituality

Come…

Last week I was able to listen to the wife of President Rhys A. Weaver, Pamela, speak. They are the Nashville Tennessee mission leaders.   I was deeply touched by the things that she talked about.  Most of her talk revolved around one word, “come”.  She talked about the sweetness of that word and how we use it so much on a daily basis.  “Come with me to lunch.”  “Come give mommy a hug.”  Come read me a story.” “Come and pray with me.” Come with me to visit grandma.”  Come and see what I have for you.”  “Come shopping with me.” Etc.

What a beautiful word that is, so inviting and so warm.  There are so many times in the scriptures that the Savior invites us to “Come”, Come follow me.  When we think of all the ways that word is used so lovingly, doesn’t it make that plea to come follow Him even more tender? In Matthew 19:21 we read: Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

We had the missionaries from our church, over for dinner not too long ago and they shared a video with us that just has such feel good message that I decided to share it here, its pretty short but I love the message.

One thing that I love about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of which I am a member, is that we are so willing to serve.  We are a people full of faith and hope.  We are always some of the first responders whenever there is a natural disaster around the world.  And we are huge on helping refugees and the poor and needy.  It’s great to be a part of church that does it’s best to follow the Savior’s admonition to “Come follow me”.

We as members are far from perfect and are human just like everyone else.  So not everyone is as welcoming as some.  But we are trying to follow the Savior in all that we do.

As you know I share a lot of scriptures and talks here and I thought for those of you who aren’t familiar with our church, this would be a good place to share.

I would personally love to have you “come” and go to church or serve or go to an activity with me.  If you find yourself with no hope. Or if you have been away for a while like I had been. Come back! Come and Stay.

Have a good weekend everyone!

XO Wendy

Are you a hope maker or taker?

Have you ever had someone take your hope away simply by their words?  Have you ever been filled with despair because someone said something about you, or to you that was completely defeating?  Yeah, me too.  Words are very powerful! We can go from completely elated to simply defeated in the time it takes to say, “you can’t”, “you will never” or “that’s impossible for you”.

And even more important, is the way we talk to ourselves.  “It’s hopeless”,  I’m so stupid”, “I will never be….”, and my favorite, “I can’t…”  Why is it so easy for us to use words in such a negative way, especially to ourselves?  Well, I haven’t completely figured out the answer to that question.  But what I do know is that I have had my share of negative words thrown my way, spoken behind my back by others. As well as given to me through my own negative self-talk.  And I am positive that I am not so much different than anybody else.

So today I wanted to offer you some encouragement through the words of someone who had every right to lose hope, but somehow found it. This is well worth the 15 minutes out of your day to watch Nick Vujicic

Please use positive self talk and practice self love. Look for hope.  Find it. And live it!

XO Wendy

Power of Hope

There are many days that I have struggled to understand the reason that I have had to deal with having bipolar.  It’s not easy to find hope when you are full of despair.  My whole life I’ve been through the ups and downs of it. I could go months and months with no signs of it and then all of sudden it was there like a cloudy, gloomy day.  Some days are wonderful, and other days I wondered if I’d make it through.

But good news!  I did.  And maybe one of the reasons that I’ve had to go through this is so that you can see that you can too!  I know that we are here to help make another’s burden light.

So how did I find hope? Well one truth that I can point to is that I knew that there was a reason for me to be here, to be alive.  I know that part of that came from my upbringing and knowing that there is a God and that He loves me.  But another part came from deep inside, just feeling that there was something more to all of this. Somehow I had hope.

Deiter F, Uchtdorf once said  “Hope has the power to fill our lives with happiness.  It’s absence– can make the heart sick.

Despair drains from us all that is vibrant and joyful and leaves behind the empty remnants of what life was meant to be, despair can seem like a staircase that leads only and forever downward.

Hope on the other hand, is like a beam of sunlight rising up and above the horizon of our present circumstances.  It pierces the darkness with a brilliant dawn.  It encourages and inspires us to place our trust in the loving care of an eternal Heavenly Father who has prepared a way for those who seek for eternal truth.”

The rest of that talk can be found here.

I love the vision of a beam of sunlight.  I can just picture it coming through the clouds and shining brightly and warmly on my soul. Giving me hope for a brighter day.

Today, let’s look outside of ourselves.  Let’s look for a way that we can make another’s burden a little lighter.  Just look around you, there are people everywhere that have hard things that they are dealing with and it doesn’t take much to give them some hope.  Remember that maybe you were given this mountain to show others that it can moved!  Pray and ask God who it is that needs your help today, and I promise he will show you.  And remember it only takes a tiny bit of hope to keep you from falling into despair.  Today choose to have hope.

XO Wendy

Choose Joy!

choose joy

As we have talked about this week, there are ways that we can bring that joy into our lives that we so crave.  We can focus on the Savior, we can serve others,  we can remember our worth and that we are so loved.  And we can make an intentional decision to have more joy in our lives.

I hope that as we have discussed joy this week that you have taken the time to record your feelings in a journal.  And if you don’t have a journal, please take the time to go out and find a cute little notebook that speaks to you. I promise it will bring you a little joy just doing that.

I have found that finding joy in daily living is totally a process.  Let’s face it, some days are just better than others.  This whole week I have been sick (head cold), all I have really wanted to do is lay down and sleep it all off.  But I have felt so strongly lately that I need to be more consistent in sharing my thoughts and feelings somewhere besides a pretty little journal.  Although I highly recommend that and I won’t stop writing in mine, it is also important to follow through on our promptings and impressions.  We are all here to help each other.

This blog is about finding hope and joy.  And while it happens to be filled with my personal experiences, I would love nothing more than to have guest writers come in and talk about experiences that they’ve had in finding joy in daily life.  If this is something that you’d be interested in please DM me.  Or I can just share your story anonymously, I can’t wait to hear from you.  Have a great weekend!  I’ll see you next week!

XO Wendy

 

The Joy of Womanhood

Hi there!  Glad to see you back.  I hope you are enjoying these little tidbits of motivation.

Today I want you to focus on you! Not in a selfish way but in a way that you begin to see yourself the way the Lord sees you.  For you are more precious than rubies. Proverbs 31

When I was a teenager in seminary, I remember hearing a story about an old janitor who was just beloved by all the students. And so one day the faculty decided to have him talk to the students.  The students were all super excited and anxious to hear what he had to say.  As the meeting opened and he was introduced he walked up to the pulpit and had to take a moment. He had his back turned to the students.  As he turned around he had tears in his eyes.  And then he spoke, “If only you could see what I see!”  He explained that for a brief moment as the teens were entering the room, he felt as though the veil had been lifted and he was able to see who they REALLY were.  Who God sees.  He said, “I felt as though I should kneel down and praise you, for you truly are royalty!”.

I have never forgotten that story.  I think it stuck with me to remind me of who I REALLY am.  A daughter of God, a child of royal birth.

In this world that is so full of deceit and filthiness.  Greed and selfishness. We would do good to take a moment at the beginning of each day to look in the mirror and see ourselves the way He sees us!  And if you’re struggling with seeing that person.  Open up Proverbs to Chapter 31 and be reminded of your divinity.

The below quote is one that I came across in a talk from October 2000 General Conference.  If you’d like to read the whole talk you can find it here.

I hope that today you will find joy in your divinity and peace in knowing that you are a child of God who loves you dearly.  Choose to live in joy today.

XO Wendy