R-E-P-E-N-T, find out what it means to me.

This is so exciting!  The first post (from me) and the start to what will become our little corner of the cyber universe, a place of reflection and learning and understanding, a place of progress.  Thanks for this idea my dear friend.  I look forward to what is to come.  I feel like this will help us to define and collect the little bits of the mysteries of God that we find along our way.  I love that we just need an open heart, a little fairy dust of faith, and we can know the mysteries of the Being who created everything.  He wants us to know what He knows and to feel how He feels.  I can imagine that the feeling he lives with is the freest feeling in the world.  Truth is light.  Light fills us and frees us.  Each minute of study and reflection will bring us to a piece of truth and will naturally fill in the holes that our week creates in us.  I can't wait to see what we find on our lil' ol' journey.

My post may be quite eclectic at times...because that is just how my brain is.  But I will work to present my thoughts and impressions in some sort of organized format.  You know me, so I'm sure you'll be able to piece apart the fragmented and sometimes incomplete trains of thought.  We shall see.

This week, my themes have been repentance/patience with myself, fear versus faith, and prayer.  In these past three-ish weeks of being home, God has been working to support me and remind me that He is there.  That even though He is giving me lots of opportunities to independently choose and find my own balance, He hasn't left my side.  He is just like that dad you mentioned who has been running alongside his kid who is learning how to ride her bike and now has let her go to see how she has been learning, where she is in her progress.  I hope I make Him happy.  

Alma to his son Coriantum:

"O my son, I desire that ye should deny the justice of God no more.  Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point because of your sins, by denying the justice of God; but do you let the justice of God, and his mercy, and his long-suffering have full sway in your heart; and let it bring you down to the dust in humility."

I think sometimes I feel so ashamed of myself for falling again and again in the same thing, that it becomes a temptation to excuse myself.  But as I've learned about the power of repentance and the great gift that it is, repenting has become a pleasureful experience because I know that my Father loves me and is merciful and already knows all the stuff I'm telling Him.  I'm not telling Him to punish myself.  I'm telling Him to free myself, to know what to do with the situations and thoughts and opposition that tries to impede me, and to learn how to choose a little wiser each day.  Its all about learning how to use agency.  I feel like this scripture describes what the start of true repentance is: let the justice and mercy and long-suffering of God have FULL sway in your heart.  You have to accept the consequences and truth-like-a-sword side of the process.  However, you must let mercy fill your heart.  If you don't, you won't be able to forgive yourself, and you'll get stuck in that beating-yourself-up type pattern that happens to people who wish to do well and are afraid of failing.  So first, accept the consequences. Second, love yourself like God loves you.  And third, be patient with yourself, or be long-suffering.  Sometimes I get frustrated so fast with the mistakes that I make, especially when they are things that I already know and I do anyways out of fear or negligence or a lack of will power.  Yet the whole point of repentance IS the process.  You can't go through it in an instant, especially with deeply rooted issues.  The spiraling process of repentance climbs and heals as you go, so an issue from way back when still will affect you, but you will be on the same point, or issue, yet on a whole different level.  Eventually the wounds, the issues will completely heal up and we will receive a fullness of joy.  But in the meantime, I think we are supposed to learn how to enjoy the process.  

I know that repentance is a gift, and I am so grateful to Jesus Christ for creating a bridge between me and God that I can choose to cross.  I know that he not only made the bridge by giving His life, but He has also decided to walk with us along the way.  What a loving big brother!  I've got Jesus Christ in my boat, so I don't have to freak out when the waves and winds build and the storms threaten to sink me.  I have the Man Who Created It All in my lil', ol' boat.  I don't have to worry so much. 

My other big theme of the week is PRAYER.

I have found many scriptures about how we have to pray with the Holy Ghost.  We have to rely on the Holy Ghost to help us define the deepest desires of our hearts and help us to communicate those to God.  When we do, we are truly praying in the name of Jesus Christ because we are praying for things that God wants to give us.  The goal of prayer is to align yourself with God and you can't do that without the help of the Spirit.  I am trying to focus more on LISTENING when I pray rather than just speaking for this very reason.  And when I do, I find ways to define my needs, fears, questions, and answers.  They seem to just flow out of me, and that is when I know I am in tune with the Spirit.

Well I sure do love you.  Thanks for your post.  You are a very wise woman and I look forward to your next one.  I really love this idea, and it pushes us to put our thoughts and the things we learn into sensible words.  So thank you dear friend,

Rachel