When a spirit son or daughter enters this mortal world they come through their mother’s womb. In the womb they receive a physical body which is cushioned from mortal life by the amiotic fluids. At birth, they pass from the womb into the real world bringing a light from their heavenly realm and a perfect innocence and trust in their new parents.
William Wordsworth aptly phrased it when he said in his poem, Ode on Intimations of Immortality,
I have carried eight full term pregnancies and delivered each one. In the process I have been a witness to the light that enters the world with the birth of a new baby. It is reminiscent of a heaven that I have forgotten but from which I also came.
The laws of men continue to favor the choices of men and women to terminate the life of an unborn child. These laws grant immunity from the justice that law normally requires for those who kill but it does not eliminate the consequences. Women who agree to an abortion report experiencing a private hell to which no one is sympathetic.
Jesus explained it this way, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”
(John 3:18-21)
When parents choose abortion, they choose to hate the light in the womb lest their deeds which engendered the new life should be reproved. Fear of reproach is a real motivator because we rely on our families and communities for support. Standing alone to raise a child means taking on a life-long commitment to love and nurture someone else on their earth journey. It’s not easy. Choosing abortion is easy until the pain comes after “birth.”
There is a way to overcome the great burden of guilt that comes with abortion. Only through the name of the only begotten Son of God can our guilt be washed away and our spirit find peace. “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:17) We must approach Him in prayer and ask to be forgiven. The process will be long. No set amount of Hail Marys will work. Running from the pain will not work. It will resurface again and again until it is resolved. All healing will come from heaven through the power of the Son of God.
Suggested reading: Spirit Child: Healing the Wound of Abortion by Isabella Kirton
This is Day 8 in a challenging new series of posts. Each post will focus on a way to increase spirituality, focus or efficiency in dealing with life. Each post will provide a speech or essay to read, a 5 question quiz and a personal challenge statement or goal. The hope is that through self-directed learning and some coaching from me, you will grow in refreshing new ways.
The challenges we face in life are real. All of us must earn our food and rent. We all have relationships to maintain. We have to keep up our health. There is entropy to fight with. Today, I present to you a speech that contains the ideas whereby anyone can maximize their productivity. These ideas are not new but they are profound. To get the most out of them... 1. Read the Speech Speech 2. Take the Quiz Quiz 3. Personal Challenge Statement: In humility, I see how Christ is a source of strength to me and I believe he will stand side by side with me as I face life. 4. Goal: I will study the pattern of Christ to acquire new tools for the challenges I face in life. 5. Dig Deeper: "God Will Have a Tried People" "The Opening and Closing of Doors" "An Anchor to the Souls of Men"
This is Day 7 in a challenging new series of posts. Each post will focus on a way to increase spirituality, focus or efficiency in dealing with life. Each post will provide a speech or essay to read, a 5 question quiz and a personal challenge statement or goal. The hope is that through self-directed learning and some coaching from me, you will grow in refreshing new ways.
Life is a series of tests. Our response determines who we become and how our character develops. "Some of these tests are temptations to sin. Some are mortal challenges apart from personal sin. Some are very great. Some are minor. Some are continuous, and some are mere episodes. None of us is exempt. Opposition permits us to grow toward what our Heavenly Father would have us become." (Dallin H Oaks) We sometimes get discouraged by the nature of the opposition we face. It is easy to blame God for allowing our test to occur but it is better to take responsibility and rise to the challenge. To get a better idea of what exactly is opposition and why we face it... 1. Read the speech Speech 2. Take the quiz Quiz 3. Personal Challenge Statement: With God, I am stronger than all the forces that oppose me. 4. Goal: I will list five ways that I have overcome my opposition. I will also acknowledge at least one challenge that I am struggling to overcome. 5. Dig deeper into another blog post on this topic: Why does God Allow Bad Things to Happen
This is Day 4 of a challenging new series of posts. Each post will focus on a way to increase spirituality, focus or efficiency in dealing with life. Each post will provide a speech or essay to read, a 5 question quiz and a personal challenge statement or goal. The hope is that through self-directed learning and some coaching from me, you will grow in refreshing new ways.
The storms of life are strong and often leave me feeling vulnerable. I haven't capsized yet, but I surely have felt on the brink of failure and at the end of my resolve. Sometimes I feel so discouraged that I wonder if God cares. This speech is for all of us who feel overwhelmed by life. It explains why God allows us to suffer. It asserts that we are stronger than we think. I believe that we must know and be able to trust in God and others who form a support network in order to survive and thrive. No one is strong enough by themselves, but together we can be courageous. 1. Read the speech Speech 2. Take the 5-question quiz Quiz 3. Personal Challenge Statement: I trust in my support network to come to my aid if ever I reach the limit of my ability. 4. Goal: Pick a personal struggle and list three strengths you have that can be applied to it. Use ingenuity and describe three outside resources who might have tools or expertise who you could ask for help in dealing with your struggle. Write out a specific prayer request by which your faith can be activated in addressing this issue. 5. Dig deeper into other post on this topic. Transcend Problems Spiritually The Body of Christ Analogy
This is Day 2 in a challenging new series of posts. Each post will focus on a way to increase spirituality, focus or efficiency in dealing with life. Each post will provide a speech or essay to read, a 5 question quiz and a personal challenge statement or goal. The hope is that through self-directed learning and some coaching from me, you will grow in refreshing new ways.
While the beginning of spirituality is in understanding one's true identity. The next crucial step is to know of a purpose to life and to believe it is greater than just survival of the fittest. God has shared with prophets the purpose of life. It is bigger than love, the greatest virtue. It spans an eternity of time and potential. God's purpose is to give humans immortality and eternal life. He takes each little human heart and change it so that it has the capacity to love in God's way. Then he makes it unbreakable (immortality) and able to love for eternity. 1. Read the speech Always in the Middle 2. Take the 5-question quiz Quiz 3. Personal Challenge Statement Think about what gives your life meaning. Try to encapsulate that idea in a personal mission statement. 4. Set a goal to do something related to your personal mission statement in the next week. I'd love to hear about your goal. Post your progress in the comments. 5. Dig deeper into other blog posts on this topic: Why does God Allow Bad Things to Happen? Choose to Be Happy
God is aware of each one of us and the experiences we have here on Earth are timely in duration and intensity to be a perfect trial of our faith. “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor 10:13).
He has prepared this life to test us. “To be tested, we must have the agency to choose between alternatives. To provide alternatives on which to exercise our agency, we must have opposition.” (Dallin H Oaks) The ability to choose is held inviolate. God will not take away the ability to choose from anyone of us before our appointed hour to die. He does expect us to self govern and temporarily take away the agency of those who break the laws and contracts of our governments. The final judgement of what a just consequence should be he reserves for himself.
God gave his son to atone for our sins so that even the justice of God could be counteracted with mercy if we believe in Him and have faith in his son’s atoning power. In this way, he prepares “a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell” (2 Ne 9:10).
And so good and bad continue to coexist in this world. How does God react to this without intervening unjustly before the appointed time? Sometimes he eases the burdens of those who are suffering so that they can bear up under the conditions in which they find themselves. Sometimes he turns aside disasters (without stopping them) so that they do not affect the faithful as severely. Sometimes he blunts the effect of an evil act so that the lives of his children are spared when they might have been killed. Sometimes he lets us see evil to teach us what we do not ever want to repeat.
God’s assurance is that He will “consecrate [our] afflictions for [our] gain” (2 Nephi 2:2).
In Matthew 23, Jesus says, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”
In this scripture Jesus compares himself to a hen gathering her chicks under her wings. He expresses a great desire to gather the people of Jerusalem under his protective wings. His neutral observation of their choice to kill the prophets is interesting. Their choice doesn’t have to be our choice.
A short time after his death on the cross Jesus appears to the people in the Americas who have been taught by prophets that he will come to earth and atone for their sins. They don’t get to see him during his time in Jerusalem but after his death, he goes to these people, his “other sheep.” (John 10:16) Of note, he says the same thing about gathering them like chicks.
“And again, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, who have fallen; yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, ye that dwell at Jerusalem, as ye that have fallen; yea, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not.” (3 Nephi 10:5)
The instinctive protection of a mother bird is illustrated in this story. After the 1988 wildfire that destroyed most of Yellowstone National Park, volunteers were sent in on foot to look for any animals that survived. A volunteer saw the charred remains of a mother bird on the ground with her wings outstretched. He nudged her carcass with his boot and discovered three baby chicks underneath who had survived. She died so that they would live.
Christ died so that we would live. He sacrificed his body to protect us. His outstretched arms beckon us to come. If we put our faith in his invitation to “Come unto me” (Matt 11:28) his strength will protect our marriages, our children and our sanity. Faith in him is testing out his advice on our problems, humbly accepting his timing, aligning our wills with his Father’s will and doing our best to go the second mile.
Miracles are any unusual occurrence or coincidence that can be explained as resulting from Divine Providence. Jesus did many miracles but not all who were there believed. For example it says in Mark 6:52 that when the people in the ship saw him walking on water, they were amazed and wondered (not believing) because their hearts were hardened.
When a miracle occurs in your life, a skeptical reaction comes from a hard (or injured) heart. Skepticism is a reaction that contains doubt.
Miracles don’t result in faith or belief. Faith must precede a miracle.
To demonstrate that your faith must precede a miracle, let me describe two miracles and you gauge your reaction.
Miracle 1
During the American Revolution, the soldiers were struggling to survive one particularly harsh winter. Early that Spring on February 23, 1778, a miracle occurred. Shad, a type of Herring that lives in the Atlantic Ocean, came up Schuylkill River that runs through Valley Forge. They normally arrive in peak numbers in late April to early May. If you are skeptical that Shad coming to spawn is evidence of Divine Providence, you join with others who claim that George Washington, an experienced fisherman, knew Shad came up that river and that is why he picked it. It is considered a miracle because their early arrival saved the soldiers from certain death, and thus the American's fight for freedom.
Miracle 2
During the summer of 1848 in Salt Lake City, just as grains began to ripen, thousands of crickets came down from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and began eating the crops. The people looked with horror at these insects because the loss of crops meant starvation that winter. They tried to fight off the crickets with brooms, shovels, water and even fire. In desperation, they had a special fast to petition God for help with this problem. To confirm their faith, thousands of seagulls arrived on the scene. The seagulls ate the crickets, but they did more than eat them. They ate crickets until they were full, then flew to the nearest stream, took a sip of water and spat out what they had eaten. They did this for three weeks until all the crickets were gone. The fact that seagulls eat crickets is not surprising. The unusual behavior of the seagulls in this particular instance was deemed a miracle by those who asked God for help. If you are skeptical that this can be explained as evidence of Divine Providence, you are not alone.
Miracles that occurred in the past do not require faith because we know that they occurred and we have no need of faith. This is explained by Alma when he says
“Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe. Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.” (Alma 32:17-18)
When faith precedes a miracle, then the miracle confirms the faith and the faith becomes stronger and more resistant to doubt. Consider these two examples of faith that preceded a miracle. Miracle 3 A man was caught by surprise when a magnitude - 7.5 earthquake occurred near his home in Argentina. After assessing the damages, he quickly rode a bicycle to the house of his mother who lived nearby. She was ok, but her house was destroyed. She asked her son to save a few items that were in the rubble and while doing so, he discovered two glass bottles of fresh water that were undamaged. His mother had heard the prophet Spencer W Kimball counsel members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to store food and water in preparation for future emergencies. She believed and acted without knowing when the next emergency would occur. When the earthquake occurred a few months later, her faith was confirmed. The miracle was in the coincidental safety of a glass item in the midst of total destruction. (Source Ensign Magazine August 2016, p. 74)
Miracle 4
Second, A man came to an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and requested a blessing for his son. His son was born blind, deaf, and dumb with no coordination in his muscles such that he could not even crawl by the time he was five years old. The apostle, Matthew Cowley (1897-1953) blessed the child according to the will of the Lord. Within a few weeks he received a letter thanking him because the child was crawling after a ball and could both see and hear. (Source Ensign Magazine August 2016, p. 80)
In both cases, the person(s) had faith first and then witnessed a miracle second.
The result is an increase of faith. God is willing to manifest himself to those who believe. A little bit of faith is often rewarded by small coincidences and sometimes miracles.
Moroni said, “faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” (Ether 12:6) A witness may be in any form from a feeling of comfort to a display of Divine Providence.
I know that God lives because of the many witnesses that I have received confirming my faith. These things may seem small and inconsequential to a skeptic, but to me, they provide a strong defense against the doubts that I occasionally have. I encourage you to nourish your faith. Miracles will follow.
The longer I live, the more I realize that the reality of who I am is much less than who I could be. I have quirks, hang-ups, idiosyncrasies and neuroses that prevent me from being true to the ideal that Jesus inspires. In Romans it says “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
The death of God’s son guarantees that I will return to God’s presence. I can accept the reality of myself including my weaknesses and show up at his gate with all of them in tow — or I can be “saved by his life.” By that phrase I mean, that if I implement the pattern of his life into my own life, I will be empowered to rise above the craziness and the dross of my neuroses will be burned away through the fire of repentance.
My last post about breaking bonds focused on the service and fellowship that is required to be freed from some of those bonds. In addition to that, I must study and gain knowledge. The first kind of knowledge is self-awareness. I have to become aware of my hang-ups if I am to choose the path that leads to another reality.
I have spent a good part of my life trying to achieve emotional freedom. This post will point you to resources that I have used and some that I hope to dig into in the future. The emphasis on this is that studying a problem is essential to solving it. In spiritual things, we sometimes mistakenly think that God will answer our prayers just because it says in the Bible that he will. In D&C 9:7 it says, “Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.” The thinking that goes beyond asking is the knowledge that we must gain. God can give us knowledge but he knows how much we benefit when we work to understand a subject. He has our best interest at heart when he doesn’t just hand us the answer. I encourage you to pray, study, and dig deeper with faith and not give up. You can be free.
Principles on the Path to Freedom
Gain physical strength for the journey by taking nutritional supplements to support my pancreas and immune system. (Book: Food is Your Best Medicine by Henry Bieler)
Utilize the services of a BodyTalk professional healer.
Read Books (See list below)
Go on a Vision Quest (book: Grandfather by Tom Brown Jr)
Journal in a place where all emotional tension can be explored without fear as it arises: Stop running from pain
Draw with the left hand in a sketchbook (book: Recovery of Your Inner Child: The Highly Acclaimed Method for Liberating Your Inner Self)
Write goals for 10 years, 5 years and 1 year (describe in the present tense as if they are already a reality)
Build self esteem by exploring personal strengths, accomplishments, values, describe self
Ask for insight from God for understanding problems and finding solutions, put faith in His all-seeing eye
Rely on Jesus Christ’s atonement to repent of false beliefs, misdeeds, and to forgive others
The Steps to Healing
Recognition and realization
Remove myself from situations that hurt and don’t take personally the other person’s disorder / no blame
Moving forward, not sitting back and accepting the way things are
Think about boundaries (what are my needs and rights?)
Processing emotions through verbalizing, drawing, journaling - being honest
Organize and make sense of my trauma/trials
Open up to learning and the work that leads to growth
Unconditionally love myself (self esteem)
Being in the present and creating a new future (goal setting with near term benchmarks)
Realizing the importance of support (counseling, friends, relatives)
Regaining control of my emotional stability, thoughts, actions
Centering the responsibility within myself for my actions and emotions
