Today I'm grateful that the Lord loves me enough to chasten me when I need correction. I've realized, from the reading I've been doing ("Spiritual Survival for the Last Days" by Brent and Blaine Yorgason--Read it!), that I've allowed myself to slip slowly but surely into worldliness and greed. Not that I haven't always been somewhat worldly and greedy, but now I know I am, and I want to change. I know that my constant desires for the praise of the world are a bottomless black hole that can never be filled, no matter what I might achieve. That's why I was so bummed after I ran Boston (one reason, anyway). I worked hard and achieved what I wanted, but in the end I was still me. That's why getting into this house is not what I thought I needed; I'm still me. And losing 10 lbs. or running one more race or getting my degree will never change who I am.
But serving the Lord by serving others, striving to be humble and loving and giving and prayerful--these things will change me, and then that "black hole" can and will finally be filled, because I can become who the Lord wants me to be. And because of Him, I don't have to be what I've always been. Mosiah 3:19 reads: "The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."
I know the Lord can make so much more out of me than I can ever make of myself, but I have to let Him do it. I am grateful for my children, who show me their meekness and submission, their love and their patience when I am such an imperfect parent. If they can submit to me, in all my weaknesses and faults, why do I find it so hard to submit to my Heavenly Father, in His perfection?
I am grateful for His constant love and care. I am grateful that I can go to Him anytime, anywhere, for anything, and He always has time for me--as much as I need.
