Dear Richard
I can finally start with something
other than saying that the week was hectically busy! It was busy, but I feel
like I can catch my breath for the first time in months!
I finished setting my test
that the students will write this week coming, and I finally got to start on
the chapters I need to revise for the next edition of our textbook. And I also
got to do some personal things, like catching up on our budget, which I hadn’t
looked at in over 2 months, and also quite a bit of blogging. I’m sure you
noticed a surge of them in the one week. I also did a fair amount of procrastinating,
but I think that was my body’s natural response to not having an immediate
deadline for the first time in ages. I had gotten to the point where I was sometime
literally 20 minutes ahead of where I had to be almost all of the time L But
now I can breathe!
Andrew and I went to Colleen
and Rohan’s place for a really nice supper on Friday. Kind of to celebrate
Colleen’s birthday, but she said she’d been wanting to do something like that
for ages, and it just happened to be the day after her birthday in the end.
Carina and Ryan were also there, and although it could have been a very quiet
evening, with 3 of the quietest men around making up 50% of the party, but it
was actually really pleasant!
So you remember that we were
having such problems with Joshua, and his anxiety around school, and I spoke to
the teachers etc. Well I spoke to his teacher on Thursday, to see how things
were going. I had the sense that things were improving, but she said it has
been a complete turnaround for Josh. He is now completely happy to take his
turn doing things in front of the other kids, and half of the boys are saying
that they want to come to play at his house. So he’s gone from being victimised,
to being one of the popular kids! Amazing! And such a relief for us!
Josh has also decided that he
wants to start riding his bicycle without the training wheels on anymore. So we
took them off yesterday, and then again today. And Andrew yesterday, and me
today, were running next to him holding the saddle… My thighs were killing me
after a while! For the most part he seems to be balancing pretty well, but it
will be a while before we let go when he’s riding. But the next step.
Our Sunday School and Relief
Society lessons today were quite interestingly linked. SS was about the law of
tithing and the fast, but Bro Terry started by asking us to rate our faith in
Jesus Christ on a scale of 1 to 10. After a fair amount of discussion we ended
up concluding that most of us have complete faith in Jesus Christ, as in we know
he lives and he’s our saviour. But we don’t tend to live 100% the way we
should, so we’re lacking in our works. RS was then based on Elder Holland’s
talk “Lord, I believe” where he spoke about having integrity to the faith that
we do have. And I realised at some stage through all of this a bit of how my
faith and doubt is playing out. Like, when we’re praying for Mom to be healed.
I have complete faith that the Lord CAN heal Mom, but I tend to then not be
sure if it is His will to heal her, and so then I doubt. And I think that now
that I’ve thought this through a bit it’s not as bad as I was feeling it was.
So I felt like I didn’t have proper faith because I was doubting if Mom would
be healed. But I do have faith that she CAN be healed, and we need to carry on
asking. But then the other part is accepting His will if He chooses not to. But
we don’t know if it is His will or not, so we need to carry on asking in faith,
and trusting that because He can do it, if it doesn’t happen it’s because it
wasn’t the right thing. That may sound not that different, but in my mind it’s
been just that slight shift that has put things in perspective (and I might
have also explained it really badly, but hopefully you’ll kind of get it J)
And then the other thing was
in SS talking about tithing and fasting, and I was able to link those two
together, and actually any commandment that we’re obedient to, with that
insight I had when I was fasting a few weeks ago. So I came to realise that
when we are sacrificing, in that case it was fasting, but it applied equally to
tithing, or sacrificing to obey any commandment, then we can stand before the
Lord with confidence, and say, I have made this sacrifice, so please honour
that sacrifice and grant me this help or answer or whatever it is. So another
way that obedience and sacrifice is a blessing – giving us confidence that we
can ask. And then when we ask in faith, and we’ve been obedient so we can
qualify for the blessings, “it will be given”.
So I like it when I start
seeing this clearer, and I’ve been blessed to have a day of it today J
So, keep on with that exact
obedience (but remember not to be hard on people who are trying their best, but
for whatever reason can’t do the same) so that you can carry on asking with
confidence!
Have a good week J
Shelly
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