Love Every Moment

On my mission, I found that writing every week helped me solidify, retain, and see all I’d learned in that week.  So I decided to keep a blog! Hopefully for real this time :)

How much of life do we love? Really, truly love? I’ve realized a lot of life simply passes us by and then a chapter is over and it’s time for the next one. Usually it’s then that I look back and realized how many good times we had.

My mission president asked us all in a letter once if we really want to be happy. That made me think. How often do I just want to complain? Or just go through life, checking off my to dos and knowing I finished another day, another week, soon another year.  Do I really want to be happy? Enough to seek after it?

Yes! Of course! So I studied people who are happy in the scriptures. I found that all of them 1) work hard and 2) live righteously (wickedness never was happiness). In times of war, they wrote about how hard the people worked and how there never could be a happier time.

Alma 50:23 “But behold there never was a happier time among the people of Nephi, since the days of Nephi, than in the days of Moroni, yea, even at this time, in the twenty and first year of the reign of the judges.”

The people have just done some major construction to their cities, digging ditched, putting up really high walls and fortifications. This is a crazy busy people. But they were living the gospel and they were happy.  Put the Lord first, pray for hope and do things that you’ve always wanted to. Laugh instead of cry! We never get this day back, we never get this moment back. Live it for all it is worth. 

Ending my mission, I decided to leave with no regrets. I believe this is an action but it’s also a choice – we need to just do our best every day and then we need to forgive ourselves for what we couldn’t reach. (It’s okay to be weak. We all have weakness. They bring us closer to our Savior, which is worth being weak for.)

The way I acted was by doing things that sounded fun or that we’ve always wanted to do. We slept outside under the stars, we danced in the rain (there was plenty of it to dance in), we ate Reeses Puffs, we talked, we took time for those we cared about, we practiced positive thinking and gratitude. I learned happiness is one of the best ways to show gratitude, especially to Heavenly Father. We did our best to make every moment count.

The way I chose to not regret was to forgive myself. I think Heavenly Father’s been trying to teach me this one for a while. I chose to forgive my sins and shortcomings. Not to justify them, but forgive myself. I had to actively choose to trust Jesus Christ. I had to trust that He died for me, forgave me, and it would be alright. This was kind of scary for me. There’s something in me that feels like I have to beat myself up for me to learn anything.

THAT’S SO NOT TRUE!

In fact, the more I beat myself up, the less worth I felt and the less I learned and the less I became. I realized that feeling worthless because I made a mistake showed I didn’t understand Heavenly Father’s love. It is not conditional upon my perfection. It is not even conditional upon how hard I am trying. His love is always there. We don’t have to earn it. But we can use it. And He wants us to. When we feel loved, fear departs and we are unimpeded to become whoever or whatever we feel we can become. I stopped beating myself up and I felt so much better. I could feel Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ’s love filling me and encouraging me. I came to understand I am a child of God and I have great potential, but I will fall as I work to get there.  We pick ourselves up, repair what was damaged as best we can, and we move forward.

I realized recently this applies to all times of life. Every chapter, every moment. I have about 5 weeks to be home and I will never get this specific time with my family back, so let’s make every second count. Open my eyes, be grateful, be happy, serve, love everyone and step forward. Our lives are what we make of them.  Go out and own them! Fill them, live them. Love them! It is in our power to choose.

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