My Testimony of the Grace

 Living with chronic pain and fatigue for over 12 years with little to no relief has been extremely taxing physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Every day is hard, and being functional in daily life is a difficult task that leaves me drained.  My hopes for resolution have been, as I describe it “dashed to pieces” over and over and over again. I have become bitter and angry many times, and frustration and impatience still occur, but not like they used to. It took me years to realize what the Atonement really, really means, and how much Heavenly Father knows and loves me.  I’d like to share with you what I learned about the Atonement, about grace, from these challenges.
 Let me start by asking you this question: When something bad happens in your life, what questions do you ask? Usually we ask “Why me?” Well, my main question was, “Do I not have enough faith, am I not good enough to be healed?”  After months and then years of exercising great amounts of faith for healing and having absolutely no success, I felt that somehow I was doing something wrong, that I didn’t really have enough faith because I wasn’t being blessed.  I thought I had to rely on my own merits and save myself without the Lord’s help in order to then qualify for His grace. That is where I was going wrong.
My turning point came when I hit rock bottom and realized that I could not save myself, that I needed redeeming, both in the physical and spiritual sense. It was at that time I read, “Believing Christ” by Stephen E. Robinson, and how he explained the true nature of the Atonement opened my heart and mind to what it really means.
The purpose of the Atonement is grace.  Grace in the New Testament is understood as “an attitude of goodwill that predisposes God to act positively towards us.”  In other words, before you became a spirit, before you could even earn any rewards or deserve any blessings, God was already predisposed positively towards you. Grace is therefore not something you can trigger, manipulate, earn, deserve or control. So where I thought I had to earn God’s love and grace was completely untrue.
 Grace is not the absence of God's high expectations. It is the presence of God's power. We don’t earn grace-we need it. We cannot ever, ever make up for every mistake, wrong turn, weakness or sin. Heavenly Father wants us to accept that truth, with the truth that Christ is the only one who can save us. His power is made perfect in our weakness.
 Imagine that the Atonement is an ice cream sundae. Sound odd? Just go with me here.  The viewpoint that “We are saved by grace after all we can do,” suggests that all the ice cream and scrumptious toppings on the sundae are our efforts and the tiny cherry on top is God’s grace for us.

 It belittles God’s grace to think of it as only a cherry on top added at the last moment as a mere finishing touch to what we have already accomplished on our own without any help from God. Instead the reverse is true of God’s grace and the Atonement for us: our efforts are the cherry on top added to all God has already done for us.
When I humbly and submissively accepted and applied God’s grace and the Atonement for what they really are, my life changed; I changed. My faith, hope and trust in Him and His plan for me increased. Even if these problems continue to rage, I know that because of Christ’s Atonement, I will one day be made whole. For the time being, I know He is with me every step of the way, comforting me because he experienced every single pain and heartache that I have. His grace covers my frustrations, my fears, my sometimes outright anger with the situation too. It is through those pains and heartaches that I am being refined.
 Hold onto this truth and never let it go: He loves you, He knows you, and His grace is sufficient for you.

Linked to Him

No matter how many rough patches I hit in life, each and every time I relearn how much challenges bring you closer to your Heavenly Father. No matter how close to the Lord I feel I am when my life is going well and I'm happy, it is never as near as when trials hit. I've been asking Heavenly Father to help me draw nearer to Him, so the rough patches may be partly my own doing. But I asked for this in complete submission to His will. When I ask for them, I have an absolute honest desire for Him to do with my life what He will.
I reviewed the book "Making Sense of Suffering" on the blog I share with my friend Sarah, and each time I read from it I am reminded the purpose for adversity. Reading from written works such as this help keep me going from day to day, sometimes hour to hour.
After a day that presented some new challenges that will be here for the months to come, a sob session with my dear mother, and prayers sent heavenward asking Why?, I sat down with the book-which I have almost finished!-and read the section entitled "Linked to Him".  It reminded me the real purpose, the amazing gift and blessing the Lord is really giving us when trials and tests come to us.
A day later things weighed so heavily upon me and threatened to overtake me, and I fell to my knees in the middle of my home, unable to hold in my words to my Heavenly Father any longer. I have known my whole life that my Heavenly Father knows me and listens to me, but that day I opened up to him with a completely new faith that my brother Jesus Christ feels everything I do. He knew exactly what I was feeling in that moment. I felt comforted and not alone in a way I never have in my life to this point. Reading and believing this passage helped me make that difference.
I want to share it in it's entirety here, I could not hold it back.

Linked to Him, Making Sense of Suffering, Wayne E. Brickey

        Surrounded by violent waves, the terrified disciples asked, "Carest thou not that we perish?"  Perhaps we have asked the same thing, but it is for us, not Jesus, to answer.  Does he care? Can we trust his friendship? Our answer tells how well we know him. Without storms, we can difficulty becoming acquainted with Deity.
        In all their afflictions he was afflicted...In his love, and in his pity, he redeemed them and bore them, and carried then all the days of old.

        The truth is that he delights in you and me.  He prepares a way and a place for joining him, and he waits for us to prepare ourselves.  He is closer than we think. Perhaps we have our comfort and pleasure alone, but our pain-nerve by nerve-is shared with a faithful friend. Yet, he is never hardened by his awareness of sorrow.  Our suffering may not be as real to us as it is to him!
         By the rod of trouble, we can bond with him and know that he is our friend. As proxy for us, he bore our heavy cross and asks us to take up light ones. As his proxies, we sometimes do the uncomfortable things he would do if he were here. He empathizes with us in a sacred and quiet fellowship.
         We are individually in His presence...Thank God for that principle...For such a principle to be omitted from the work of the Lord would be an omission too serious to contemplate. it could not be.
         Suffering makes our quiet companion more discernible. The veil, especially the part covering the heart, is thinner. He leans near with encouragement, suggestions, leadership, strength and peace. He consoles "Be of good cheer," and he whispers, "I will lead you along."  If we, like Paul, ask a thorn to be removed, he may quietly suggest another approach: "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness."  If we hunger and thirst after righteousness, he fills us with the Holy Ghost.  If the path is steep with grief and suffering, he leaves the peak to join us and say, "Ye shall obtain." Thus does he gently make himself known.
         Who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men?...I cannot say the smallest part which I feel...We have been patient in our sufferings, and we have suffered every privation...Blessed by the name of my God, who has been mindful of us...I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen."
         By our adventures with him in the storms, we discover that he cares, and we find ourselves wanting to honor him forever.  In every ordeal we see his hand steadying us and our oppressive burdens. We testify, "My God hath been my support." Our affection for him swallows up affliction. All our losses are gains if they link us to him.

                                  ***

I love this photo (Mark Mabry, Reflections of Christ) because you can see the love and hurt on Christ's face as he embraces this man, whom when I first saw it imagined myself instead, and see the Savior embracing me. This is what I think the reunion of the other side will be like, when he says, "I'm sorry you had to go through that," when he recounts the things you suffered, together.
He loves you soooooo much. He knows when you hurt. He knows what that hurt feels like.  It is so comforting, enabling, to know that you have a faithful friend that shares your pain, nerve by nerve. Your losses are gains if they link you to Him.

Serendipity..Find Better than What You are Seeking

The word Serendipity was coined by a 19th-century author named Horace Walpole, who loved an ancient Persian fable called, "The Three Princes of Serendip".

In the fable, the three princes each go out in search of their fortune, but all of them, through their acute awareness and perception, find things that are better than a fortune-LOVE, TRUTH and OPPORTUNITIES TO SERVE. They are able to make these discoveries because they notice things that other people miss, and thus find unexpected joys and opportunities.

Walpole made up the word serendipity and it means this:
"A state of mind whereby a person, through awareness, sensitivity and sagacity, frequently finds something better than that which he is seeking."

The fact is that we control so very little, and that GOD CONTROLS ALL, and serendipity has nothing to with luck. Heavenly Father's gifts are all around us, along with his opportunities and incredible beauties, and we just need the awareness and spiritual sensitivity to see them. We can cultivate this awareness by first asking God for it, instead of doing nothing and expecting something big to happen. As we do, we can use our agency to take the spiritual initiative that allows God to bless, inspire and guide us.  Guidance is infinitely more valuable and more worthy of our pursuit and quest than is control.  And serendipity is a mindset or paradigm that can get us to guidance.

With a serendipity mindset, we are motivated by our desire to discover and deliver God's will into our lives.  We begin to see life as a great adventure where our challenge is not to control but to perceive and understand. We become as interested in learning to "watch and pray" as we are in learning to "work and plan", and the two sets of skills compliment and enhance each other.

I have tried and succeeded to an extent to achieve a serendipitous attitude in my life, especially when the pain is real bad, the fatigue all-consuming and just breathing seems too much to bear. All challenges serve a purpose, and I want to find the better things He wants for me, better than what I am seeking. I know He wants that for me and for you, too.

The Adventure of a Lifetime...

I had the opportunity to sail the Caribbean a couple of weeks ago, with 350 LDS Singles from across Utah and other parts of the country.  To say I had a blast is an understatement! It was by far the most amazing, awesome, fun trip I have ever taken, and not because it was a "singles" cruise. No sirree, it was so fun because of the wonderful people from the places we visited that I got to meet, the new friends I gained, the beauty of the earth I got to not just see but experience and the way I was able to really check out of day-to-day life and just live in the moment. I lost track of what day it was, what time it was, and the cares and worries that awaited me back home were a distant dream it seemed. Truly therapeutic. Ahhhh.....
I was anxious before the trip because I had never traveled abroad like this before and I really hate certain aspects of traveling. It took me a couple of days to warm up to the environment, crowds and people I was going to be with for an entire week. Oh, and I woke up with the stomach flu in the middle of the first night, which made our first "Day at Sea" a not-so-fun one. Thankfully a couple of kind new friends gave me a blessing, which helped a great deal. I looked at the bright side: 1 out of 7 days sick isn't as bad as it could be :) I was up and at 'em by the next day, hallelujah!!
My favorite thing was meeting one new person who lived in the places we visited. I got to meet one new brother or sister in Heavenly Father's, and therefore my, family that I never would have gotten the chance to meet since they lived almost a world away.  In Cozumel it was the shopkeeper of a little store in the Mr. Sanchos Resort. He and his family procured black coral which they made into beautiful works of art, one being a turtle necklace that I bought from him.  He told us about the coral, about his family, his life.
In Costa Maya it was a shopkeeper who took our picture.  In Grand Cayman it was the bus taxi driver who took us back to the port, a sweet woman with a beautiful smile and accent.  In Roatan it was the cab driver, Marlo, a 26-year-old, honest-to-goodness-guy who wanted to show us around the Island he loves so much after waiting patiently for over an hour for our ziplining adventure to be done. What a gift, what a blessing to get to meet more of our brothers and sisters from around the world. It made me feel at home wherever I went.
I kicked several things off my Bucket List, including:

1. Take a Cruise Ha ha, that was an easy one!

2. Visit a foreign Country Three, count 'em! Mexico, Honduras, Cayman Islands

Welcome to Cozumel!

Rainy Costa Maya

3. Ziplining We went EXTREME Ziplining in Honduras. 9 Lines, pouring rain, rust splattering our clothes. We were drenched and dirty but oh so psyched. So much fun!!!

                                                    The After shot...strong ladies!                 Jeanette and I after our exhilarating ride

4. Solo Karaoke Unforgettable by Nat King Cole

5. Jaywalk in a foreign country Okay, I admit that this one went on the list the moment we did it here in Grand Cayman, but hey, another one bites the dust! ;)

6. Snorkel in a reef I don't have a picture of this one, but it sure was beautiful! It was an amazing feeling to become a part of the world that lives beneath the sea, if only for an hour.  I really felt like I was a part of it, with fish of all different shapes, sizes and colors surrounding me. Wow! Next on the list...scuba diving! Time to become certified!

Some other fun tidbits from the trip:

Getting stung by a jellyfish in Cozumel. Yes, it's true! It hurt like heck but didn't last for too long. This one wasn't the one that did it (ha ha) but I absolutely LOVED coming back to our room and a different towel masterpiece each night. These cruise people are amazing, huh? We loved our waiter and the man who cleaned our stateroom, Valentine and Paul, respectively. They became like members of our family, and we theirs.

Gluten-free food! The food really impressed me, and I was in Heaven because the ship made their desserts gluten-free. I would've been majorly depressed if I couldn't have partaken of the chocolate molten lava cake! The pancakes sure were interesting, more like crepes or 100 sheets of rice paper put together, and they were devilishly hard to cut through but they worked for me!

Theme nights! 80's night was just rad and Western Night was a barrel o' fun. Yeehaw!

                                                           Four DDI Girls: Jeanette, Cherice,                Cherice and I with new friends 
                                                                                                              Janae and I                                                  Elicia and Kim

Turtles! I discovered my favorite animal (yes, I know turtles are amphibians!) is a turtle, and I bought sooo many turtle things on this trip it was insane! There were more I wanted badly but held myself back and took pictures of some of them instead. If I'd taken pics of all of them, you'd probably have 100 pictures in front of you!

Some of my favorite pics

                                               Beautiful, green Roatan                            Waves on the side of the ship

                                                 My favorite place!                                     at night. Kind of looks like 

                                                                                                                             Northern Lights, huh?

New Friends!

                                                      Mindy, Annie, Corinne             Elicia, Lisa, Kim, Jeanette, Cherice and I

                                                             Jon, Cherice, Craig and I                    Buds Eric and Erik

Laugh out loud moments...

                                                   Lisa and I saw these and couldn't                      The shopkeeper who took this picture
                                                                  resist. We were going for the straight                     said "Say 'Tequila'!" Which is why  

                                                  faced look, but I couldn't do it and                            we have our mouths open like so.

                                                                       couldn't stop laughing. The tears                           It's become my new picture-taking

                                                                              would not stop flowing.                                            catch-phrase. "Tequila!"

This was an experience of a lifetime and I can't wait to do it again.  Yes, again! Next year there will be another cruise and for those of you LDS Singles out there reading this, if you want the hook-up for it, talk to me and we'll get you in on it come this fall. 

Most of all, I thank the Lord for this amazing experience and the new friends and memories I've made that will keep me smiling, laughing and joyful for the years to come. 

Adios amigos!

Robyn

Forgiveness

It's the hardest thing to give away

And the last thing on your mind today

It always goes to those that don't deserve.

It's the opposite of how you feel

When the pain they caused is just to real

It takes everything you have just to say the word...

Forgiveness

This is the opening verse to one of my favorite songs by Matthew West called, simply, Forgiveness. Please click on the link below to listen to it, then pop back to this page to finish reading today's message (trust me, the message will be more powerful if you do!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Lu5udXEZI

Powerful song, huh?!? I love this song so much each and every time I listen to it. Matthew wrote this song after hearing the story of a woman who forgave the drunk driver who killed her son. WOW. How strong do you have to be to do that? Mahatma Gandhi said, "The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." 

I've had forgiveness on the brain since we had our lesson on it in Relief Society yesterday. The greatest thing that was impressed upon me was how holding grudges doesn't hold others back, it holds us back.  When we choose not to forgive others, no matter how bad their actions against us may have been, we allow ourselves to be taken down, lower, lower and lower.  Consider these thoughts from me and some of my friends:

"Holding onto anger against someone is like drinking poison yourself and expecting the other person to die."

"Things we get mad about here, in the eternal perspective, are ridiculous."

"The attitude of bitterness and holding grudges offends God."

"By choosing not to take offense, we can purge from our hearts all feelings of unkindness.  We are then becoming like Jesus Christ, who showed unconditional kindness."

"When you hold negative feelings against other people, you allow Satan to own you."

Are there those in your life that you are holding grudges against, that you are shutting out? Are you allowing Satan to own you by harboring negative feelings for others? If so, please ask the Lord to help you let go of those feelings, and let Him take them from you.  

The same goes for if you are holding grudges against yourself. Those of us who easily forgive others have the hardest time forgiving ourselves.  Let go of the past and move forward, because you are amazing, you are good, and you are worth it. Let His amazing grace wash over you and take all that negativity with it. In it's place He will give you peace, love and incredibly amazing joy.

Land of the Free because of the Brave

Happy Veterans Day to all! Today we honor all those, past and present, who have served our country in the armed forces, although we should recognize them every day of the year.  My heart is full of humility, gratitude, and respect to God and our service men and women.  Our country is amazing and we are so blessed to have it!

Our Heavenly Father guided our founding fathers to create this great nation, and as the most prominent, powerful and free nation in the world, we do (no matter what all those liberals say) have a responsibility to help serve and protect the rest of the world from dictatorship, oppression and other forms of evil.  Those who serve in our military take that to the front lines, and many sacrifice dearly for it.

Men and women who are in the military are expected to conform to a higher standard than the rest of us "civies", and with good reason. I have a friend in the military and have learned a lot from him about how and why they do what they do. It's sure been an interesting education! If they were not pushed to the brink and broken down, they would not be mentally equipped to deal with the circumstances of combat.  And they do push them far. Reallllly far.  I don't agree with all the training tactics they use, but for the others I understand why they are necessary to prepare troops for whatever may come in the field. 

My respect for our service men and women has increased ten-fold and I feel eternally grateful for their service and their sacrifice. And their sacrifices are great; physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, vocationally, and in their family life. General Douglas MacArthur said, "The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." They develop struggles from the things they see and experience, and some may lose part of themselves.  They come home to a world that is much different than it was to them before, and living in that world is very challenging.  These are some of the sacrifices they make, and they make them for the intent to serve, defend and protect the citizens of not just the United States, but the world.  They are not "war junkies".  They do it for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all.

President Deiter F., Uchtdorf of the LDS Church explained the purpose of the Military this way: 

"I served six years in the military. I was trained well in forms of combat, survival and leadership. But only after having actually served as a soldier during the Cold War in Europe did I realize that our role as a well-trained and highly motivated military force was to keep and bring peace to a troubled world. Bringing and keeping peace is a significant part of the healers art."

The Healers art, I like that. Though the military uses weapons and force when needed to complete their missions and protect others, they are just another army of God, trying to keep and bring peace to the world He created. 

So please, thank all service men and women, past and present, for their service and sacrifice for you, for me, for every one of God's children. And please remember that,

"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."  

~Elmer Davis

God bless America, and God bless our troops!

You Can Make Your Dreams Come True

This Halloween was one for the history books.  I know it's kinda cliche to say, "Dreams come true", but it is true!!! Life is tough and sometimes when it gets us down, we let it take us down farther and think we'll never accomplish anything.  I've been having a harder time health-wise as of late and sometimes when that happens I just sink down and think there's no way I can enjoy life or reach my aspirations, so I don't try. But the truth is that when that happens, we need to act upon and follow our dreams and also create moments of joy that will just help us have fun!
At times we also may be so busy in life that we think we can't devote time to recreation because our focus should be elsewhere on matters more important. But I recall a statement from President Thomas S. Monson when he said of spending our time in worthy causes that part of that must be recreation and having fun. The prophet told us that we must have some play time! (Remember that Y'all.) Well, in this year of transitions, troubles and changes, I decided to let that all go and pull out all the stops for Halloween. I hadn't done something like this in years and, darn it all, I needed to do something fun for me!! I realized that I had power to make one of my dreams come true.
Now I've never been the biggest Halloween fan. As a child I didn't care much about candy and disliked Trick-or-treating in the chilled October night. Dressing up was fun but lost it's appeal as I got older.  My sister and I have talked since high school about dressing up as Glinda and Elphaba from the musical "Wicked" and after seeing it for the first time this year decided we were finally going to do it. Unfortunately Alisha couldn't do her costume this year-which was so sad!-but she gave me her blessing and told me to do it anyway.
I decided money was no object, because if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. I wanted  let worries and cares go and just have fun. I looked and looked for dresses at discount and thrift store but couldn't find a thing. But finally on the eve of Halloween I saw the ABSOLUTE PERFECT dress at a store and within minutes was skipping out the sliding glass doors to my car. Seriously. This dress could not be more perfect. It was blue and somewhat puffy, which is what Glinda's dress is all about! Overall it took me 3 stores and 50 bucks, but I put together a costume I'll remember the rest of my life.

But it's not the costume that matters most here; it's the memories I had while in it that I will treasure.  Hangin with two of my best gal pals, Rose and Kira, and enjoying an evening of fun and friends was just what I needed, and the memories will bring joy to me not just now, but the rest of my days.  I fulfilled a long lost dream and gained a boatload of goodness at the same time.

Kira (an 80's aerobics girl), Rose (a glow-in-the-dark stickwoman) and  me (Ms. Glinda, of course!)

So no matter how hard life gets, never let go of your dreams. Dream big and follow them with all of your heart!

Cheers,
Robyn