Category: Thoughts on Life

Our house is emptying out. As I look around at bare walls, empty nails, and general less-ness, instead of feeling sorrow, I feel relief. I feel freedom. I feel my burden and load getting lighter. When I have a house full of things, I have to take care of those things, store those things, and that takes time away from other activities that potentially are more important. I’ve felt the burden of material possessions more than ever as we returned from spending 6 months on the road living a much simpler life. Turns out there’s a lot I don’t really need.

Much like ridding ourselves of excess material goods lightens our responsibilities and frees us from distraction, our Savior, Jesus Christ, can lighten our spiritual loads and free us from the heavy burden of sin.

In the most recent General Conference, Elder David A. Bednar gave an address titled “Bear Up Their Burdens with Ease”. He related a story of a friend who acquired a 4- wheel drive truck, and drove out into a forest to cut and haul a supply of firewood for the house. He ventured too far into the drifts and got stuck. Undeterred, he cut and chopped firewood, loaded the back of the truck and then proceeded to try again to get out of the snow. This time he was able to. The additional load of firewood in the truck gave him the traction he needed to get out of the trouble he was in.

Elder Bednar continues, “Each of us also carries a load. Our individual load is comprised of demands and opportunities, obligations and privileges, afflictions and blessings, and options and constraints. Two guiding questions can be helpful as we periodically and prayerfully assess our load: ‘Is the load I am carrying producing the spiritual traction that will enable me to press forward with faith in Christ on the strait and narrow path and avoid getting stuck? Is the load I am carrying creating sufficient spiritual traction so I ultimately can return home to Heavenly Father?’

“Sometimes we mistakenly may believe that happiness is the absence of a load. But bearing a load is a necessary and essential part of the plan of happiness. Because our individual load needs to generate spiritual traction, we should be careful to not haul around in our lives so many nice but unnecessary things that we are distracted and diverted from the things that truly matter most” (emphasis added).

I believe that while  a figurative load is necessary in order to shape and turn me into the person God intends, too much of a load is unnecessary and can hamper that process. Living a life on the road is not an escape from responsibility, obligations, constraints, and demands on our time. Rather it is being more selective and deliberate about those burdens we choose to carry and freeing ourselves from the unnecessary and nice so we can concentrate on our family relationships.

Though I am religious, I try not to be in everybody’s face about it all the time. Today, on Easter Sunday, I feel the need to share my testimony of Christ. If you have no interest in my thoughts, feel free to skip this post. Our regular posts on travel, family, and adventure (including the process of selling our house) will continue shortly.

I am not the same person I used to be. At times in my life, I have found parts of my life that I didn’t like. Very heavily in my teenage years, but even now as I learn and grow, I find myself desiring a change. Not a change of others, but a change in myself. My actions, thoughts, and desires are not always aligned with my wishes, goals, and desires for myself. As I identify the changes I would like to make, I try to follow Christ’s example and apply to myself his prompting to “go, and sin no more.” I have drawn upon Christ and His Atonement to make those changes. Through the power of the Atonement, I have left those pieces of my past self… in the past.

Christ isn’t concerned about the person we were yesterday, but about the person we are today, and the person we can become. He suffered for our sins, and died for us, to provide a pathway for us to become all we can become. Through His power, we can change, and we can be a different person tomorrow if that is what we desire.

Though in most ways I’m the same person I was as a teenager, I’m very different in some of the most important. As our life adventure unfolds in new and unexpected ways, I’m grateful for the guidance of Jesus Christ in both word and Spirit.

The video I’ve included below has been making the rounds on social media, and I love it. I even stole (borrowed?) the title for this post. Because of Christ, I am a better Son, a better Father, Husband, and Friend. If I have improved so much in the last 15 years Because of Christ, I hope I can allow him to help me as much in the next 15.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S3TI4bYerU

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we have a bi-annual, world-wide General Conference. Broadcast from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, the messages of those asked to speak are sent across television, internet, and radio to members of the Church as well as anyone who would like to listen. Uplifting messages about families, faith, hope, Jesus Christ and other topics are spoken about in 8 different sessions across two different weekends.

As a younger child and teenager, Conference Weekend was something I both looked forward to and dreaded. 8 hours of listening (4 sessions, 2 each on Saturday and Sunday) is a lot of religion for someone so young. But it was also a break from regular church attendance and Sunday morning my dad would always make us waffles for breakfast and we’d sit around the breakfast table listening to inspired messages from the leaders of our church. I looked forward to that tradition every time.

Now, I typically can’t wait for Conference to begin! Maybe because I have more patience, or I experience more trials and tests of faith but I love listening to the carefully prepared messages from our Prophet and Apostles. Many times I have had answers to prayers as the messages touch my heart and I apply them to my life and situation.

Last night was the first ever General Women’s Meeting to accompany the General Sessions and Priesthood Sessions which will occur next weekend. I was able to take Rachel, age 8, with me and we sat together and listened to righteous women praise virtue, keeping covenants, listening to the prophets, and a worldwide sisterhood. I was so proud of my daughter. This was the first time Rachel has sat and listened to that long of a meeting without the coloring books or church magazines we typically let them have during our weekly sacrament meetings. I loved when she stood up with girls all over the world and sang “Teach Me to Walk in the Light”. I’m so grateful she is my daughter and I’m excited for the young women she will become over the next few years.

I invite you to listen with us next weekend! Messages are available to stream over the internet from the lds.org website. If you are looking to be inspired, have questions about faith, or are in need of spiritual uplifting, perhaps one of the messages given will touch your heart.

“As you prepare for general conference, I invite you to ponder questions you need to have answered. For example, you might yearn for direction and guidance by the Lord regarding challenges you are facing.

Answers to your specific prayers may come directly from a particular talk or from a specific phrase. At other times answers may come in a seemingly unrelated word, phrase, or song. A heart filled with gratitude for the blessings of life and an earnest desire to hear and follow the words of counsel will prepare the way for personal revelation.”

-Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf (Sept. 2011 First Presidency Message)