where is my focus? where am i placing the most emphasis?

"As parents, we have been commanded to teach our children
'to understand the doctrine of . . . faith in Christ the Son of the living God' (D&C 68:25)
...faith is truly a spiritual gift worthy of our utmost efforts.
We can give our children education, lessons,
athletics, the arts, and material possessions,
but if we do not give them faith in Christ,
we have given little."

Elder Kevin W. Pearson of the Seventy

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what do i focus on giving my children?
of all the opportunities and "things" i can offer my children,
into which ones do i exert the most energy and drive?

"Faith will not give you what you want; it will help you know or understand what is divinely intended for you."

My friend, Ganel-Lyn, posted this quote on her blog today, and boy did I need it. (I hope she doesn't mind that I borrowed it, but I thought maybe other family members reading my blog could be uplifted by it as well and couldn't resist sharing.)

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A dearly loved family member who has been ill had a set-back this week. It's difficult, especially since he had been doing so well lately, running and playing with his boys on a recent camping trip. This reminds me that He is all-knowing and our mortal vision can be so short-sighted. Our desires, no matter how much we want them or feel deserving of them, are not always part of a loving Heavenly Father's plan, and that FAITH means TRUSTING that His intentions are truly, and lovingly, what's best for our learning and growth. There is nothing He wouldn't do for us, no hurt He wouldn't love to take away, and yet He loves us enough to let us experience what is necessary to help us reach our full potential.

wanting to give up, but trying to hold on.

"The Lord may not answer our prayers right away, but He will always answer them on time."

"Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can -- working, hoping, and exercising fatih; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!"

"Obey spiritual promptings without delay...When I have any doubt about what seems to be inspiration, I ask the Lord to sweep away my own biases and to reaffirm His will in my heart and in my mind."

These quotes and this talk are what I am clinging to right now as I try to have faith in the Lord's timetable rather than my own.

sometimes free-agency doesn't feel like the greatest thing in the world.

that's it.
that title is basically all I can say at this time.
or maybe having free-agency ourselves doesn't stink as much as other people having free-agency. sometimes I wish I could make their decisions for them.

it's within us...

Last night Brett and I were talking about the power our doubts and fears can have over us. And how crucial it is to live your life in a way that the Spirit can draw near to you in order to remove those insecurities. I think sometimes the hardest kind of faith to have is faith in yourself.

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We can believe in others, we can even believe in answers to our own prayers--it's not hard to have faith that our Heavenly Father is real and aware of us, but why is it so easy to lose faith in our own abilities and strengths? Isn't that like saying we don't have faith that He will help us be everything we need to be? As though He is not enough to make up the difference? And yet we do. So frequently we receive answers to prayers, we come to know His will for our lives, and still we hesitate because we doubt our own capability to follow-thru with that will. If we have come to believe that a particular path is what Heavenly Father wants for us, and more importantly if we have come to believe that path will bring blessings into our lives, why is it so hard to take the first step simply because we foolishly wonder if we have what it takes to make it down that path to begin with? With our knowledge of where we come from, our knowledge of our individual worth and divine heritage as children of a KING, just what is it that we feel we might be lacking? It's there. Everything we need is there within us. The challenge is having the faith that it's there and that we'll be able to draw from the divine within us when things get hard. I'm starting to believe that's a big part of what we're sent to earth to learn: how to tap into that Divinity so we can reach our full potential.

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I know the path I need to take. Brett knows the path WE need to take. Now we just need to have a little faith in ourselves.