In church Sunday, a gentleman bore his testimony and mentioned a scriptural reference from
Mosiah 2: 6
"And they pitched their tents round about the temple, every man having his tent with the door thereof towards the temple, that thereby they might remain in their tents and hear the words which king Benjamin should speak unto them;"
Of course I forget exactly what he said, but the point was essentially that we need to face the Lord. That we should symbolically turn our houses to face the Lord. He was so much more eloquent in his thoughts than I am being, but; the reason I mention it is that I've been trying to figure out why I was so stunted last year and I really feel like it had a lot to do with the apartment we were living in. I don't usually give much thought to Fung Shui, and you know, if there's a certain way things should be laid out. But here's something interesting to me. Our apartment faced away from the temple, and it faced away from our wardhouse. Our new place faces both. Our old house, which I do miss, and where I was really pretty happy also faced both the temple and our wardhouse. It happens to be a north east direction we're facing at the moment. Don't really know if that's supposed to be good or not in all that fung shui mumbo jumbo, but I do know I'm much happier in our new place which faces the Lord's house.
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Another random thought/epiphany I had a while back had to do with our Father's love for us. I was just kind of wondering how on earth He can possibly know and love every single person on this planet, both living now and since creation and who will yet live. I mean, that's a lot of people! How can one love that much? And then of course, I thought to how I felt when I was pregnant with my second baby, and then with my third and fourth. I remember wondering how I could ever love this little stranger as much as I loved the child I already had. How is it even possible? But then when they're born, your heart just expands to take them in. It's amazing, and yet so natural. Your love just grows with each new addition. It must be the same with God. Each child He has created has just expanded His love that much more. And when your heart expands billions and billions of times----well, is there anything bigger than that?
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last, but not least.
This one is also from church on Sunday.
An analogy shared by the mother of a missionary in our ward (hopefully I don't wreck it, trying to remember it all):
Imagine that there is a terrible, terrible virus that is spreading around the world, and literally killing every person on the planet. Scientists are testing everyone's blood to try to find a cure. It's your families' turn and they find that your son has pure blood. He is the answer they've been looking for.
Imagine that he is asked to please donate his blood so they can create a cure for this virus.
You are there in the room with him where they are to draw the blood and they ask you to sign a form authorizing them to do the procedure. On the line where it says how much blood they are going to draw, it is blank. You ask how much blood they are going to take and they tell you they need all of it. You look at your son and of course he agrees to sacrifice his life to save the world.
Now imagine that there's a yearly memorial for your son. Would you be angry as you look around the room and see people behaving with very little regard for the great sacrifice he had made for them, or would you be so happy to those who behaved with gratitude and reverence for his gift?
This was so touching, and I think I'll be thinking about it Sunday when I partake of the Sacrament.
