Take His Yoke Upon You

It's late at night, I'm stressed out, I have tons of stuff to do, and I really need sleep. So, naturally, I write a blog post.

God has so many blessings set aside for each of us, but many of them are dependent upon us asking for them. And we have to ask the right way. Here's an example from real life. Today.

I have an important audition tomorrow that I've been worrying about. I'm on the verge of feeling prepared for it, but I've been stressing. So, this morning I prayed about it. The prayer went something like this:

"Please bless me that I will do well on my audition. Please help me to be at peace and to be calm. Help me to reach my goal."

Eh, not bad. But not good. I did feel more at peace, but I didn't necessarily feel more confident. But I kept praying and humbling myself throughout the day. This evening, I realized how I needed to word things, and accordingly prayed a bit differently:

"I can't do this by myself. I need thy help. Please help my to play my absolute best, and to be able to happily accept whatever the results are."

And now I feel much better. I feel more at peace AND confident. This morning, while I was praying, it was really hard to let go of my fear and negative emotions. I knew that I had to consciously give them over to Christ. The phrase "Take My yoke upon you" kept coming to my mind. I knew that He could help make my burden light. That's what the atonement is about. It's not always about sin, but for everyday problems. It took me awhile, but I was able to give up my fear and stress. It really took effort, but I felt SO relieved and wonderful once I gave the negative emotions to the Lord.

That being said, I'm stressed again now. Guess I need to keep working on it. But, that's okay. I'm mortal, and I'm learning. And it is so wonderful that I can use the atonement all the time.

The Lord's Help... He will help you.

I know i didn't post yesterday, but I was literally doing homework all afternoon and night. So, I'm posting today. :) So, these past weeks of school have been kind of tough for me.  Well, mostly it's after school that's hard to manage.  This year I am getting much more homework than I am used to. Much much more.  Because I am in honors, the work is also harder. So it has been very hard getting used to the expectations that are now set for me. But, I am so grateful for the Divine help that my Heavenly Father is giving me. Lately, my math grades have been suffering because my homework grades have been bad. I was literally doing the best I could, but it wasn't enough. Also, my homework levels were totally stressing me out. So, I prayed about it. A lot. I felt that I should ask my parents for help, and they were glad to give it to me. But, my homework still took a lot of time. My sleep was getting cut shorter because of all of my work. So, I kept praying. And, God helped me. Last night, I had to study for two giant tests (one of which was math, it would make or break my grade). All I did was study and do homework. And even though it took my whole afternoon and evening, I noticed that assignments that I thought would take a while, took less time than I thought they would. At the end of the night, I got everything done, I was well prepared for my tests, and I was able to get to bed at a good time.
Today, I prayed before school, and before each test. There was only one question on each test that I didn't know the answer to. The rest I feel like I aced! I prayed for peace, a clear mind, and help recalling all that I had studied, and Heavenly Father did help me.
In fact, right before my math test, I had just had a very frustrating lesson in biology, and I was very upset. I was almost in tears because I couldn't understand the material. I was still wound up from that when I had to start my test. I prayed and asked my Father in Heaven to help  me focus, and He really did help me clear my mind. I wasn't even thinking about biology!
I have really learned that God doesn't prevent trials and hardships, but he does help us through them if we ask. I am know realizing that hardships are meant to help strengthen our faith in Heavenly Father.  That is the whole point of adversity. And I have truly felt my faith strengthened. I am truly realizing that God doesn't always answer our prayers the way we want Him to. He is perfect, and know exactly what we need. And, things always turn out better when we humble ourselves enough to let Him guide our lives and show us the path to take. This experience has really improved my relationship with my Heavenly Father.
I really do know that I am a child of God. I know that He loves me. I know that Jesus really know exactly how I feel- all the time because He suffered just for us. Every single pain, affliction, embarrassment, discomfort, stress. And, I know that They both love me more than I can fathom. I know that I have this knowledge to help others. And I am so grateful for this. I really love my Heavenly Father and Savior.
And, I really do know that if you ask Him for help, He will give it to you.

Scripture for thisThursday

The scripture for this Thursday is John 3:16.  I know that this scripture is used a lot, but there are some specific things that I would like to point out.

 16  For ^aGod so ^bloved the ^cworld, that he ^dgave his ^eonly begotten ^fSon, that whosoever ^gbelieveth in him should not perish, but have ^heverlasting ⁱlife.

God watched His Son as He suffered more than anybody ever could.  He watched as His Son was beaten and mocked.  And, He also watched as His Son was resurrected and people rejoiced to see Him again.

Some people believe that God and Jesus are the same being.  We believe that God is our Heavenly Father, the Father of our spirits.  Jesus is God's Son, as this verse plainly states.  Because God is our Father and Jesus is God's Son, Jesus is our brother.  Both love us with more love than we can fathom.

In the Mormon religion, we have what are called the Thirteen Articles of Faith, which are basic declarations of some aspects of our religion.  The First Article of Faith states:

We ^abelieve in ^bGod, the Eternal Father, and in His ^cSon, Jesus Christ, and in the ^dHoly Ghost.

To see the rest of the Articles of Faith, click here.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.