Friday 19 February 2016.......I'm not as dumb as....

This post is a more personal one

As I look back on my life I see the Lord guiding and influencing a lot. I see how I have probably not understood what he was trying to accomplish with me. Like so many others I feel like I can do no wrong. I am more imperfect than I want myself or anyone else to believe. I'm not going to go into any specifics right now. Later. 

TThere are so many ways the Lord tries to influence all of our lives and we, at least I, push back and say "no" so much that it is surprising we're alive. 

To clarify, I love my mother. She helps me a lot in so many ways. Even though I love my mother I treat her very poorly. Maybe it is because of my stroke, maybe it's just me, maybe it's a combination of both. She doesn't deserve the way I treat her. I know she wants more from me at times. More than I am capable of giving. All I can say is thank goodness she doesn't give up on me. Not that I could blame her if she did. 

We all want our own way. The Lord doesn't give up on us. No matter if we or others think we need to be given up on. Some way, He finds a reason not to give up on us. He will let us learn the hard way if we insist but he does provide a better way first. 

One thing that makes sense, but is little comfort to me is the saying, "The only way out is through."  If anyone knew me before my stroke I rarely got sick. I had none of the risk factors for a stroke.  The fact I had a stroke was a surprise in many ways. When the nurse told me I'd had a stroke I thought to myself, "You lier."  I guess he was right.

I would not say the Lord caused this to happen to me. He let the stroke happen. He could have stopped it from happening. That's not His way as I understand it. He lets us see how we treat others. He watches how we react to the way others treat us. In many ways I believe in 70x7. I'm not that good. Far from it.  

I have been reading:

19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

(Mosiah 3:19, Book of Mormon)

I have been thinking about this scripture. The one part about about the attributes of children is miss understood I think. Most children are not "submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love". I don't know many children that fit that description. I think a better explanation is those are the traits that adults want children to have. The older we get the easier it is to develop those traits in ourselves. Whether we admit it or not God is our Father.  We are His children. Younger humans need older humans to show the way to hopefully develop the traits described. I would say it is describing how all of us truly could be, not children themselves. It is encouraging a new way of being for us.

I see it in a different light now.  

E