This morning I feel about the same way with a cough to accompany it. So, as 4:00 rolled around I tried very hard to keep my eyes shut. But habbits are stubborn, so at 4:30 I finally got myself up to send Jared off for the day :) and we can forget sleep at this point, because my mind is racing...not with important things, granted.
In fact, the great debate of "should I clean my house and cough and die as I do it," or "should I sit on the couch and watch shows with Joe (who is also sick) and want to die, as I sit in a messy house" raced through my head.
I know, my mind is a complicated place to be at times :) However, I started into my scripture study and found many more IMPORTANT and edifying thoughts waiting for me there....
From Jacob 3, to the December Ensign, and finally landing in General Conference.....Wilt Thou Be Made Whole by Elder Dyches. Interestingly enough, my thoughts connected from place to place, and I found some understaning :)
Elder Dyches recounted one of my favorite stories:
Corrie ten Boom, a devout Dutch Christian woman, found such healing despite having been interned in concentration camps during World War II. She suffered greatly, but unlike her beloved sister Betsie, who perished in one of the camps, Corrie survived.
After the war she often spoke publicly of her experiences and of healing and forgiveness. On one occasion a former Nazi guard who had been part of Corrie’s own grievous confinement in Ravensbrück, Germany, approached her, rejoicing at her message of Christ’s forgiveness and love.
“‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,’ he said. ‘To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!’
“His hand was thrust out to shake mine,” Corrie recalled. “And I, who had preached so often … the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
“Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. … Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
“I tried to smile, [and] I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
“As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
“And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”1
And then he ended his talk with a quote that I can atest to! I love the Savior. If life is sometimes bleak, hard or discouraging, then I HATE to think of what it would be without His help to pull us through :)
If you feel unclean, unloved, unhappy, unworthy, or unwhole, remember “all that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”3 (Wilt Thou Be Made Whole?)
