LIESEL: May 24, 2021-HAVASU ROUND 2
Hello Hello. How is it goin? What a week that we had this week. It is crazy to think that transfers are tomorrow and that 6 weeks are already gone and up. Time flies by when you are serving the Lord.
Your
Sliver of Light is Brighter than the Dark
Talk by Sister Evans
Good morning brothers and sisters. I was asked
to speak on a talk from this past General Conference. This was actually quite
difficult to decide. After much prayer and asking my sweet companion 3 million
times what I should talk about I can officially testify that angels do live
around us. Bless her patient heart. But I decided in the end to talk on the
message given by Elder Timothy J. Dykes called, "Light Cleaveth Unto
Light".
In this talk he mentions a trip that he takes
with his sons to a cave. During their adventure they choose to repel off the
ledge down the cave and I quote "into a cathedral cavern so tall and wide
that it could swallow the Statue of Liberty.", as they are descending down
the lights abruptly turn off as a part of the tour to help them understand the
true magnitude of the dark.
"The unexpected loss of light was
designed to show that without electricity, the darkness of the cavern was
impenetrable. It succeeded; we “felt” the darkness."
Focusing on when he says "we felt the
darkness". How does this relate to our lives and apply to us. I felt
inspired to focus on mental illness. As someone that struggles with anxiety and
depression it seems only fit that I talk about it, my prayer is that my
inadequate words may help someone somehow. The definition of darkness is
"the absence of light or illumination". There are times when you
truly feel the darkness. Like a pit that continues to grow and never ends,
where you feel like you can't get out. As some may know I am very open about my
mental illness and I am not afraid to talk about it.
One thing I will say is, you are not alone.
.....and you are seen.
In his talk he continues with
"When the lights did return, the darkness
instantly surrendered, as darkness must always surrender, to even the faintest
light."
Not
even the darkness can over power a sliver of light. The Lord says in 3 Nephi 11
"And behold, I am the light and the life
of the world;".
We must let his light shine within us. Easier
said than done Sister Evans. Yes, I know. Too often than not we are so focused
inward on ourselves, reflecting and thinking and oftentimes in my case sinking.
When I was in High School I was semi inactive, meaning I did everything all for
the wrong reasons. I was losing my testimony and frankly I wasn't doing
anything to save it. By the time I graduated and moved down to college I was
inactive living my "best life" yikes. Hanging with the wrong people,
to try to fit in. In my eyes I hadn't changed, I was still the person I was
when I was 15, but to others I was different. I was not a nice person, I was
negative, I did not honor my mother and father. I was in a pretty dark place
mentally. I was anxious all the time and nothing seemed to get rid of those
feelings.
At a lesson with the Willinghams this week we
talked about this topic and how we can recognize when the Holy Ghost is
speaking to us.
"As you live to merit the companionship
of the Holy Ghost, you truly “increase your spiritual capacity to receive
revelation.”
Life
presents challenges and setbacks, and we all must face some dark days and
storms. Through it all, if we “let God prevail in our lives,” the light of the
Holy Ghost will reveal that there is purpose and meaning in our trials, that
they will ultimately transform us into better, more complete individuals with a
firmer faith and brighter hope in Christ, knowing that God was there with us in
our dark days all along."
Sometimes I felt so hopeless and so helpless.
The word that best describes the way I felt was BROKEN. I wasn't going to the
right place for help, I wasn't asking Heavenly to Help me.
Elder Dykes says....
"Seasons of our lives can take us to
places both unexpected and undesirable. If sin has led you there, pull back the
curtain of darkness and begin now to humbly approach your Heavenly Father with
a broken heart and a contrite spirit and repent. He will hear your earnest
prayer. With courage today, “draw near unto [Him] and [He] will draw near unto
you.” You are never beyond the healing power of the Atonement of Jesus
Christ."
Alma 7:12
"And he will take upon him death, that he
may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him
their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the
flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people
according to their infirmities."
My companion has pointed out to me that the
word "succor" means to run to. So the Savior ``will know how to run
to his people according to their infirmities''. What a gift that we have.
Someone who knows exactly how we feel in every moment. Someone who has felt every
single emotion of the human spectrum. The purpose of The Atonement is to
utilize the healing powers of it. I want everyone to imagine right now in your
head a gift in the past that you've worked very hard on for someone, something
that has taken hours and hours and you have put your heart and soul into it.
Now imagine giving that gift to that person and the first thing they do is
throw it away. How do you feel? For me I wouldn't be too happy at first but in
the end I would be very sad. Apply this ideology to the Atonement. The Savior
has put his heart and soul into something so amazing that we can use it, but we
have to actually use it.
How do we access the healing powers of the
Atonement to bring light into our lives? First, pray. When Alma is counseling
with his son he offers him this advice.
"36 Yea, and cry unto God for all thy
support; , let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest
let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord;
yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.
37
Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea,
when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over
you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of
thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last
day."
He promises that if we cry unto the Lord and
direct our thoughts towards him that we will be protected and lifted up at the
last day.
Second, be humble. In his talk Elder Dykes
recounts a story that his father told him about his grandpa
"Late one fall, Grandpa was alone in the
high mountains. Winter had already shown its face when he saddled one of his
favorite horses, old Prince, and rode to a sawmill to scale and measure logs
before they could be sawed into lumber.
At
dusk, he finished his work and climbed back into the saddle. By then, the
temperature had plummeted, and a fierce winter snowstorm was engulfing the
mountain. With neither light nor path to guide him, he turned Prince in a
direction he thought would lead them back to the ranger station.
After
traveling miles in the dark, Prince slowed, then stopped. Grandpa repeatedly
urged Prince forward, but the horse refused. With blinding snow swirling around
them, Grandpa realized he needed God’s help. As he had done throughout his
life, he humbly “ask[ed] in faith, nothing wavering.” A still, small voice
answered, “Milo, give Prince his head.” Grandpa obeyed, and as he lightened his
hold on the reins, Prince swung around and plodded off in a different
direction. Hours later, Prince again halted and lowered his head. Through the
driving snow, Grandpa saw that they had safely arrived at the gate of the
ranger station.
With
the morning sun, Grandpa retraced the faint tracks of Prince in the snow. He
drew a deep breath when he found where he had given Prince his head: it was the
very brink of a lofty mountain cliff, where a single step forward would have
plunged both horse and rider to their deaths in the rugged rocks below."
He knew that he was in trouble and that he
didn't know where to go. He asked humbly in prayer. Acknowledge that you do not
know everything in this world, acknowledge that you will have moments in your
life that you will be inches away from a spiritual cliff. Are we going to give
Heavenly Father the lead or will we force ourselves over the cliff. We need to
realize that we are not enough, and that we will never make it. Tough wake up
call, I know, but let me finish that sentence. We will never make it without
the Savior, and the beautiful thing is that we don't have to.
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and
lean not unto thine own understanding.
“In
all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Third Listen. Listen to the promptings of the
spirit even when he tells you something that you don't want to hear. How can we
let the Light of Christ shine within us and guide us if we are not able to hear
or recognize that he is reaching out? I mentioned this in the lesson with the
willinghams, that before my mission I always had my headphones playing music to drown out the silence. When
there was silence that allowed my mind to spiral. I was not giving the Holy
Ghost a place to talk to me. We often drown out the silence in our lives
without giving room to the Spirit to give us revelation. We must be able to
tune ourselves into the spiritual promptings of the spirit.
After living in the dark all the time I
decided that I wanted a change. I reached out to my Heavenly Father in humble
prayer and when I listened I received my answer. Serve. Now, when I thought
when I got the answer to serve it meant to weed someone's yard or go to the
homeless shelter, Later I was told again more clearly that I needed to serve as
a Full Time missionary. At the beginning of my journey I was completely lost
but now I am happier than I have ever been. Do I still have my bad days? Of
course! I can promise you that if you rely on the Savior in those hard times
that the bad days aren't that bad.
Helaman 5:12 says
"12 And now, my sons, [and daughters]
remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the
Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send
forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his
hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you
to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon
which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build
they cannot fall."
Elder Dykes ends with a very powerful
testimony.
"There is no darkness that can ever
suppress, extinguish, overpower, or defeat that light. Our Heavenly Father
freely offers that light to you. You are never alone. He hears and answers
every prayer. He has “called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”
When you ask, “Father, Father, are You there?” He will always reply, “I’m here,
child of mine; I’m right here.”
I
testify that I know that struggles are real and they affect everyone in this
world. Trails are necessary, misery is optional. I know that through earnest
prayer and humbly listening to the spirit we can have the light shine brighter
in our lives. I know that Jesus Christ took on all our pains so that he could
run to us in those dark hours. My invitation to you is to ask for help. Trial
of faith, dealing with loss, mental illness, or feeling broken are all feelings
we may have to endure in this life, but we will never have to do it alone. I
love you all so much and I am very grateful for this gospel. I say these things
in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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