A Testimonial

Since this is a new month and I love new things, I have decided to celebrate by blogging my testimony on here. This is purely for my own purposes, but I hope whoever reads this will benefit from my ramblings. :)

The bottom line is that I love my Savior. What He has done for me is more than I can ever describe. I feel the love He has for me every day in the family and friends I have, the job I have and where I live. I have always been given my dreams. Granted, they don't consist of extraordinary ambitions, but they are still my dreams and God has never denied me what I have righteously worked for. I knew, for example, the moment I came to BYU for EFY as a freshman in high school that I would come here for college. There was no doubt in my mind; I worked as hard as I could and I was rewarded heavily, I feel. I could not ask for a better environment to learn and grow in the gospel and in the world.

I want my greatest desire to be to serve Him and further the Kingdom that He has built here on earth. I want to feel the spirit all the time; I want to really know what it is to be truly Christlike and to accept all people as they are while encouraging them to be just a bit better. I want to do what He would have me do and I hope that I am on my way to living this.

The more I experience and the higher I climb in my life I see the ways in which He has given and served and helped me. He has truly held me in His arms for the hard parts and let me choose where I wanted to go. I hate it when I go away from Him and force His presence to dwindle in my life. We all do this, but I am never happy when He is not near me. I feel empty when he is not a constant source of guidance and hope. But it is amazing to me how quickly He comes back to me the moment I cry out to Him. Even when I know I am being stubbornly stupid He shows me that He wants me around. He listens to the small as well as the large things and always seizes the moment to chastize me :) I wouldn't have it any other way.

I love His mercy and wisdom. I love that He knows. That is probably the greatest comfort to me in the world. I am the kind of person who stresses out when there is no visible plan. I do not "wing it" very often, especially with bigger things. But the fact that He knows makes it all okay.

I am grateful for the tears and blood that were shed by my Savior and older Brother as He suffered those endless hours. I love life but I cannot wait for the day when, hopefully, I will kneel at His feet and He will tell me that I did well. I am grateful for repentance and for charity and the goodness that exists in humankind. With all of the danger and evil surrounding us these days, it is uplifting to have a stranger make me smile or a friend seem to read my mind and know that I just need to eat out today. I love it that He uses means I have never seen before to enlighten my mind. I love that He is everlasting and that He has offered eternal salvation to me. All I have to do is act. I have to lay myself and my will on the altar, as Heavenly Father laid his Son on that altar. I believe in Him and I believe that though I don't have all the answers, God does. He knows my heart and loves every jot and tittle of it.