May 16, 2013

How do you take the next step 
when the next step is something you've never wanted to do? 

How do you have enough faith to walk into the dark
not knowing if you're doing the right thing,
not knowing what's ahead.


When I started therapy in ninth grade, 
in one of the first sessions I remember talking about "what if's."

I was so anxious my life was filled with what if's.
What if I forget that textbook?
What if I don't have time to study?
What if I don't do well on that test?

Looking back now, all those what if's seem petty.
At least compared to the what if's I wake up to every day now.

What if I made a mistake somewhere along the way?
What if I choose the wrong job?
What if I move to the wrong place?
What if I'm doing it all wrong?

I guess I haven't gotten any better at what if's.

But how do you live your life without letting the what if's consume you? 


As we ask these questions, we realize that the purpose of our life on earth is to grow, develop, and be strengthened through our own experiences. How do we do this? The scriptures give us an answer in one simple phrase: we “wait upon the Lord." Tests and trials are given to all of us. These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His Son. He already knows, and we have the opportunity to learn, that no matter how difficult our circumstances, “all these things shall [be for our] experience, and … [our] good.”
[...]
Yes, “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Then, in the dawn of our increased faith and understanding, we arise and choose to wait upon the Lord, saying, “Thy will be done.” What, then, does it mean to wait upon the Lord? In the scriptures, the word wait means to hope, to anticipate, and to trust. 

Robert D. Hales

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