Today I heard a couple of testimonies followed by a really great sermon in Sacrament Meeting* by Eric Boswell based upon a talk given by James E. Faust, Where Do I Make My Stand, from which I quote:
Thomas Giles, a Welsh convert who joined the Church in 1844, also suffered much in his lifetime. He was a miner, and while he was digging coal in the mine, a large piece of coal hit him on the head and inflicted a wound nine inches long. The doctor who examined him said the injured man would not live longer than 24 hours. But then the elders came and administered to him. He was promised that he would get well, and that “even if he would never see again, he would live to do much good in the Church.” Brother Giles did indeed live but was blind the rest of his life. Within a month of his injury “he was out traveling through the country attending to his ecclesiastical duties.”
There is more to the Thomas Giles story that is absolutely amazing when you look at what he becomes in spite of his injury. He might have never accomplished great things had he not pressed forward, steadfastly, in faith.
Then in Primary the children were taught about the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel:
Later on today, when home from worship services, I flipped on BYUtv to watch or listen to some really lovely shows. My viewing began with a fantastic devotional talk titled “Lay Hold upon the Word”: The Power of Wholehearted Living by McKay Christensen. What an amazing journey through hope and faith has his life taken!
A follow on devotional talk by Mark B. Colton was excellent too: Never Give Up Your Testimony of the Gospel. He used a quote from a wonderful sermon by Jeffrey R. Holland but the quote I am posting next is not from the Colton talk but from the Holland sermon “I Believe.”
Honestly acknowledge your questions and your concerns, but first and forever fan the flame of your faith, because all things are possible to them that believe.
All of these talks and sermons confirmed my thinking about how the daily exercising of faith makes it possible for one to become free, unmoored from the muck and mire of the things that bog one down mentally, emotionally and or physically. But faith goes back to the FIRST principles of the Gospel. Faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Faith unto Repentance, returning time and time again to Let Go and Let God set one’s sail.
Then the last show I watched was an episode from The Kindness Diaries. And as that show closed out my evening, I hear the same music playing over and over in my head. It is the same song I have been hearing for the last two or three weeks as I continue exercising my faith to let go and let God set my sail:
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