A Worthy Goal

I had a moment last week when I realized I am not the woman that my Heavenly Father believes I can be.  I have talents and blessings that I am not utilizing.  I have been progressing academically since I began college, as well as professionally.  I do not doubt that I have paved a path that will lead to a successful career and future if I wish it to.  By the standards of the world I am doing life the right way.  That being said, I have spent the last school year being spiritually stagnant.  I haven’t pushed myself to grow further in the light of Christ and I became content with my humble testimony.  It’s time that changes.  While reading my patriarchal blessing last week I realized I need to start actively working toward becoming the valiant woman of Christ I am ordained to be.  I have been blessed with the ability to be a light to those who wander in darkness—something I don’t do often enough.  Boats are crashing on the shore because my lighthouse bulb hasn’t been shinning very brightly lately.  I set a goal to spend half an hour a day studying Preach My Gospel because I want to be prepared to be a missionary, whether that be for 18 months out in the field, or just in every day settings where people may ask me questions about my faith.  I also think there are things I can learn from this text that will help me grow as a person.  As I study Preach My Gospel and my scriptures I will be posting insights on this blog for surfers of the World Wide Web (or, let's be real...just my mom) to read.  I’m doing this for multiple reasons.  First, I’m trying to get more comfortable with the idea of sharing my faith.  I group faith in the broader category of emotions, and I am awful at sharing my emotions—I would rather pull my arm hairs out individually with tweezers than tell someone I love them, cry in front of another human, or admit openly that I care about someone and miss them.  It’s not that I don’t have faith or that I don’t love people (trust me, I love a lot of people—some who don’t even know that I do), I have just always struggled with communicating deeper emotions (and not because I was abused as a child—I come from a loving family, it really just stems from my larger fear of rejection and my fear of depending upon other people...wow, talk about a therapeutic tangent).  Second, I’m trying to keep myself accountable to my goal.  If I say I’ll blog about something then I’m more likely to actually do it.  Third, I hope that people who are struggling with their faith (of any religion, whether they be Mormon or not) stumble upon this and recognize that no one is perfect and we all have to take a step back sometimes and evaluate where we are spiritually.  I really enjoy blogging, but have been struggling with finding a meaningful topic to write about lately.  I will continue to rant when I want to about every topic under the sun on my personal blog and updating individuals on my life, but this blog will be dedicated to my deeper thoughts and spiritual insights and progression.