I love Sunday, it is my favorite day of the week! Over the years, I have come to cherish this special day more and more as I take time to slow down, rest, spend time with my family, and study.
I still have so much to work on when it comes to keeping the Sabbath day holy, and I hope that over the following weeks, months, and years, I’ll be able to look back and see my progress along with the benefits that come from my efforts.
As my children have gotten older and more involved in activities and I have added two businesses to our busy schedules, my husband and I try to carefully guard our Sundays as family time.
We take long walks, study the scriptures, eat a nice meal, and play games. Sometimes we indulge in a nap (naps are my favorite!) or a bible video. We spend time with grandparents or find a way to serve someone.
Lately, I have been trying to note my thoughts throughout the day so that I can be more intentional with my personal gospel study and set some goals for the week based on what I learn. I take notes at church and record my thoughts throughout personal and family scripture study, as well as any thoughts that come to my mind throughout the day.
I often share some of those thoughts as “Sunday Takeaways” on the Uplift For Women Instagram page, and last weekend I realized that I could also share them as a more collective resource here, on the blog.
This will be more of a journaling format than a formal blog post, and I hope that you can appreciate the real and honest thoughts that come straight from my heart. I would love for you to share anything that you learned today as well – please share your thoughts in comment below!
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we have a curriculum called “Come, Follow Me“. It is divided into weekly study material focused on a set of scriptures with a theme and some supporting content.
This curriculum is meant to be studied at home both personally, and as a family. When we come together for church on Sunday, we often discuss the content that we learned the previous week.
This coming week’s study is based on the chapters in James. I had to stay home from church with sick kids this morning, so I sat and read the scriptures during part of the time I would have been at church.
Do you ever have those moments when you feel like a particular passage was meant just for you at that very minute? This was one of those times for me. I so appreciated the words of James and his thoughts on patience and authentic obedience; these were words that I truly needed to hear..
As many of you know, I also own a website called Life After Wheat where I develop and share gluten free recipes. My husband and I both serve in our congregation, we have four children, and life has just been a little crazy lately.
I’ve been feeling increasingly overwhelmed and trying to re-evaluate priorities and learn how to say no and let go of things that aren’t as important as others. It’s a struggle, one that I’m guessing you are faced with, too.
As women, we all have a lot on our plate and we are all learning how to use those precious 24 hours and dang it, there are always just 24 of them no matter how hard we try to squeeze out more.
I’ve been frustrated, feeling like I am juggling too many balls and constantly dropping at least a few of them. Can you relate? Maybe some of these thoughts will help you on your journey, too.
What I learned today is that I need to be more obedient, and I need to practice patience. I need to do better about doing the important things even when they are hard, and letting the less important things slide instead of trying to pack it all in.
I need to be patient with the process. Right now is hard, but if I continue to stretch myself by working harder and prioritizing my time, God will help me. I just need to keep going, keep learning, and try again when I mess up.
After all, we are here on earth to learn and sometimes, learning is difficult and frustrating and messy and long. And that’s OK.
Whatever your circumstance, I hope you feel deep within yourself that you are enough. My friend, regardless of how well you feel you’re doing at this thing called life, know that you are enough.
You are enough. You are beautiful and strong, loved and needed as you are this very moment. Your efforts are seen by God and He knows your struggles. He knows you aren’t perfect, and He loves you anyway. He sees the good in you, and I hope that you choose to see the good in yourself as well.
Uplift For Women
Thoughts on Patience
Many (most) of the quotes below come from the talk Continue in Patience by Dieter F. Uchtdorf because there was so much good content there that really resonated with me.
“Patience means staying with something until the end. It means delaying immediate gratification for future blessings. It means reining in anger and holding back the unkind word. Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Thoughts on Obedience:
“The adversary will try to persuade you that spiritual nourishment isn’t necessary or, more cunningly, that it can wait. He is the master of distraction and author of procrastination. He will bring things to your attention that seem urgent but in reality aren’t that important. He would have you become so “troubled about many things’ that you neglect the ‘on thing that is needful.'”
-Stephen W. Owen
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