No. I'm not Catholic. Yes. I observe Lent. For as long as I can remember, my family has done our own little Lent thing. For those of you who don't know what Lent is, I'll explain it to you.
Traditionally, Lent, in the Christian tradition at least, begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts until Holy Saturday (right before Easter) - forty days (the Sundays in this period don't count, because they represent "mini Easters"). The forty days represent the amount of time (in the bible) that Jesus spent in the desert before his ministry where He was tempted my Satan. The purpose of Lent is to prepare yourself through prayer, and specifically sacrifice of something, for the commemoration of the death and resurrection of the Savior, or basically, Easter.
The practice of Lent was virtually universal in Christianity until the Protestant reformation in the 1500's. Some Protestant churches don't observe Lent, but many still do, such as Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Anglicans.
Basically the way we observe Lent in my family isn't really for the reasons I described above. As the LDS church doesn't observe Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday or Holy Saturday, it's really not for any of these reasons that my family does Lent. The reason we do Lent is because it's a good opportunity to take something out of your life that you don't need or that is taking time and energy away from something better that you could be doing. One year, my mom gave up soap operas, and since then, she's been soap opera free! Silly, I know, but that's just an example.
So this year, dear readers, for Lent, I am giving up two things: not running, and sugar.
That means I'm not eating sugar, and I'm going to run. I know, worded strange, but... it works...
And for those of you thinking "why would you give up sugar, it's not like you eat it all the time anyway..." I tell you, this statement may be true, but it's more of a motivation to get me TO run. I know the healthier I eat (even if it seems ridiculous to some of you) the more motivated I will be to run five days a week. I know myself and how I think and how I work, trust me, it must be done.
And so, I shall blog about my Lent journey. Frustrations, progress, but not my failures, because there will be NO failures. Gosh dang it!
So gear up, I'ma be a cross country runner before long. Shazam.
Peace.
Showing posts with label Scriptures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scriptures. Show all posts
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Blog Challenge: Day 4
Day 4: Favorite Quote
"5 If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land of by sea;
"5 If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land of by sea;
6If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the bosom of thy wife, and of thine offspring, and thine elder son, although but six years of age, shall cling to thy garments, and shall say, My father, my father, why can’t you stay with us? O, my father, what are the men going to do with you? and if then he shall be thrust from thee by the sword, and thou be dragged to prison, and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb;
7And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good."
Doctrine and Covenants, Section 122, verses 5-7
This has always been one of my favorite scriptures ever. It always will be.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The Book of Mormon is Rated R
FHE. 7:30. Monday Night. Meet in The Crack (official name yet to be decided). Be there, or lose your endorsement. OK, maybe not really. But who doesn't like the idea of decorating cakes? Or eating cakes? I don't like cake. But I like to decorate them.
So 7:30 it was, and after a quick lesson given by a girl doped on Benadryl, we were introduced to our teammates. Team 4 united. Secret handshake and all. We put our heads together. Conversed secretly. Our topic? The Book of Mormon. Depict something from the Book of Mormon on your cake. You will be judged according to creativity, execution, and something else that I don't remember. But that one doesn't matter anyway.
We looked at each other with smirks on our faces, then our eyes darted to our neighboring team and we eyed them with suspicion. They did the same. Unfortunately, we didn't have anywhere to go as our cakes occupied the same table. We eyed our supplies on the supply table. The neighboring team, the 3's, did the same. One of our more daring teammates made a run for the table. As luck would have it, we weren't the first ones with that idea. As we were instructed, we didn't take very much frosting. Unfortunately, other teams are stingy and mean and spiteful, and they took the entire bowl.
I exaggerate. But we didn't even have enough frosting to cover the top of our cake. As you will find out, we didn't need it. I shouldn't complain. Back to the story.
With our supplies of frosting, toothpicks, food coloring, coconut, red hots, and Twizzlers in hand, we threw out ideas.
"Ammon! The Twizzlers could be the bloody arms..."
"We could just cover it in yellow frosting and call it the Celestial Kingdom..."
"3D cake! Make it a 3D cake!"
"I think we should just make it red and say it's blood."
"The Book of Mormon IS rated R..."
"EW! Who had this idea? Boys?? We are NOT making a boy's cake..."
"But uh... I'm a girl and I think that's a good idea..."
"Why can't it be pink?"
"3D cake! Make it a 3D cake!"
"Do the Land of Desolation..."
"Did anything else even happen in the Book of Mormon?"
"I sure hope no one loses their testimony because of this..."
"Just make it bloody. Whatever you do, it has to be bloody."
"The Book of Mormon is rated X..."
"No, the New Testament is rated R... that's sketchy..."
"True... OK, it's just rated R... for all the gore... it needs to be a blood cake."
"This is gross."
And so we settled on a cake called Maher Shalal Hash Baz. That was NFF's idea. Destruction is imminent. So fitting, actually.
We first set out to make the grossest color possible out of the food coloring we were given. Dare I say it... I think we succeeded. It was disgustingly satisfying. My teammate, The Froster (TF) set out to frost our chocolate cake, only to find that it crumbled with every stroke of the spatula. Oh well, more character, right? Destruction. Again, so fitting. Soon, we found that there was most definitely not enough frosting for the entire cake. I turned to get more, only to be disappointed, for the greedy teams had taken all of it!
Fear not! My genius teammate, Dwight, escaped to his apartment and returned with a jar of chunky peanut butter. Our cake was soon filled with peanut butter mountains, covered in coconut bones and red hot guts. Dwight set out making midget licorice corpses, while NFF began making a giant licorice king. Unfortunatley, NFF failed to make the head, so I began to assist him. The head was unfortunately a cyclops, but, as we all know, many people lost their eyes in battles. As NFF and I began making more licorice giants, Tash2 and Best Friend (BF) lamented a bit about the goriness of the cake, while NFF explained to us that Dwight's grandmother was his 1st grade teacher. Dwight's grandmother thought NFF was too violent in 1st grade. NFF liked to draw tanks in 1st grade. Tash2 believed he never grew out of his violence.
After NFF and I had finished our licorice giants, we realized that licorice failed to stand on its own. Andre who towered a good 2 feet above me suggest toothpicks and knives. Dwight told us that Andre thinks on a higher level than all of us. This is truth. I hate to admit this, but there is but one teammate who's identity escapes me. I only remember that none of us knew his name, and this made us all sad. So for now, we shall call him Nameless. And thus he is named.
To make a short story long, after putting Andre's genius idea to good use, our beautifully hideous cake was finished. It was unstable. We feared for its' life. When FHE coordinator informed us that we had to actually transport our creations to the judging table, a small cry escaped from TF and Dwight. NFF put on a brave face and slowly reached toward the cake. Nameless was nowhere to be seen. Tash2 and BF looked over my shoulder with despair. But NFF didn't let us down!
And the judging began. The Judge surveyed our cakes with giggles insisting that every cake was a winner and that she couldn't possibly choose any winners. 8 cakes. 3 prizes. 1 judge.
Each team explained their cake. 2 cakes depicted Ammon. 2 cakes depicted the tree of life. 1 cake depicted Samuel the Lamanite. 1 cake depicted the Title of Liberty. 1 cake depicted something else I can't remember. And... our cake... Maher Shalal Hash Baz. Destruction is IIMMINENT!
We won most creative.
Go team 4.
We were all proud of our cake in the end.
None of us ate it.
So 7:30 it was, and after a quick lesson given by a girl doped on Benadryl, we were introduced to our teammates. Team 4 united. Secret handshake and all. We put our heads together. Conversed secretly. Our topic? The Book of Mormon. Depict something from the Book of Mormon on your cake. You will be judged according to creativity, execution, and something else that I don't remember. But that one doesn't matter anyway.
We looked at each other with smirks on our faces, then our eyes darted to our neighboring team and we eyed them with suspicion. They did the same. Unfortunately, we didn't have anywhere to go as our cakes occupied the same table. We eyed our supplies on the supply table. The neighboring team, the 3's, did the same. One of our more daring teammates made a run for the table. As luck would have it, we weren't the first ones with that idea. As we were instructed, we didn't take very much frosting. Unfortunately, other teams are stingy and mean and spiteful, and they took the entire bowl.
I exaggerate. But we didn't even have enough frosting to cover the top of our cake. As you will find out, we didn't need it. I shouldn't complain. Back to the story.
With our supplies of frosting, toothpicks, food coloring, coconut, red hots, and Twizzlers in hand, we threw out ideas.
"Ammon! The Twizzlers could be the bloody arms..."
"We could just cover it in yellow frosting and call it the Celestial Kingdom..."
"3D cake! Make it a 3D cake!"
"I think we should just make it red and say it's blood."
"The Book of Mormon IS rated R..."
"EW! Who had this idea? Boys?? We are NOT making a boy's cake..."
"But uh... I'm a girl and I think that's a good idea..."
"Why can't it be pink?"
"3D cake! Make it a 3D cake!"
"Do the Land of Desolation..."
"Did anything else even happen in the Book of Mormon?"
"I sure hope no one loses their testimony because of this..."
"Just make it bloody. Whatever you do, it has to be bloody."
"The Book of Mormon is rated X..."
"No, the New Testament is rated R... that's sketchy..."
"True... OK, it's just rated R... for all the gore... it needs to be a blood cake."
"This is gross."
And so we settled on a cake called Maher Shalal Hash Baz. That was NFF's idea. Destruction is imminent. So fitting, actually.
We first set out to make the grossest color possible out of the food coloring we were given. Dare I say it... I think we succeeded. It was disgustingly satisfying. My teammate, The Froster (TF) set out to frost our chocolate cake, only to find that it crumbled with every stroke of the spatula. Oh well, more character, right? Destruction. Again, so fitting. Soon, we found that there was most definitely not enough frosting for the entire cake. I turned to get more, only to be disappointed, for the greedy teams had taken all of it!
Fear not! My genius teammate, Dwight, escaped to his apartment and returned with a jar of chunky peanut butter. Our cake was soon filled with peanut butter mountains, covered in coconut bones and red hot guts. Dwight set out making midget licorice corpses, while NFF began making a giant licorice king. Unfortunatley, NFF failed to make the head, so I began to assist him. The head was unfortunately a cyclops, but, as we all know, many people lost their eyes in battles. As NFF and I began making more licorice giants, Tash2 and Best Friend (BF) lamented a bit about the goriness of the cake, while NFF explained to us that Dwight's grandmother was his 1st grade teacher. Dwight's grandmother thought NFF was too violent in 1st grade. NFF liked to draw tanks in 1st grade. Tash2 believed he never grew out of his violence.
After NFF and I had finished our licorice giants, we realized that licorice failed to stand on its own. Andre who towered a good 2 feet above me suggest toothpicks and knives. Dwight told us that Andre thinks on a higher level than all of us. This is truth. I hate to admit this, but there is but one teammate who's identity escapes me. I only remember that none of us knew his name, and this made us all sad. So for now, we shall call him Nameless. And thus he is named.
To make a short story long, after putting Andre's genius idea to good use, our beautifully hideous cake was finished. It was unstable. We feared for its' life. When FHE coordinator informed us that we had to actually transport our creations to the judging table, a small cry escaped from TF and Dwight. NFF put on a brave face and slowly reached toward the cake. Nameless was nowhere to be seen. Tash2 and BF looked over my shoulder with despair. But NFF didn't let us down!
And the judging began. The Judge surveyed our cakes with giggles insisting that every cake was a winner and that she couldn't possibly choose any winners. 8 cakes. 3 prizes. 1 judge.
Each team explained their cake. 2 cakes depicted Ammon. 2 cakes depicted the tree of life. 1 cake depicted Samuel the Lamanite. 1 cake depicted the Title of Liberty. 1 cake depicted something else I can't remember. And... our cake... Maher Shalal Hash Baz. Destruction is IIMMINENT!
We won most creative.
Go team 4.
We were all proud of our cake in the end.
None of us ate it.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Doing My Time in the Belly of a Whale
You all know the story of Jonah. He was a prophet. The head honcho. You know. And the Lord called him to go do a really hard thing. Go call the people of Ninevah to repentance. Jonah thought to himself, "But Lord, this is HARD! I can't do this! Why do I have to do this?" And then Jonah did a very un-prophet-like thing.
He ran away.
That's right. The prophet of the Lord ran away from a hard trial.
Doesn't it make you feel a little better knowing that even prophets feel that way sometimes? When times get really hard, when they are asked to do something that seems just too hard to do, even they want to run away sometimes.
But back to the story. Jonah ran away, and he boarded a ship. Remember this? All these horrible things started happening, and the shipmates started asking, "Who is the idiot that brought all this crap with them? Seriously, who's making all this stuff happen?" OK, so maybe they sounded much more biblical than that, but for the sake of applying things to your own life, let's just pretend. Jonah knew it was his actions that had brought the trials to the innocent people on the boat. This is when Jonah had a change of heart. He knew what he had to do. He asked his shipmates to throw him overboard. So they did.
But the Lord had a plan. You see, the Lord knows everything. Isn't that great? What a comforting thought. He knows everything! He knew Jonah would make these decisions, but because he loved Jonah so much, and wanted him to grow and learn and yet still accomplish what the Lord had intended for him, he prepared a way for both of those things to happen.
After Jonah was pitched into the sea, the scriptures say that "the Lord prepared a big fish" to swallow Jonah up. Jonah did his time in the belly of the whale, and I'm sure while he was there he did a whole lot of thinking, praying, repenting, just generally evaluating his life.
Well, dear readers, I believe I'm doing my time in the belly of a whale right now. I know I have been through a lot of life for my young age. I know I have learned a lot of things. But I also know that the Lord has a big plan for me that I have yet to understand or even comprehend. Now, I do know some parts of this plan for me, but I read a talk the other day that said the way that the Lord won't give you the whole picture. Instead he gives you each little puzzle piece a time, and once you figure that one out, he will give you the next one, until the beautiful picture forms. Very rarely does that change. Sometimes we get glimpses of the next puzzle piece, but we fail to see enough to make sense of where it fits in.
I can attest to this fact of life: Trials don't stop coming. I don't believe they ever will. However, we need to trust in the Lord enough to know that HE knows what He's doing, and we do not. Back to the comforting fact that He knows everything.
Another thing I know? I needed a little kick in the tooshie from Heavenly Father to get me to do certain things and fix certain things in my life that weren't right. And for that I'm thankful. But, now I have to do my time in the belly of a whale, and I'm not sure how long that is going to be. I'm in the process of fixing them, but there are so many things to that need attention in my life, and it's going to take time. I'm willing to take that time though, but I will need so much help. I'm so grateful for the Atonement for that reason.
And just like the Lord prepared a way for Jonah to still reach his destination and still accomplish the plan that the Lord has set forth, I know the Lord works the same way for me. I know that He still has the same plan for me, but He knew what would happen, and He prepared a way for me to get there, and I get the wonderful opportunities to grow and become the person He wants me to be and learn and fix all the things I need to, to get to know my very best friend even better, and to build and even better and stronger relationship with my family.
He ran away.
That's right. The prophet of the Lord ran away from a hard trial.
Doesn't it make you feel a little better knowing that even prophets feel that way sometimes? When times get really hard, when they are asked to do something that seems just too hard to do, even they want to run away sometimes.
But back to the story. Jonah ran away, and he boarded a ship. Remember this? All these horrible things started happening, and the shipmates started asking, "Who is the idiot that brought all this crap with them? Seriously, who's making all this stuff happen?" OK, so maybe they sounded much more biblical than that, but for the sake of applying things to your own life, let's just pretend. Jonah knew it was his actions that had brought the trials to the innocent people on the boat. This is when Jonah had a change of heart. He knew what he had to do. He asked his shipmates to throw him overboard. So they did.
But the Lord had a plan. You see, the Lord knows everything. Isn't that great? What a comforting thought. He knows everything! He knew Jonah would make these decisions, but because he loved Jonah so much, and wanted him to grow and learn and yet still accomplish what the Lord had intended for him, he prepared a way for both of those things to happen.
After Jonah was pitched into the sea, the scriptures say that "the Lord prepared a big fish" to swallow Jonah up. Jonah did his time in the belly of the whale, and I'm sure while he was there he did a whole lot of thinking, praying, repenting, just generally evaluating his life.
Well, dear readers, I believe I'm doing my time in the belly of a whale right now. I know I have been through a lot of life for my young age. I know I have learned a lot of things. But I also know that the Lord has a big plan for me that I have yet to understand or even comprehend. Now, I do know some parts of this plan for me, but I read a talk the other day that said the way that the Lord won't give you the whole picture. Instead he gives you each little puzzle piece a time, and once you figure that one out, he will give you the next one, until the beautiful picture forms. Very rarely does that change. Sometimes we get glimpses of the next puzzle piece, but we fail to see enough to make sense of where it fits in.
I can attest to this fact of life: Trials don't stop coming. I don't believe they ever will. However, we need to trust in the Lord enough to know that HE knows what He's doing, and we do not. Back to the comforting fact that He knows everything.
Another thing I know? I needed a little kick in the tooshie from Heavenly Father to get me to do certain things and fix certain things in my life that weren't right. And for that I'm thankful. But, now I have to do my time in the belly of a whale, and I'm not sure how long that is going to be. I'm in the process of fixing them, but there are so many things to that need attention in my life, and it's going to take time. I'm willing to take that time though, but I will need so much help. I'm so grateful for the Atonement for that reason.
And just like the Lord prepared a way for Jonah to still reach his destination and still accomplish the plan that the Lord has set forth, I know the Lord works the same way for me. I know that He still has the same plan for me, but He knew what would happen, and He prepared a way for me to get there, and I get the wonderful opportunities to grow and become the person He wants me to be and learn and fix all the things I need to, to get to know my very best friend even better, and to build and even better and stronger relationship with my family.
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