I woke up this morning with no journal to write in. I finished my last one and because of the shelter-in-place orders due to coronavirus I have not yet gotten another one. I have flirted with this idea, of having my journal switch to something online, but I have never done it. My reason? It's a lot easier to save my journals for posterity to read if they are online, verses a hand written journal. So, I guess I'll try this for a few days and see how it goes.
And that gets me thinking, how much posterity will there be to read my journals? And during the millennium, will people want to read other peoples journals? I know that sounds weird, but the prophets keep talking about preparing the world for the saviors second coming. So, naturally, one could assume that that time is coming. But obviously nobody knows when that time will come, and there's no telling if Gods timing will be the same as ours. For example, we are reading in the Book of Mormon about King Benjamins address to the people and he tells the people that Christ is coming soon. Well, his soon is 120 years away. For me, that doesn't feel like soon. So there really is no way of knowing. The only thing I can know for sure, is that I am prepared for when that time comes!
I will say though, that I enjoy reading King Benjamin speech to his people. In chapter 4 of Mosiah he talks about what it is like to come to a knowledge of God and I think it describes it perfectly. He uses phrases like, "filled with joy," "peace of conscience," "goodness of God," "his matchless power, and his wisdom, and his long-suffering," "his love," "receive a remission of your sins which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls." In my onion, these words and these phrases do a great job of describing what life with God is like!
Today is day 2 of my recommitment to getting up before my family to do my journal writing and scripture reading. I have learned, that for me, in order to really feel connected to God in my time of journaling and reading my scriptures, I need a quiet and uninterrupted time! And now, with the whole family home all the time, the best time for me to get both of those things is in the morning, when everyone else is still sleeping. Even Roxy, I just heard her sigh in her kennel. Good thing I am a morning person!
And after reading that IG post about how God can spark life back into you, I decided to recommit! And I know yesterday was only day one, but it was such a better day than the weekend was. I hit new levels of boredom over the weekend and I never knew that boredom could cause such extreme feelings of blah and emptiness.
One thing I did yesterday that was fun was go outside and draw with sidewalk chalk. I am laughing out loud to myself as I type this because this is so not something I would have done a month ago! It would have taken up too much time. But just sitting in the sun, listening to music and drawing with sidewalk chalk was very ... I can't even think of a word .... it was very introspective, and just nice!! When I was done I got on my bike and rode around the neighborhood to some of the other young women to see their sidewalk chalk drawings. The fun part was that I got to see so many of the girls outside! I saw Charlotte Hansen drawing her chalk. Emily Stevens, Brooke Nelson and Hayden Anderson, all sitting six feet apart talking. The Fish girls were outside drawing with sidewalk chalk and I got to stop and talk to all of them! It was so much fun. All of it! I felt like someone from the 1800's riding my bike around, stopping to talk to other people! 😂 As if life were carefree and easy and we don't have a million things on our plate. Oh wait, life IS like that right now! I am so thankful for this time, and what it has shown me about the importance of slowing down! I pray, with all my heart, that when the time comes, and the shelter-in-place orders are lifted, that I can find a way to carry this knowledge with me and mesh this slow-paced life, with the one that places time restraints on us, and requires us to be certain places at certain times!
"We would do well to slow down a little, proceed at the optimum speed for our circumstances, focus on the significant, lift up our eyes and truly see the things that matter most."
-Dieter F. Uchtdorf
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