The best this life has to offer

"It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anythingbut the best, you very often get it"

- William Somerset Maugham

I can't tell you how many times I have been told never to settle, to never accept anything less than the best. It's one of my major character flaws. I am kind and accepting, but to a fault. I think it's one of those things where you think, well eventually I won'be like this. Eventually I'll grow out of it and right now I can just "be me".

But who is "me?" There is a quote that floats around that goes something like this: "God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way."

Being you could any number of things and any number of stages of you. There isnt' just one "you". Being yourself is a complete choice, but not just any choice, it's a layered and difficult choice. You can be the "you" you are comfortable with that never has to do anything more. Or you can be the "you" that you have always wanted to be and strive for refinement and dignity. Then there are all those layers inbetween...it all comes down to you. There is no scapegoat of "I was born this way" like Lady Gaga says. Sure, you can be born into just awful circumstances and rise above, or even born into the best environment possible and sink far below.

I think that the key if figuring out who you really are anyway. You are a child of God. A God! Think about it, God is all-powerful, all-knowing and perfect. Flawless! He is all loving, all caring and all sorts of involved in very detail of everything! That is potential we all have. No one is exempt.

If there is ever a time to step back and think, do I deserve this? Am I good enough? The answer will always be a thousand times YES. But, that begs the other question, are you will to sacrifice, swallow your pride and follow what He wants? Even when it doesn't make sense and even when you REALLY don't want to? Remember, you are you...you can do whatever you want. Make the choice and stick with it.

"It's a funny thing about life, if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it."

Half the battle is in making the decision...

The other half is sticking to it.

I'm sure you've noticed a recurring theme in my blog, that of having witty quotes to help me portray what I'm feeling. Well, I have to say that this edition is pretty special. I hadn't heard this one before, but it's pretty special.

Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days... What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It's so true. How many times have you been so scared about making the decision that you just stand there, petrified of going left or right but knowing you're wrong to not move but still unsure of which way to go. Choose left and you get your heartbroken and so does he, choose right and you get your heartbroken and well, so does he. No one can win. You are stuck. Either way you get hurt and so do they. Stay put and you both are in a hellish limbo not knowing anything for sure.

Relationships...every single person craves them, every enraptured couple in the beginning is in a euphoric bubble of bliss that makes those on the outside cringe just a little. Then there is the couple that is just coming off that high and realizing that things are hard and added pressure just makes it all worse. But if they can get through that they reach what is true serenity...that moment when you realize that no matter how tall the mountain, deep the ocean, dark the night and blazing the day, you are going to stick together like glue because you found something you know you can't live without. What is it? True, understanding, committed and utterly devoted love.
A love that everyone who hasn't experienced thinks is only in fairy-tales with handsome princes and beauties who never age or gain an inch. But it does exist. It does and is worth fighting for. The only question that remains is this: Are they that diamond in the rough or are they the learning experience disguised as cubic zirconium?

"What you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it."

Hold out for your diamond, even when the cubic zirconium
looks really good in the moment.

Control your thoughts because they become the words you use. Control your words because they become the actions you perform.

This quote from Robert E. Wells has a second part. Here is the full quote:


"Control your thoughts because they become the words you use.
Control your words because they become the actions you perform.
Control your actions because they become the character you reflect.
Control your character because your character becomes your destiny.
Control your destiny by becoming what your Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ want you to be." -Robert E. Wells

Having been dealing with a lot of stress, concern, confusion and over-all uncertainty in the last week, I've become increasingly aware of what I want in life. More than ever before, I'm thinking more about long term effects of the choices I make. How each step I take and each word I say could, in theory, effect something much larger down the road. I don't understand why we have to pass through moments like we do when we have an all-knowing, all caring God that watches out for us and knows exactly what will happen in the end, but I do know that it helps us grow.

I overheard a conversation yesterday wherein a couple of beautiful women were talking indirectly about some problems and how their mothers had told them that God knows how much you can handle and won't give you more than that. Their reponse was, if He already knows what I can handle, He doesn't need to give me all of these trials. It's enough that I'm able to handle it without actually going through it.

This initially had me thinking how proud and faithless these women were, but after contemplating their response carefully, I realized that in the moment of pain, do we ever think clearly? Are we ever happily skipping along thinking how fantastic trials are? No, we aren't. We are clinging on the the very hope that someday it will all be over. We feel low, desperate and wondering if He even cares.

My mom, whom I love very much and have been immensly blessed to have a very close relationstip with, sent me a story yesterday. This story I had read many times, but today it just seemed to fit a little better with my needs and current situtation. The story is called "The Refiner's Fire: A Lesson on Life's Trials." Here is the link to where you can read it. http://lds.about.com/library/weekly/aa100702a.htm

Essentially, some women were doing a bible study and wanted to know more about how the process of refining silver (Malachi3:3). One women went to speak to a refiner of silver and found out these important aspects of the job:

1. The fire must be EXTREMELY hot.


2. The refiner cannont take his eyes off the silver for even a moment or it will burn and be ruined


3. The process is complete when the refiner can see his image in the silver.

I am the silver and Heavenly Father is the refiner. He puts me in the hottest circumstances, never takes His eyes off me for a second and makes me into something so pure and so precious, He can actually see His perfect reflection in me.

"Control your thoughts because they become the words you use.

Control your words because they become the actions you perform.

Control your actions because they become the character you reflect.

Control your character because your character becomes your destiny.

Control your destiny by becoming who your Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ want you to be"

-Robert E. Wells.

Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck.

Does everything happen for a reason?

Do you really believe that? Deep down in your heart of hearts, where you keep the simple truths you know are true, is this one of those truths? Or is it simply a happy-go-lucky way of blocking out responsibility and claiming that all things, big and small, that happen are all just on a plan. Or is it more than just a happy thought? What if we all really were so important that someone made a plan just for us? A plan that mapped out our entire lives, not step by step with rigid guidelines, but a plan to give us the opportunity to be shaped, molded and improved upon so that we could become better than who we currently are. A plan made by whom? A plan that focuses on me, or on you or on someone else? How is it possible that the intricate details of our lives can somehow wind together into a perfect fit that enables the fate-like collisions that completely alter our universes?

The answer is simple in theory, but difficult in practice: God. Our Heavenly Father who watches from above, is intimately involved in everthing that happens and who is generally concerned about us as we make our way through his gauntlet of tears and joy.

For me, yes, I believe everthing happens for a reason, even the small things. But I think the trick is not over-looking the small things, but not over-emphasizing them either. I believe in taking things in stride. To trust in God, do your best and really try to act the best way you can.

I know God takes care of us. I know He watches out for us and loves us for who we are, but I also know He cares too much about us to leave us that way. We have to improve and become the people we really are.

So no matter what strange and seemingly irrevelant (or super-relevant) passes happen in your life, keep in mind that there is someone who already sees how it could end for you, if you just keep moving.

"Everything you are learning now is preparing you for something else" -Marjorie Pay Hinkley

With everything that has happening in the world around us, Charlie Sheen on the fritz, gigantic and massive destruction in Japan and of course, the chaos and upredictablity of our individual lives, do you ever just sit back and think, "How am I supposed to deal?"

This quote from the sweet Marjorie Pay Hinckley has come at the right moment for me. "Everything you are learning now is preparing you for something else". If I may be so bold as to add that everything you are experiencing, struggling with, agonizing over, craving for and all-in-all the things that consume your 24-7 life are making you who you need to be in the future.

Maybe everything you are experiencing now is just a small part of what you need to experience to become the person you need to become. But can you accept this sitting down? Doesn't it drive you crazy sometimes thinking about all the what if's and if have's and why me's? It does for me. There are times when I'm ready to explode with ambition and excitement for life and others when I'm perfectly content being the silent observer.

"Everything you are learning is preparing you for something else"....words you could read over and over again and still make you ponder. That's right, ponder. Take something and disect, rearrange, fit and mold into ways of application into your own life. Think deeply, sit in silence, wonder and imagine about these words.

I have been and it has created an opportunity for me to pour myself, honestly and wholeheartedly into my journal. By doing so, I can see so much better what exactly I'm feeling. I'm able to see clearly what is really bothering me and I can learn and recognize patterns from the past.

Journal writing....so simple, yet so essential.

So what happens next? The three P's of life. Plan, Pray and Prepare. With these, I can't go wrong.