STOP AND BE STILL

" Yea, for this cause I have said: Stop, and stand still until I command thee, and I will provide means whereby thou mayest accomplish the thing which I have commanded thee."

I am sure that I have read this scripture before, but today, it hit me with such a force as I walked into the relief society room and read this on the board. This comes after I had read a cousin's mother's Blog ( can you say that fast three times!) and I am thinking that she had read the lesson, because she asks how many of us have just stood still and listened....

REALLY, how many of us have just listened to the silence...? Turned off the radio in the car and listened to our thoughts? Or stopped the television, mixer or running water and listened to the kids laughter? How many of us pray that we will be able to discern the spirit when it whispers to us, yet we do not stop during the day to listen? My goal this year has been to learn how to be obedient......

And this may come as a shock to some of you...I'm not a very obedient person.... I don't do well when I am told what to do... (just ask Mack), but over the last few months as our family has made some incredibly hard! choices ( Iraqi Mackee!) and taken these decisions to the Lord I have come to realize that I am often praying for what I want...instead of stopping, being still and then being obedient to the whispering voice. Thankfully, the Lord is incredibly patient with me and has often answered my prayers or has realized that I have a very long learning curve and just went ahead and helped me up over it! But I have made a commitment to Mack and to the Lord, that I would listen, that I would stop and be still, and that I would seek not my will, but Thine.

I am not always doing very well, but each new day, I have seen the hand of the Lord in my life. I have seen small miracles (really, there is no such thing as small, a miracle is a miracle) and I have had the comfort of the Spirit when I thought that I would crack right down the middle. I have been blessed way more then should be possible according to my obedience graph, but thankfully, Heavenly Father has known my heart and my intent and counted that.