Liken the Scriptures Challenge: Week 2

"The Sermon on the Mount," by Carl Heinrich Bloch

Today marks the end of Week One of my four week challenge to apply the scriptures to my life - and it has been a beautiful experience. My scripture for week one was Alma 4:15; my focus was to have the Spirit and rely on it more. The experience was so wonderful! Having the Spirit helped me to deal with challenges in a more Godlike way, love better, forgive more freely, be happier and more productive, find more ways to serve, recognize God's hand in all things, and mostly come closer the my Father in Heaven. It transformed me and showed me many more ways in which I can improve and progress.

So now, on to Week Two!

This evening I finished re-reading one of my favorite books, "The Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom. (If you haven't read it, please do! It will change your life!) In it, she describes the horrors she witnessed in World War II and how Jesus Christ's Atonement can bring love and hope even in times of despair.

After finishing the book I sat for a moment in the rocking chair, looking up at this Carl Bloch painting of the Master. How is it that Christ can know all of the pain and suffering of this world, and still be so full of peace and love? How is it that He not only knows the evils of the world, but paid the price for them, atoning for some that may never even acknowledge or utilize the most painful of all human sacrifices? How is it that Jesus can freely love and forgive billions of people who caused His suffering? Oh, that I might be able to have such an ability to love and forgive those who wrong me in such small ways!

The miracle is, we can. Christ offers that gift to you, to me, to each of us. If you don't believe it, read "The Hiding Place." Read my last post. When we ask in faith, He provides. Or as Miss Ten Boom wrote, "When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself."

One of the things I learned from this week of living by the Spirit and from reading "The Hiding Place" again is that I need more of this love.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said last October,

What attribute should define us as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Let us be known as a people who love God with all our heart, soul, and mind and who love our neighbor as ourselves.

I don't think that love is the attribute that defines me yet. But I want it to.

And that leads me to my scripture for Week Two: 4 Nephi 1:15.

And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.

There was complete peace and harmony in the land not because of a fabulous government, fancy clothes or even a Disneyland. This remarkably stable and happy society came because the people had the love of God in their hearts.

To me, the term "love of God" is two-fold. First, it means that we love God unabashedly, that we are willing to follow His will and keep His commandments no matter how long or hard the road. And secondly, it means that we have God's type of love for everyone and everything. In short, we love God and we love everything He has given us in a perfect, boundless way.

I admit, it is quite a daunting task, to learn to have this kind of love. But our God never forsakes.

I know without a doubt that Jesus Christ can teach me to love in this way. He learned how to do it when He hung dying on a cross. He taught Joseph Smith to do it when his family and followers were mocked, persecuted and driven from their homes. He taught the Ten Boom family to do it when all of Europe was scarred by war, famine, abuse and some of the most horrifying events in all of human history. He taught me a small portion of it last week when I asked Him to help me forgive those who had wounded me.

And I know that He will teach me to love in this way too.

Book Reviews: An Old Fashioned Girl and The Hiding Place

So I have a goal of reading more this year and forevermore, and the books I have read so far this year have been really great. I think everyone would benefit from them, so I figured I would write about why I love them so much and share my favorite quotes.


1. "An Old Fashioned Girl" by Louisa May Alcott
This is the story of a simple country girl named Polly who goes to visit her friends in Boston and is blown away by their extravagant and unhappy city life. She is able to help the family by her cheery attitude and good example during her first visit and when she returns to Boston to teach piano at the age of 20.

As usual, Alcott's engaging plot is intertwined with moral lessons so gently preached through characters who have become our friends. But it is these morals that made this book a treasure and left me a better person.

My favorite quotes:
"The least of us have some influence in this big world, and perhaps my little girl can do some good by showing others that a contented heart and happy face are better ornaments than any Paris can give her." -Louisa May Alcott, "An Old Fashioned Girl," page 44

"Polly had fully intended to be very miserable and cry herself to sleep, but when she lay down at last her pillow seemed very soft, her little room very lovely...So much to do in the great, busy world, and she had done so little. Where should she begin....to be strong, and beautiful and go round making music all the time. Yes, she could do that, and with a very earnest prayer Polly asked for the strength of an upright soul, the beauty of a tender heart, the power to make her life a sweet and stirring song, helpful while it lasted, remembered when it died." -Louisa May Alcott, "An Old Fashioned Girl," p. 169



2. "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Oh. My. Gosh. This book has changed my life forever. It is the true story of a courageous Christian woman who lived in WWII Holland. She loved people so much that she ended up as the head of the underground resistance for most of the country. This is her life story, from her childhood to her underground work to her imprisonment in the concentration camps. But mostly it is the story of how Christ's love can triumph over evil in the darkest of times. Corrie and the ten Boom family taught by example that "there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."


Favorite Quotes:
"There are no 'ifs' in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety - Oh Corrie, let us pray that we may always know it!" -Corrie ten Boom, "The Hiding Place," pg. 84

"We would hear the life-giving words passed back along the aisles in French, Polish, Russian, Czech, back into Dutch. they were little previews of heaven, these evenings beneath the lightbulb....and I would know again that in darkness God's truth shines most clear." -Corrie ten Boom, "The Hiding Place," pg. 213

"The real sin lay in thinking that any power to help and transform came from me. Of course it was not my wholenesss, but Christ's that made the difference." -Corrie ten Boom, "The Hiding Place," pg. 225

Betsy-Tacy

Which Betsy-Tacy character are you? Your Result: Tacy Kelly   Tacy, though bashful with people she doesn't know well, can be just as merry as Betsy and the others in the Crowd. Remember the Irish Colleen and the brogue accent? Tacy is a true friend who both sympathizes with and understands Betsy whether she is sad, happy, obsessed with a certain boy, etc. Although Tacy doesn't lose her heart easily, when she does it's for keeps (Harry Kerr!)
Julia Ray
Betsy Ray
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Which Betsy-Tacy character are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz