Miserable Monday #20

Do not pray for easy lives.

Pray to be stronger men!

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers.

Pray for power equal to your tasks.

- Phillips Brooks

Oh I feel like this is becoming less about sharing the miserable love and in so doing helping you not to be miserable and becoming more about my weaknesses. I wish with all of my heart that this was a strength of mine and instead of sharing my lack I was sharing my experience and wealth in this area of prayer. -Quote John Bytheway- The happiest people pray early and often, while the miserable often postpone prayer to be used only as a last resort. -end quote.

MY LB and I have an unfaltering love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we teach the ideals of the Gospel to our children and the importance of keeping the commandments, choosing the right, reading scriptures, praying daily, following the prophet and preparing for the Temple I feel a tug at my heart. OK more like a YANK. It is telling me to listen to the things that I am teaching and understand. I wonder how and when my children's salvation became more important to me than my own.

-Quote Johnbytheway- Happy people stand tallest when they're on their knees, but the miserable haven't got a prayer. Wow is that the truth.

I do have a testimony of prayer and I know with all of my heart that my Heavenly Father hears me and helps me. So why don't I do it more often? When I see my Father in Heaven again I want to be able to say, "I know we just spoke last night but I have so much more to say to you". Starting with thank you, ask for some blessings and end with I am sorry. I want Him to really know me and know that I love Him.

I don't think it is any coincidence that one of my favorite scriptures is found in this miserable book. Here is the story... For some time (and still) I struggled with those early morning thoughts that cloud your mind and make you feel like you aren't good enough. There is so much more you could be doing that your aren't or there are things that you are completely neglecting. For some reasons they POP in my head and keep me awake in the wee hours of the morning. One Sunday a wonderful women in my ward was speaking in sacrament and mentioned these early morning thoughts and I thought HALLELUJAH I am not alone. I could possibly still be human. And then she did it, she gave me my weapon to defeat the thoughts and become stronger than them. She read this scripture; Romans 8:31 "if God be for us, who can be against us?" It was at that moment that I realized I was fighting a war against myself. I let Satan in and in so doing I became against myself. So if God is for me than why am I against me. It just doesn't make sense.

Now when I am lying in bed and the war inside my CRAZY head begins I just close my eyes and remember that God wants me to win at the game of life and I choose to win too. Not to beat myself up and focus on all of the things I lack but to say a prayer and as Johnbytheway puts it; "just knowing the Lord is there and watching over us is a great remedy for misery." -end quote.