Gratitude for Family

Today my heart is filled with gratitude.  I am so thankful for all of the many blessings my family brings into my life.  They have always been there for me in every conceivable way possible.  It is through their actions and sacrifices that I have had the greatest example of what love is.

Regardless of my actions, they have ever been supportive and never hesitated to do without themselves just so they can help me.  Every second of every day I reminded of the plethora of blessings that my family has given me.  In prison, it’s the small things that can increase the quality of my life tremendously.

I feel so humbled because being in prison severely limits the amount of things I can do to serve them in return.  It can be frustrating to only be able to say thank you when I wish I could serve them in many more ways.  I don’t know how I will ever to repay their kindness or fully express my gratitude.

I just want my family to know that through their love and support they have softened my heart and allowed me to accept love on a level I have never before experienced.  I love you all, and I will spend the rest of my life in your debt.

January 31, 2012

I have been learning the difference between guilt and regret.  As I begin to truly understand that they are not the same, I am able to put behind me the mistakes I have made and all the negative energy I have been directing at myself.  Guilt helps us feel that we don’t deserve to be happy.  It is not helpful to feel guilty.  It doesn’t bring any positive results, but only makes us miserable and blocks our spiritual development.  Regret on the other hand, is intelligent and constructive.  Regret motivates us to abandon the behavior that has caused harm to ourselves and others.  It helps us realize that what we were doing was destructive.

Guilt tends to be emotional rather than rational and intelligent.  We focus on things we have done wrong or things we feel we should have done but didn’t do.  We feel “I’m bad and I will always be this way.”  By letting go of my guilt I am able to truly complete the repentance process.  I can finally stop beating myself over the mistakes I made that separated me from the ones I love.

I used to believe that in order to really repent, I had to continually feel bad about my actions and if I was ever “okay” with my mistakes, then I hadn’t really, fully repented.  I pray we can all really forgive ourselves for being imperfect and give all our mistakes to the Lord.

January 28, 2012

A couple days ago I had another spiritual breakthrough.  It occurred during my evening prayer.  It dawned on me in the middle of my prayer.  I realized that for the longest time my prayers had consisted of me talking to God, but doing no listening, whatsoever.  I would give my thanks, repent of my sins, pray for my needs and the needs of others.  Then I would end the prayer and go to sleep.  I was kind of shocked that I had neglected this most crucial ingredient of prayer.  I only listened for an answer when I had a major, critical decision that I knew I could not make without His input.  Of course, the answers always came for these serious matters.

I realized that my daily prayers had become automatic.  I quickly repented and opened my mind and heart to the Lord.  I approached Him with questions about the things I was dealing with daily.  They were things that I had previously considered small and frivolous and not worth my Heavenly Father’s time.  It was almost as if I thought that I had a limited amount of personal revelation and I wanted to save it for the major decisions.

I realize now that nothing is too small for God to answer.  We have unlimited personal revelation!  He wants us to take advantage of the line of communication that prayer opens for us.  I am grateful for prayer and the love my Father in Heaven has for me.  I am grateful that He cares for me enough to respond to the seemingly insignificant things.

January 21, 2012

The past several days have been amazing.  It has been a while since I have updated my blog.  So much has happened! 

This past weekend, my mom and one of my sisters came to visit me.  It was so wonderful being able to talk with them and bask in their wonderful spirits.  I love them so much and I can scarcely believe they that they care about me so deeply.  I will go into the visit in more detail in my next entry.  I wanted to share a spiritual revelation that I have had recently.

The past couple of months I have been struggling with guilt.  I had trouble dealing with all the heartache my actions have caused others.  I had repented of my actions, but I could not figure out how I could ever stop feeling bad about the pain I have caused.  The day before my visit, I had an epiphany and I have my step-dad to thank for it. 

When he joined the church, he quit smoking and coffee cold turkey.  He has never turned back.  Recently he has been told by his bishop that he was truly an example of all a latter-day saint should be.  He is still a little rough around the edges, but that didn’t matter.  He had stopped what he knew was wrong and pressed forward continually from that point.

As I was thinking about this, I asked myself, “What is repentance?”  Isn’t it just completely stopping the sinful behavior and forsaking it?  I realized that I had done that.  I knew that I didn’t need to feel quilt anymore for the things I had repented of, but I didn’t really know why.  I will always have the regret, but I need not carry the guilt.

Today I came to understand the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow.  They teach that you must first feel bad about your sins before you can repent of them.  What is critical is WHY you feel bad.  It is not the action itself that is the sin.  A person that grows up being taught no moral laws will think that murder is perfectly just and acceptable.  If he has no moral boundaries, he cannot be held responsible for those murders.  We have to first be given the rules before we can be penalized for breaking them.

Sorrow needs to come because I realized that I disobeyed my Heavenly Father.  My actions were part of the suffering Jesus Christ endured.  The action itself does not make it a sin.  It is God’s commanding me NOT to do that action that makes it a sin.  Committing the action is not the sin, violating a commandment of God IS a sin.

Understanding where my accountability truly lies expands my relationship with God.  It is to Him that I must answer, not the people my sins have affected.  There is the command of restitution for that part.  So – when they speak of feeling “Godly sorrow,” my pain and sorrow must be from violating my relationship with God, the power of the Atonement to change my heart.

I hope this makes sense.  I know that this understand has freed me in so many ways.  I can now let go of all the self-condemnation and guilt.  That debt had been paid in full by my Savior.  I can justify being happy and building up my self-worth.  I know I am clean before God and I can leave my past in my Savior’s hands.  I now know true freedom.

I feel like I have been blessed with tons of spiritual momentum since my visit last week.  I feel renewed, recharged and full of hope and excitement for the future.  It feels like a huge weight has been lifted from my heart.  Of course, I still have the same constant challenges that occur daily in prison, but it seems like the good far out-weighs the bad

A new thing I have started is similar to Operation Exaltation.  I’m calling this “Habits for Success.”  This is only the third day and I can already feel a difference.  One new habit I am cultivating is meditating 30 minutes a day on my Savior.  This has brought a serene peace into my day.  It has also produced some amazing insights for me on the Atonement.

I would definitely recommend anyone and everyone to try this at least once.  Since I am ADHD, I believe that creating a habit of meditation could produce tremendous results.  Controlled breathing is the key.

January 19, 2012

The past several days have been amazing.  It has been a while since I have updated my blog.  So much has happened! 

This past weekend, my mom and one of my sisters came to visit me.  It was so wonderful being able to talk with them and bask in their wonderful spirits.  I love them so much and I can scarcely believe they that they care about me so deeply.  I will go into the visit in more detail in my next entry.  I wanted to share a spiritual revelation that I have had recently.

The past couple of months I have been struggling with guilt.  I had trouble dealing with all the heartache my actions have caused others.  I had repented of my actions, but I could not figure out how I could ever stop feeling bad about the pain I have caused.  The day before my visit, I had an epiphany and I have my step-dad to thank for it. 

When he joined the church, he quit smoking and coffee cold turkey.  He has never turned back.  Recently he has been told by his bishop that he was truly an example of all a latter-day saint should be.  He is still a little rough around the edges, but that didn’t matter.  He had stopped what he knew was wrong and pressed forward continually from that point.

As I was thinking about this, I asked myself, “What is repentance?”  Isn’t it just completely stopping the sinful behavior and forsaking it?  I realized that I had done that.  I knew that I didn’t need to feel quilt anymore for the things I had repented of, but I didn’t really know why.  I will always have the regret, but I need not carry the guilt.

Today I came to understand the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow.  They teach that you must first feel bad about your sins before you can repent of them.  What is critical is WHY you feel bad.  It is not the action itself that is the sin.  A person that grows up being taught no moral laws will think that murder is perfectly just and acceptable.  If he has no moral boundaries, he cannot be held responsible for those murders.  We have to first be given the rules before we can be penalized for breaking them.

Sorrow needs to come because I realized that I disobeyed my Heavenly Father.  My actions were part of the suffering Jesus Christ endured.  The action itself does not make it a sin.  It is God’s commanding me NOT to do that action that makes it a sin.  Committing the action is not the sin, violating a commandment of God IS a sin.

Understanding where my accountability truly lies expands my relationship with God.  It is to Him that I must answer, not the people my sins have affected.  There is the command of restitution for that part.  So – when they speak of feeling “Godly sorrow,” my pain and sorrow must be from violating my relationship with God, the power of the Atonement to change my heart.

I hope this makes sense.  I know that this understand has freed me in so many ways.  I can now let go of all the self-condemnation and guilt.  That debt had been paid in full by my Savior.  I can justify being happy and building up my self-worth.  I know I am clean before God and I can leave my past in my Savior’s hands.  I now know true freedom.