For any of you that are fighting fear this new year:
I sat down in church this New Year’s Day morning and read the program I had just been handed:
“Be of good cheer, your future is as bright as your faith!”
It was EXACTLY what I needed to be reminded of this morning.
As a mother, I sometimes start to worry and wonder and feel concerned about what’s going on in my children’s world (it’s my world too, but I’m in a different place in it with a different point of view). I just want the best- a full, rewarding, happy future for each of our children! I hope for them the joyful road, not the easy road, but the path that leads them to reach their fullest potential and fullest reward in the end, the path that will lead them to be a great benefit to their fellow-beings also.
I realize, at least in part, what they are up against on their road toward success and love and joy and fulfillment and contribution. I realize how difficult it may be to face and find that path for themselves. The obstacles, the things that weigh them down or easily blind them, had been on my mind last night and this morning. And I felt for them and had given in overnight to worrying for them as they faced the future.
Truly, overall, I had to admit 2016 had been a challenging year. “The best of times, the worst of times” rang true of our incredible year- some of our hardest experiences were alongside some of the very sweetest we will ever know!! For opening hymn we sang, “ring out the old, ring in the new”. I was relieved this morning reading those words, we had made it through it all. I had collected up the happiest memories to keep forever in my heart and I was very eager to leave the hardest ones behind and welcome the better way of the future.
The thing I had learned with certainty this year, though, more than I ever had in my life, is that the Rock is REAL, and that it is true that if we do our best to build upon upon His Word, (as revealed through scriptures, prayer and the Holy Ghost, and true prophets) as we strive to live what He says the best we can, we CANNOT fall, just as it says in Matthew 7:24-27, Helaman 5:12, 3 Nephi 14:24–27, Doctrine and Covenants 11:24, Matthew 16:18. My now 15 year old daughter had pointed that out during a family scripture study a couple years ago and this year she and our family had experienced that as a reality when the storms came.
I admit, some parts of life seem to be a battlefield in a war in which we are fighting for souls, for hearts, for happiness, for the promise of the future. And sometimes we may feel like we are failing, or falling prey to the enemy. Sometimes people we love, or ourselves, may get injured in that battle “but I have found “in whom I may trust”, “the source to which they may look”, to “be healed”, “the sure foundation”, “a foundation whereon if men build they CANNOT fall.”
I remember what Christ said to Jairus as he was about to answer his plea to come and heal his daughter,
“Be not afraid, just believe.”
As a parent, I have found the need to cling to my faith more than ever this year, I’ve made the deliberate decision to choose “a perfect brightness of hope” and “believe” rather than let my fears start running rampant. I just needed a reminder of that this New Year’s morning and I’m so grateful I was welcomed with it written right here in front of me (Hinckley),
“Be of Good Cheer, your future is as bright as your faith!!”
So ring out the old, ring in the new and welcome New Year!!!! And a happy, Happy New Year to each of you!!
Love,
CaMarie & Crew
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