His Grace is Sufficient

I am continually amazed by the love my Savior has for me. No matter how often I fall, He is always there to help me back up and remind me of His love for me.

Over the past few days, I have had a desire to work on increasing my faith. This has involved studying Ether chapter 12 in order to understand more about faith. I have gained some valuable insights I have been studying. What I learned this morning, was not directly related to faith, but it was a powerful lesson for me.

Today I read verse 26:

And when I had said this, the Lord spake unto me, saying: Fools mock, but they shall mourn; and my grace is sufficient for the meek, that they shall take no advantage of your weakness; (Ether 12:26, italics added)

The phrase "my grace is sufficient for the meek" really stood out to me this morning. I pondered this phrase for a few minutes. Then, I felt a desire to look up the definitions of a couple of words to see if I could gain any deeper insight.

I started with the word meek. I didn't find any surprises, but the definition of "humbly patient" was a good reminder to me of the necessity for me to practice waiting on the Lord.

Next, I looked up the word sufficient. The first listed definition was exactly what I expected "adequate for the purpose; enough." The second definition is what really struck me "(of a condition) such that its existence leads to the occurrence of a given event or the existence of a given thing." This is amazing to me. The mere existence of the Lord's grace leads to eternal life for those who are humbly patient.

I often get caught up in Nephi's phrase "we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23). I look at this verse and think I have to be perfect and then Christ's Atonement will make up for the mistakes I made along the way to becoming perfect. That just isn't true. His grace is sufficient. My responsibility is to turn my life over to the Lord and wait on Him with humble patience.

I will never reach this goal of complete reliance on the Lord in this life, but that is ok. HIS GRACE IS SUFFICIENT!!!

The Blank Page

It's been a while since I wrote anything. The past 2 months have been difficult for me. I've had several slips over that time. At times I've wondered if I would ever get to a point where I am so immersed in recovery that every temptation or trigger would be seen for exactly what it is.

I find it easy to get down on myself whenever I make a mistake. I have a tendency to look back to the mistakes I have made in the past and think that I can never overcome them. The truth is I can 't overcome them on my own, but I do have the ultimate support system. I have a Savior who loves me and is deeply concerned with my individual welfare.

This point was brought to me again this morning. As I was preparing to do my daily planning sheet, I thought about all of the sheets I have filled out over the last months and how I still slipped. I noticed that my daily planning sheet was empty; a blank page. The thought came clearly to my mind that my life was like that. Each day is a blank page. I get to choose today to be who I want to be. Who I am today is not determined by what I did yesterday. I know I've written about this concept before, but evidently I still need to learn this lesson.

I know I can make it through today. That is all that matters. Tomorrow my page will be blank again.