Coming Out Of The Darkness

The last six months or so have been really tough for us Coloradans. I mentioned it before just after the theater massacre, and instead of getting better things got even worse. Jessica Ridgeway lived about 15 miles from my house. Her killer went to school about 3 miles away. That's been tough to process.

Living in a swing state has been horrific. Hate, lies, and vitriol have flooded airways, our mailboxes, and Facebook. I've HATED it.

To top it all off, some things with both of our extended families have caused us great concern.

I've been in a dark place the last few months.

But, a couple of weeks ago I was talking to a girlfriend and it all changed.

I don't know if this is true, but I don't care. It made me feel better and changed my perspective, so whether it is true or not doesn't really concern me.

She told me that she had gotten a FB status from a friend of a friend (can you guess why I am questioning it's truthfulness?).** This friend of a friend has a son who is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon church) in Ghana. She posted this on her FB page:

Elder Holland (a leader in our church) came and spoke. He said that 80,000 new mission submissions came in since the announcement in General Conference of the younger mission ages. 50 new missions would be created in the near future as a result of this new bump in missionaries.

 He said “in this family we serve” should be our motto! We need to all lock arms and go to work. He quoted I Cor. Chap 12 and reminded us that we are all vital members of the whole. We are all in this together. When one rejoices or suffers, we all do. God is interested in our personal growth. He said that it may not be easy. Growth comes through adversity and hardships. But the Lord said that he will ease our burdens and give us strength to carry them. God is aware of us. 

How awesome is that?!? For those of you who are not members of our faith, I am sure that you know that we have missionaries. These missionaries certainly preach of Christ, but they also do service throughout the world- missionaries serve in many different ways. Normally, we have about 54,000 missionaries serving at any given time. According to this, 80,000 NEW future missionaries applied in just about 4 weeks!!!! Think of all the good they can do throughout the world!

This simply lifted my spirits as I realized that God is in charge! No matter what happens, God is in charge! We are HIS children and He cares about each and every one of us. While we may not understand why so many horrible things are happening, God understands.

Anyway, this has really helped me to not feel so much anger, despair, and hate about so many things that are going on right now. I do have faith in Christ, and I know that He cares very much about this world we live in. His work is going forward- and in the end, that is what truly matters.

**The Salt Lake Tribune did confirm that as of two weeks after conference missionary applications did spike from 700 a week to 4,000 a week, so that does add some validity to this statement.