Here's to Journeys

As it is still the beginning of the year and many of us are making goals, or feel pressure to make goals and commit to growth, this quote seems very fitting. 

Setting goals feels very overwhelming to me.  I’m really great at thinking of goals or thinking of areas in which I want to experience growth.  I would love to actually one day grow a darn plant, no not grow it, keep an existing plant alive!  I desperately want to take part in a healthier lifestyle through balanced diet and consistent exercise and researching and implementing “cleaner” eating methods.  I’ve always wanted to become a yoga instructor.  I feel the need to travel more!  I want to be more of a reader.  I want to learn how to make pasta from scratch, quilts, candles, soap, canned fruits and vegetables, delicious cakes, SO MANY THINGS!!!

Here’s the issue: following through and achieving my goals and dreams. 

I guess they just seem so big and the pressure of completing them makes me feel like I’d rather go take nap and dream about flying through London with Peter Pan on my way to Neverland (yes this is a frequent dream of mine). 

Obviously from this blog and its theme, one of my main focuses this year is to become more active in my spiritual development and journey.  Since I was about 12 my main priorities and focus have been on my education and developing my talents in music, theatre, and dance.  I’ve pretty much chosen theatre and my education over everything else in my life up to this point, with the exception of my husband of course.   I put everything else on the back burner, even church, because my focus was on my higher education but I always told myself in graduate school, just get through this and then you can focus on church, then you can focus on better daily habits.  Well I have to say...that’s exactly what I did and looking back even in just these past 7 months I am disappointed in myself for thinking that way.  However, in a different way I’m proud of myself because I did exactly what I said I was going to do;  I have put my priorities back in order and my relationship with Heavenly Father and working to build His kingdom is back to its proper number 1 slot.  And it’s not like I was doing anything bad previously I just...wasn’t “doing.” I was...just floating by on the lazy river.

So this year I have decided and I officially decreed that there will be no goal setting for me- nope not a one.  Instead I have decided to start a journey.  A journey doesn’t have a defined destination and does not necessarily ever have to end.  I can keep learning and growing and know that it can be infinite and while that can be a bit overwhelming, it also brings me peace. 

Our greatest and most important journey is our journey of spiritual remembrance and development: our journey with the Savior.  We follow Him, we look to Him, we rely on Him, and we become like Him. For me this has always been the most overwhelming “goal” I’ve ever had.  It felt so big, so on going, long lasting and I felt so unworthy and human that it felt unattainable.  However, as I have looked to the Savior and come to know His love and feel the love He has for us, and the love our Heavenly Father has for His children I’ve realized that this, this quote from Elder Bednar, this is what He requires from us.  He doesn’t require us to move a mountain, to heal a heart, to be perfect.  He requires us to do our best and tomorrow, do a little better, and the next day, do even a little better than that.  It is through our daily growth and obedience that He causes mountains to be moved in us; mountains that look like little hills of bad habits and sharp peaks of despair and pain.  It is through our daily obedience and growth that He causes our hearts to be made whole again through His infinite atonement.  And it is through life-long daily learning, obedience, growth, and journey that we become like Him, perfect and fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. 

As President Thomas S. Monson said concerning this journey, “Life by the yard is hard; by the inch it’s a cinch.”

These words, to simply do better today - just today - than I did yesterday, give me so much hope for not only my journey this year, but also my whole life’s spiritual journey.  When I find the mistakes I've made in the day I have hope knowing that tomorrow I can just not do that one thing and that will be good, that will be enough improvement.  Or one day if, Heaven-forbid, I have a really horrible spiritual set-back, something that totally turns my world upside down, I can have peace knowing that tomorrow I just have to do a little better than what I did today and that will be enough for Him, that will be enough to prove my obedience and commitment.  It helps me to not only have more patience, love, and understanding for myself, but for everyone else around me and their own personal journey of growth and development.  That knowledge and understanding gives me more peace than I've felt in a very long time.

So here’s to our 2014 journeys:  may we learn more about ourselves and others and may they bring us happiness beyond measure.

~emmy jean


To see my 2014 Journeys click here.