Mother's Day

Gary and I were asked to talk in church yesterday. They asked us to pick a woman of scripture and talk about the gospel principles she particularly exhibited. I chose my name sake, Rebekah. I love my name-it has always made me feel good to know that I was named after Rebekah in the Bible. The story of Rebekah is pretty cool and remarkable too. If you don't know it, go read it in Genesis 24. Rebekah is the woman at the well. She was blessed to be the "mother of thousands of millions", she had a hard time conceiving so Isaac prayed to the Lord and she got pregnant with twins. They "struggled in the womb", she inquired of the Lord why and was told she was carrying "two nations". I could go on and on but I love her story and the faith, charity, service, strength, and testimony she showed. I spoke of these attributes in my talk.
Primarily faith.
Faith has been on my mind a lot lately. I spoke about faith and diligence in church before I left Copperas Cove. I have had to act on faith alot over the last few months. But now I am exploring relationship with Jesus Christ. I have become aware of many spiritually sick friends and family members. They are having hard times and challenges, struggles, and trials. These are all for our benefit as they are the refiner's fire and it means God thinks we are worth purifying and making better. However, many of us lack faith to trust this and believe this. In RS yesterday we were asked to write down our most challenging trial in our lives. I can honestly say, I feel extremely blessed as I have not had to endure much of the hardache and pain many others have experienced. I have had my difficulties and they would have been extrememly hard for some, I'm sure. But when I contemplated what has been the worst, it was a short list and nothing that I couldn't/didn't handle. You know what I came up with? Follies of my youth. I made a lot of stupid decisions which brought tremendous sadness and pain into my life when I was younger. Why was this time so hard? Because I was not living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I had sinned and needed the Atonement to work in my life-badly. I needed a realtionship of trust with my Savior, Jesus Christ. Going through that time was horrible. I NEVER want to be there or relive that again. Yet, I learned incredible, valuable lessons. I learned about repentance. I learned of Jesus's love for me. I learned of just what the Atonement really meant. I am still learning as I still take it very much for granted. However, I trust it. My dear friends and family members who are in such pain will not/ can not/ or don't know how to allow themselves to trust when Jesus.
When he says he can, HE CAN!!!
When he says he will, HE WILL!!!
It's a beautiful glorious promise and he NEVER lies. How much better off would we all be if we just gave up our own ideas, pride, and doubt and let ourselves develop a realtionship of trust with Jesus Christ. I am working on mine. I am sooo not perfect. But I can honestly say, I trust him. And that gives me great strength to go on and endure and to face my trials and challenges with gusto and a positive outlook. So this post is for those that are down. I actually was not meaning to write about this at all. Maybe it is the spirit. Maybe someone needs it-I don't know. It makes me feel good to bear my testimony though.
I love my life! I am happy! Sure I get sad and frustrated at times just like everyone else. But God is good. Jesus is on my side and he wants me to win! That makes me able to stay the course and fight the good fight.

So the title of this is Mother's Day and that was really all I was planning on blogging about. Specifically the best mother's day present I received yesterday. It was from my dear friend Denae and it made me smile and laugh and cry. Perfect emotions from a big fat with child Mommy of 3 almost 4 boys! So here it goes, I hope you like it as much as I did!
http://news.cnnbcvideo.com/?nid=DJxhiJ.fB_y2mrODkCAHmjEzODIzNTYy&referred_by=16555050-XcIwPFx&p=hchw

Thanks Denae! I appreciate you. You are such a great example of strength, courage, and selflessness! Happy Mother's Day to all of you ladies out there. Whether you have children or not, we are all mother's in some form or fashion. And we all had mother's that provided us this opportunity to be born on this earth and live our lives. Let's make the most of it!