Aaron and I spoke in church last week, and I feel like I'm supposed to share it. I was assigned a topic I was terrified to speak about, and in the act of writing the talk, ended up learning a lot about myself. So here it is: My topic today is, “Why I Believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” I’ll admit that when I first heard that this was the topic, I had some misgivings. I would much rather have been assigned a more objective topic, where I could just tell you what the scriptures and modern revelation say about a specific doctrine, only briefly delving into my personal feelings. I tend to be deeply uncomfortable discussing my own spirituality with other people, especially a group of mostly strangers. To add to that, belief is not something that comes easily to me. My entire adult life, I have struggled to determine what I actually believe and why. Surely I am the wrong person to be speaking about this topic. When I shared this with Aaron, he was very understanding. He said I could ...
An Internet community I frequent recently discussed the question: "What is a small good thing that has happened in your life lately?" And I realized that lately my life has abounded with small, good things. 1) My husband learned how to make Pad Thai and has made it twice in the last week and a half. He is very good at it and it is awesome. 2) My mentor told me that I'm doing a great job as a teacher. On a day when I was frustrated with 6th graders who refused to participate and 3rd graders determined to sow chaos, this meant a crazy amount. 3) I've been going to therapy, and it's working! I'm learning some simple strategies to cope with my anxiety, and I haven't had an anxiety attack in over two weeks. Everyone, go to therapy. 4) A little boy in one of my special ed classes sang yesterday! I'd never even heard him talk before, and he was singing every single song word for word, perfectly in tune. I wanted to give him the biggest squeeze in the ...