You have something to contribute

I've been thinking a lot about spiritual gifts lately...

What exactly are spiritual gifts?

They are blessings given by God to His children for their own benefit, and for the benefit of others.

Everyone has different gifts; nevertheless, everyone does have a gift.

Moroni 10:8-18, 1 Corinthians 12, D&C 46:11, "Gifts of the Spirit"

Find out what your spiritual gifts are by considering what you're good at,

What you're passionate about,

The compliments other people give you, 

etc.

Kneel in prayer 

and ask Heavenly Father what spiritual gifts He has blessed you with.

Then, use them to bless others' lives!

“One of the most comforting teachings of the gospel is that each son and daughter of God—every one of us—is born with an inheritance of gifts, talents, and abilities that can help us through our earthly mission…We cannot be happy and successful in life without gratefully acknowledging those gifts and doing all we can to develop them.  Our problem is never that we have no strengths; the problem comes when we do not recognize our strengths and build upon them."

- Gerald Causse - 

"For When I Am Weak, Then Am I Strong"

Shout out to my dear, dear mother who has the gifts of:

Teaching

Pure love of God and man

Sacrifice

Learning

Obedience

{I am so grateful for her}

Peace out.

we are all different, and that's the way it should be

"While the Atonement is meant to help us all become more like Christ, it is not meant to make us all the same. 
Sometimes we confuse differences in personality with sin. We can even make the mistake of thinking that because someone is different from us, it must mean they are not pleasing to God. This line of thinking leads some to believe...that each one should look, feel, think, and behave like every other. This would contradict the genius of God, who created every man different from his brother, every son different from his father....

"As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are united in our testimony of the restored gospel and our commitment to keep God’s commandments. But we are diverse in our cultural, social, and political preferences.

"The Church thrives when we take advantage of this diversity and encourage each other to 
develop and use our talents to lift and strengthen our fellow disciples."

- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf -
Second counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 

Why we fear

[Disclaimer:  Most of what I post on this blog is not official LDS doctrine, as far as I know.  Just my thoughts and beliefs.]

Have you ever been afraid to come close to God?

Have you ever been afraid to really open your heart up to Him?

To truly be converted?

To commit all that you are, do, and desire, to Him?

To really feel His love, and accept it into your heart?

To believe Him, and trust His word?

If you've never felt that way... you're probably not human.  ;)  Or you're just a saint.

[no real reason for this picture, except that it's beautiful! :)]

It hit me the other day, why I'm sometimes afraid to come close to Christ.

I know He's all-loving.  I know He's true.  I know I can trust Him...

I found the answer in Ether 12:27: (these are the Lord's words:)

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness."

That's it.  

I know that when I come unto Him, He helps me see things as they really are.  ...Which necessarily includes seeing my weaknesses.  And aren't we humans so good at avoiding our faults/failures/weaknesses?

But the verse goes on:

"I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

Don't I want to become stronger?

Don't I want to become more like Christ?

The only way that can happen is if I come unto Him and, through faith on His atonement, let Him turn my weaknesses into strengths, until every last impurity is refined into perfection... 

Slowly, but surely, with faith.

So I want to know my weaknesses.  

I want to know them so that I can do all that's in my power to improve on them, and let Christ take care of the rest.

I know that Jesus Christ lives.  He knows and loves each and every one of us, His children.  I know He has been through every little (and big) thing that we've ever been through, and will go through, and He knows how to succor His people.  

Come unto Him, despite any fears you may have, and you will never regret that decision.

{beautiful thing}

The infinite atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

peace out.

Positivity

Signature Strengths

Talk about an cool personality test!

...Well, technically it's a strengths test.  

It's about pinpointing your signature strengths, so that you can focus your work/activities around them, and live more purposefully and joyfully.

Here's the link.
(It may require you to make a username and password.  After you do that, navigate back to the "VIA Survey of Character Strengths"--that's the questionnaire you want to take!)

And here were my results!

Cool, huh?

If you find out yours... I'd really be interested to hear your results!

The website that I got this from is Martin Seligman's (basically the father of positive psychology) website, Authentic Happiness.  There are many more wonderful things on there that you'll find, should you choose to explore.  

beautiful thing:

we all have unique, wonderful gifts to apply and share.

peace out