I feel sorry for the letter P...

I truly feel sorry for the letter P. It seems as if all the scary sounding diseases & conditions start with it: Plague, Paralysis, Psychosis, Palsy, Psoriatic Arthritis, Pneumonia, etc,etc, etc. Is it even a surprise that the word for chronic fears begins with a P?! I have a list of my personal phobias. At the top of that list are snakes, perpetual infertility, spontaneous combustion & the thought of being paralyzed by fear itself (ironic, huh?), but somewhere around the middle of my list lies a pernicious paranoia of the P diseases. I'd say my fear is somewhat grounded though as I currently have 4 of them.

As I recall, I've never had pneumonia before & thankfully it is treatable, but I must say it is not very fun. I'm just waiting for it to be over. I'm waiting most especially for the last burst of spasmodic coughing which is undoubtedly the worst part of it.  That's not really what I wanted to talk about here, but I thought I should probably mention it as it's cold slimy fingers currently have a grasp on me.

What I really want to talk about is how many germs must be gravitating around Red Box kiosks. Am I the only person who walks up to one, sees the hundreds of fingerprints on its screen & walks away hoping I didn't step too close? Yuck. I think I'll start a campaign for the sanitation of Red Box.

OK, so that's not really what I wanted to talk about either. I want to talk about this weekend. This weekend is the General Conference of my Church. It's a bi-annual opportunity to hear from modern-day prophets & apostles. I look forward to it every six months, knowing that I'll hear exactly the council I need to get me through the struggles I face that day & that I will face throughout the coming year. In anticipation, I always write a list of the struggles I am facing & questions I have that I have not gotten answered through everyday scripture study & prayer. It amazes me every conference how no matter how long my list of concerns & questions are, I always receive an answer to them all in a way that is so specific to my needs that I can't help but think that God included certain statements in the inspired messages of the speakers just so that I could hear them & take comfort in them. Maybe that is selfish thinking, but if we truly believe that God answers our individual prayers, then I see no reason that this could not be true. Either way, though, I always feel God's love for me as I hear His answers through the leaders He has chosen on the Earth at this time. The answers are often something I already knew, but did not have the courage to act upon until I heard this verbal confirmation. Sometimes they are worded in a way that brings new light to my concerns, and sometimes the answer is difficult to hear because it is contrary to my own will, but because the words are all given out of a spirit of love & I am not opposed to trying another way if my own is ineffective, I am always grateful for answers I receive.

This time around, I do of course have some personal questions, but I also feel the need to be strengthened simply by hearing the personal testimonies of the speakers. I have been so inspired by the testimonies of fellow Latter-day Saints on mormon.org that I feel my spirit jumping for joy inside me with a renewed vigor towards the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How can you help but feel the Saviors love when you hear a story like Tessa's? I cried like a baby when I heard it. It makes all of my phobias & problems seem so small. It makes me think, "Wow, I've had the entirely wrong perspective about my trials." Then I hear testimonies like Deborah's & Jarem's & think "Wow, I'm not doing enough by far."

Now, I'm not putting myself down in any way by thinking this way. I am, in fact, feeling lifted, motivated, inspired to be better, to try harder. That's what the Gospel of Jesus Christ does, it changes a person in all the right ways. You think & see that by practice that you can overcome the obstacles of life, not always physically, but mentally & emotionally & spiritually, you can be healed. I know this not by Tessa or Jarem or Deborah's testimonies, although they do bolster me up. I know it because I have experienced it also. It is not a one time process where you asked to be healed & all your trials disappear. Just like the Savior asked the cup, or burden to be removed from Him in the Garden of Gethsemane & it was not until He had suffered & felt the pain to understand it, we must also feel pain in order to learn, in order to understand one another, in order to grasp the love Jesus Christ has for us. Sometimes we lose focus & get off track. Sometimes we simply forget or deny who we are & what our ultimate purpose is. As Marianne Williamson said,

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And when we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people  permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

So, in essence, I'm saying, my fears, the ones I began this post with, are all a facade. My fear, my one & only fear, is that I'm failing my Father. My fear is that because of weakness I've given up instead of fighting through it. Now, I'm not saying, I shouldn't take time to rest & recover from my pneumonia (far from it), but illness should not define me. Failure should not define me. What should define me is that in spite of failure, flaws, and the wishy-washy"ness" of humanity, I endured, and I did so because I am a daughter of God, cleansed through the Atonement of Christ. That is the message I take away from Conference each year. That is the message I take away from the testimony of my fellow Latter-day Saints. That is the ultimate message that I can & must take take away from this experience we call life.