"Faithful, One-Hundred Percent"

Tonight, my family and I watched two musicals, both performed by casts of kids, including two of our nieces. One of those musicals was Seussical, in which Horton the Elephant does everything in his power to protect a tiny world and an abandoned egg, despite serious setbacks. As he faces these challenges, he sometimes recalls his promises, saying "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one-hundred percent."

It is difficult to reach that level of faithfulness, and it's even harder to maintain it when setbacks and difficulties occur, but this gives us something to strive for. We should all strive to be perfectly faithful to our promises and covenants. And when we fail, we should repent and strive to do better.

Horton's example of faithfulness was impressive, inspiring, and a little daunting. It's not easy to be that faithful, but we should all strive to be "faithful, one-hundred percent."

The Need For Love

Elder Gary E. Stevenson began his Saturday Morning talk by sharing the story of how a group of rabbits had significantly better health outcomes because they were given kindness and love in addition to their normal care and food. I don't personally know about the health benefits of kindness, but I know that our lives can be improved, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, by sharing and receiving love and kindness.

Case in point, I've been feeling kind of stressed lately. It's finals time, and I've been struggling a bit with my final paper, balancing my other responsibilities, and just dealing with the situation rather poorly. I'm sure my stress has become noticeable because my family has made an effort to show me some extra kindness, and it has really helped me. It's comforting to know that there are people in this world who truly love me, even when I'm not at my most lovable. I don't know what affect this kindness may have had on my physical health, but I'm happy to say that my emotional health has begun to improve.

People need love. It might be a physical need, an emotional need, or even a spiritual need, but whatever kind of need it is, people need love. And, in order for people to feel love, other people have to share it. That's part of why we should always try to share love with others, and perhaps with ourselves as well. Love is essential. The more of it we can share, the better. And, unfortunately, it's when people are the hardest to love that they are likely most in need of it.

So, let's all try to show love and kindness, to ourselves and to each other. We all need it.

Not Healing While Hurting

I've started playing a mobile game called Shootero. It's an arcade-like game where you control one spaceship, and you have to fight your way through waves of other spaceships. As you proceed, you can collect "mods," which temporarily improve your ship's abilities. One of my favorite mods for this game is Regeneration, which lets your ship regain some HP every second, but there's a catch. Regeneration only works if you haven't taken damage within the last few seconds. With Regeneration, if you want to stop taking damage first.

I think there's something profound in that that can be applied to other aspects of life. A knife wound, for example, can't heal until the knife is removed, and no cut would heal if it kept getting cut open during the healing process. So, at least physically, we can't heal while we're still getting hurt.

I wonder if this applies spiritually as well. Naturally, we can't repent of a sin while we're still committing it (except perhaps if we're trying to stop). Repentance doesn't work like that. Repentance means change. If we're not changing our behavior for the better, then we're not really repenting.

But might this apply emotionally as well? It could be that our hearts can't heal until they stop getting broken. Maybe we can't effectively de-stress until the distress stops. I don't know; I'm not an expert. Anyhow, stopping the continuation and/or repetition of the problem is, generally, an important step in solving the problem. Before things can get better, they need to stop getting worse.

So, if you need to, turtle up. Focus on defense. Do what you can to slow the problem down, or even stop it, if you can. Then you can focus of rebuilding and repairing what was broken. Healing can't begin until the harm stops. So avoid harm as much as possible (both causing it and receiving it), take a breather, and relax. Once the hurting stops, the healing can begin.

Trust the Living Spirit

In Star Wars, characters are sometimes reminded to trust in the Force, particularly in the living Force, and from there, it's not much of a stretch to say that we should have as much trust in the living, Holy Spirit. We should learn to listen to Him and follow His prophetic promptings. Just as the Force can guide Jedi to accomplish great, impossible, and miraculous things, the Holy Ghost can guide us to accomplish seemingly impossible miracles as well. To do that, we need to have faith in the Holy Spirit, to listen for His promptings, and to act on them in faith. We need to trust in the living Spirit. And if we do, there's no telling what amazing feats we could accomplish.

Accountability Based on Control

I am somewhat comforted by the belief that we will only be judged based on things that we can control. For example, we can't control whether or how we are tempted, so we won't be judged for experiencing the temptations we face. However, we can control (and will be judged based on) how we respond to our temptations. Similarly, we cannot control the actions of others, but we can almost always control our own actions, so we will only be judged based on our own actions, not the actions of others. No matter what other people are doing, we should try to do what we believe is right.

We can control quite a bit, and thus, we are responsible for quite a bit, but I'm grateful that we won't be held accountable for things that are outside of our control.

We Need Each Other

Last night, I stumbled upon a song titled Each Other, by and artist called Notaker, and it hit me pretty hard. The song spoke of hardship and difficulty and of needing someone, but the refrain of the song speaks of needing each other. I know that I need God's help, especially when times are hard, but does God ever need mine? I think so, for one very important reason: He's not here.

God has a physical body, and wherever that body is, it's probably not on Earth. At the very least, it's not everywhere on Earth at once. Ditto for Jesus. The Holy Ghost can be everywhere at once, but, not having a body, there are some severe limitations on what He can do. If God wants something done, like delivering cookies or flowers to people, He either needs to perform a rather significant miracle, send an angel or some other celestial being to do it, or ask us to. So, God doesn't really need us, but He could definitely use our help.

And when it comes to our personal decisions, He definitely needs our help. What we struggle most with in this life is temptation, and while it's true that we sometimes need God's help in resisting temptation, He also needs ours. Even with all His miracles and angels, He can't make our decisions for us, and even if He could force us to make the right decisions, doing so would thwart His aims. We need His strength and wisdom to have the power to make he right choices, but He needs us to actually make the decisions ourselves.

And so, when we get right down to it, we really do need each other. We need God to lend us His strength and wisdom, and He needs us to exercise our agency. Neither He nor I could thwart my demons on our own. We need each other's help. I'm comforted in the knowledge that God and I are in this together and that we're both essential parts of this partnership. It's nice to feel needed. And it's impressive that, as much as we need God to do His part, He needs us to do ours.

I already knew that I needed Him, but last night, that song taught me that we need each other.

Here to Help, Happy to Help

I've known for a long time that helping others is part of the purpose of my existence, yet I sometimes struggle with it. I do it, but I don't always have the best attitude about it. I need to work on that. I should try to figure out how one can adjust one's attitude so I can try to make myself happier about working to serve others. I can't apply practical repentance to this, because I don't know, specifically, what I need to do, and, at the moment, I don't want to, but I know that helping others is the part of the purpose of my existence, so I might as well learn to have a half-decent attitude about it.