Power of the Priesthood

As our Home Teachers came last night to give Hyrum a blessing for his upcoming surgery, I am reminded of how the Priesthood has blessed and provided for our family over the course of my life. I think this is the first time that someone other than family has been asked to provide this gift. As the spirit filled my home, I am reminded of the many previous blessings that have been offered for healing, comfort, at the beginning of school years, and just because. I have seen many miracles in my lifetime and I give all the credit to the Priesthood around me. I wanted to use this post to share my knowledge of this Priesthood.

The following excerpt is from a talk given by Boyd K. Packer in the April 2010 Conference entitled "The Power of the Priesthood".

The Priesthood is the authority and the power which God has granted to men on earth to act for Him. When priesthood authority is exercised properly, priesthood bearers do what He would do if He were present.

Authority in the priesthood comes by way of ordination; power in the priesthood comes through faithful and obedient living in honoring covenants. It is increased by exercising and using the priesthood in righteousness. The priesthood does not have the strength that it should have and will not have until the power of the priesthood is firmly fixed in the families as it should be.

Now, fathers, I would remind you of the sacred nature of your calling. You have the power of the priesthood directly from the Lord to protect your home. There will be times when all that stands as a shield between your family and the adversary’s mischief will be that power. You will receive direction from the Lord by way of the gift of the Holy Ghost.

From this article I have learned a couple of things. 1)any one time worthy man can receive the Authority of the Priesthood, but 2) only those that continue to live worthy of that Priesthood have the Power of the Priesthood to exercise it according to the Lord's will.

Just like with pretty much everything,it is the day to day living the Gospel of Jesus Christ that give us the Power of the Priesthood. Just like the Men that hold the Priesthood, I believe that those on the receiving end need to also be worthy of the Priesthood. It is a wonderful gift that the Lord has given us as families to feel his Spirit up close and personal.

I just love listening to John H. Groberg of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy, his message given in April 2001 also describes the beauty of the Priesthood.

Through its power, ordinances are performed which, when accompanied by righteousness, allow families to be together forever, sins to be forgiven, the sick to be healed, the blind to see, and even life to be restored.

God wants us, His sons, to hold His priesthood and learn to use it properly. He has explained that:

“No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned.

“By kindness, and pure knowledge.”

For if we “exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men [especially our wives and children], in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.”

Thus, we see that while the power of the priesthood is unlimited, our individual power in the priesthood is limited by our degree of righteousness or purity.

This explains to me that the Priesthood is not meant for the Fathers and Husbands to exercise control over their children and wives, but a way to serve them.

Just as clean wires, properly connected, are required to carry electrical power, so clean hands and pure hearts are required to carry priesthood power. Filth and grime slow or prevent the flow of electrical power. Unclean thoughts and actions interfere with individual priesthood power. When we are humble, clean, and pure of hand, heart, and mind, nothing righteous is impossible.

What a great analogy this is. Are our personal "wires" clean and properly connected?

I hope that what I have learned will benefit my readers. I encourage you to keep your wires clean and ready to serve those in need. The Priesthood is a wonderful blessing that the Lord has chosen to bestow upon our Fathers and Husbands, as daughters and wives I hope we can encourage our Brothers, Fathers, Husbands, Sons to see the good that can be done when the Priesthood Power is used correctly. It is an awesome responsibility as Mother's I think to teach our Son's the responsibility that is theirs, but also to teach our Daughters to help the men in their lives to live worthy of the Authority that they have to gain the Power of the Priesthood and to use it to bless the members of their Family both in the home and the community

Life is Good

For the last few months, I have turned more reflective of the past 5 years and what I have done, where I was, and what I went through. And really the one question we all ask, why me, why my child, and plain just why? I think that this is a good thing, as I'm figuring out what it is really that I have gained and learned from my trials.

During the last 5 years if any one started to talk about "enduring your trials" or "trials" period, I would tune them out. I didn't need to hear how to live through my trials, I was living a nightmare. I was enduring one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time. Looking back I wonder really were the 5 years went. It went by so fast, that I can't believe it is here that my kids are where they are at. Did I really just live 5 years, it feels more like 6 months.

Now that I am in the "reflective" period, I am able to look at the things I have learned and count them closer to blessings in my life. From knowing my Heavenly Father loves me and knows me personally, he truly cares about me. Did I know this before, yes I did, but now I KNOW this. I don't know how many times I get comments like "wow, I don't have it that bad". I know this is weird, but if my trials help you to see how good you got it, I'm glad! I am amazed at how we are all looking to relate to someone, to know that someone understands us. At work, I meet a lot of people struggling with their own health and I'm glad to be able to understand them and that they know someone has been there, done that and holding a hand for them on the other side of the trial.

Living through a trial is a lot like taking a hike in the mountains. Your surroundings change as you walk. You may start out with lots of grass and open fields, but the higher you climb the more dense the trees become. Maybe a fog rolls in or a cloud cover changes what you see. And then you get to the top of the mountain, and you can see where you came from and around you. But the hike is not over, for you still have to go down the mountain to your car. It is all down hill relatively speaking, but not always there are still smaller hills to go up and down with. On the way up you had the morning sun and cooler weather, but on the way down it's afternoon and hotter you need to drink more water.

Just like that hike, sometimes you can see the trial before you, like us we knew when I was 20 weeks pregnant that we were going to have problems. We could foresee some of it, we could see the top of the mountain, but we didn't fully understand what we were going to see along the way. We could only imagine what the view from the top was going to look like and we wanted to see it. But as we got going on that hike, the top of the mountain seemed so far away, was it getting farther away? We had unexpected turns and hills that were more steep than we thought at first. I can honestly say that, though not necessarily at the top, I'm at a spot that I can see the valley and where I came from. It is amazing and beautiful, did I really climb that? I can see more bumps along the way, but I don't feel so blogged down by the surrounding fog. Life is turning beautiful again. And I want to help others to see the beauty that is around them.

I see the blessings from my "hike" the knowledge that I didn't know I was gaining, the friends, and the support from others. And I learned that others were on my hike, I just didn't realize they were there. They were also learning along the way. For me life has turned beautiful again. Does that mean that life is perfect. LOL NO! But life is good, my surroundings are good! I think I'm almost to the point of calling the last 5 years a blessing instead of a trial!

Welcome to Holland

This is a story that was posted in one of my support groups. It fit so well with my life that I wanted to share it here. There are some days that I wonder how I got to Holland.

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......


When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Emily Perl Kingsley 1987

Foggy

Do you ever feel like you have been living in a fog? For the last few years, I have felt that way. It has been a nice feeling the last couple of months as I feel like that fog is lifting. I look back and it really is foggy. I don't think it was just one thing that created this fog. I had so many doctor appointments, I was so tired from not sleeping during the night, but being up all day with kids. Then I found ourselves swamped with Medical Bills and the last few years financial difficulties.
That when I was home, I would just sit on the couch and not be able to function.

I now find myself with more energy each day and the fog lifting each day. I have learned to not expect so much from myself. You must wonder, what the heck, that's so degrading on yourself. What I mean is that I used to create huge "to-do" lists for each day. When you live in a fog, it's like you can't function and your brain shuts down. As the fog lifts you have to take it slowly or you will find yourself going back into that fog. So if you find yourself coming out of a fog, do it gradually. Assign yourself only one major task a day. For me, I have only been able to surface clean. I just can't do more than that on a given day. So each day my goal is to take one area of my house and clean it better, if I feel in the mood to do more, I will, but I'm not obligated to do it that day. By giving myself that out, I find I have the energy to do more. But I am slowly working myself into getting everything done in one day that I used to.

I have also learned how to tell when I've hit my limit of the day. I know I have to keep myself going until 9:30 pm each day. I have learned to not over do myself or I will find myself back on the couch staring at nothing again. When I feel myself hitting that "limit", I know it's time to back off and find something less stressful to do, by doing this I can keep my self in check until the day is over. Sometimes, I can sit and play the piano for 20-40 min. This helps to distress myself enough to enjoy my kids and my life.

I am working to set more long term goals that are more simple. My spiritual goal this year is to read along with the Sunday School Lessons, this will help me achieve reading the Book of Mormon by the end this year. My physical goal is to exercise for 20 min. each day. By doing this, I hope to gain my strength back, I have not been able to do so many things. My body really has been stressed, and by doing something each day, I hope to increase my physical stamina. This should also help me feel better. For my happiness, I am working to find one something that I'm grateful for. To help me find the positive in life around me. There are so many good wonderful things, and I aim to find them!

Why I started to blog?

My name is Jennifer Smith. I have been bugged for years about starting a blog. I was nervous about putting my life out their for others to read about. I have since learned that maybe, just maybe, someone may look at my story and realize that they are glad for what they have. I am not looking for pity or sympathy but more support to others. And of course along the way it would be nice to gain some sanity from writing. Every one tells me that this will help to realize that yes this is my life and do I really want to change it? For if I were to change my life what would I be forced to give to up in the process. I don't want to give any thing I have or have learned, so I keep my trials also!