Called To Serve

I can’t hide anything from Heavenly Father – no bad habits, no toxic relationships, no secret sins.  He wants to pull me out of the mire and clean me off with His grace.  I think He is willing to take my heart of stone and put a new, grace-filled heart in its place.  Yet, I really don’t know Him, let alone trust Him with my heart.

The Lord stepped up His efforts to awake me from my spiritual sleep and gave me a calling in the Relief Society presidency.  I have come to better understand our callings to serve in the church and why we need to accept them.  We are called to positions in the church because WE, the individual, need them.  I was called to help sisters strengthen their home, their families, and their testimonies.  How could I do that when I felt my own family was falling apart?  I did not want to be a hypocrite.  I didn't want to teach the RS sisters “you need to do this and that” when I wasn't doing it myself.  These sisters were all my friends that I had known for 6 years. I immediately felt a greater love for all of the sisters and I didn't want to fail in what I was called to do.  So I needed the calling to step up and awake me.

Teaching and sharing my weaknesses in Relief Society was the start of my repentance process.  It seemed like every lesson I was asked to teach was on a subject I wasn't doing all that well on.  By teaching I learned the need to be better and I gained a desire to do better.  The sisters in Relief Society helped me start to recognize that there was more to me than what appeared and that I was trapped by Satan.  They started to give me hope that I could break free.

The RS President, Jana Wright, recognized my pain and doubts about myself.  She encouraged me to attend institute class with her.  The instructor, Kevin Hinckley has the ability to teach to my heart.  I felt every lesson was meant for me.  He helped me recognize what was inside me.  Who I am and what I am here for.   What I have now come to realize is how in tune Br. Hinckley was with the Spirit.  And that God must know ME because the Instructor couldn't have known what I needed to hear to wake me up.  Br. Hinckley among other friends were Heavenly Father’s spokesperson to get through to me.  Br. Hinckley taught me about the Savior.  I soon realized that I didn't really know Him.  I had created an image in my mind of who He was and that effected my faith in Him and my prayer life with Him. 

In my childhood and youth age, I created an image of my Heavenly Father by the relationship of those people that were close to me.  My father for instance, was a demanding and abusive father.  He was quick to punish and his punishment was hard.  He wasn't around very much and it seemed like when he said he would be at one of my sporting events...something would always come up that was more important than me.  So he was a difficult man to trust or get close to.  I turned to him only when I needed money, or to borrow the car or to fix some farm equipment that was part of my chores.  I realized that the image I created of my Heavenly Father was very similar to my relationship with my father.

I was afraid that God would treat me harshly when I made a mistake.  I didn't trust or have faith in him because I doubted whether or not I was important to Him or worthy enough.  I wondered if he would be there to hear my prayers.  I only turned to my Heavenly Father when I needed help, I called them my 911 calls (prayers).

I love my father very much and honestly never blamed him.  He was doing the best he knew how to raise us kids. 

I knew I needed to get to know the true Savior and stop believing the image I had created in my mind.  I started to read, study and pray to get to know HIM better.  What I realized as I got to know the Savior is that he had never abandoned me.  But that I, in fact, had abandoned Him.  I wouldn't allow His love and sacrifice to change me until I knew him, trusted him, and increased my knowledge and faith in Him.

I put him to the test and he put me to the test.  My Heavenly Father has mercifully shattered my personal image of Him.  I have been empowered and strengthened by Him.  If He is willing to love me and empower me then it means that a lot of my assumptions about Him and also about myself were not true.  I started to feel the seed that God planted in me.  I knew I needed to clear away the weeds of sin, doubt, fear, unworthiness through repentance and forgiveness so that seed He planted in me could nurture and grow.

The seed of unconditional love and forgiveness was planted in every one of us by our loving Heavenly Father.  It just gets taken over by weeds that smother it at times, where it can’t grow and strengthen us, where we can’t feel it and that is when we think God has abandoned us.  Heavenly Father NEVER abandon us!