Daily Thoughts

In the Old Testament I read that God knows all the secrets of our hearts. There is nothing we can hide from Him. Ps. 44:21 "Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart."

In the Book of Mormon I read about how the wicked take the truth to be hard and it cuts them to the very center. If they were righteous and willing to hearken to the words of the Lord they would have no need to murmur against it. Nephi again exhorted his brothers to keep the commandments. 1 Ne. 16: 1-4 "And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had made an end of speaking to my brethren, behold they said unto me: Thou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear. And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center. And now my brethren, if ye were righteous and were willing to hearken to the truth, and give heed unto it, that ye might walk uprightly before God, then ye would not murmur because of the truth, and say: Thou speakest hard things against us. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did exhort my brethren, with all diligence, to keep the commandments of the Lord."

A scripture from a thought booklet brought a lot of comfort to me, telling me that the Lord would give me strength to equal my days. I have found that as difficult circumstances have come into my life, the Lord has given me strength to get through them, in the very hour I needed it. The thought that went with this, written by Carol Kuykendall, illustrates this point very well. Here is what she says: "I'm not handling this challenge so well," a friend told me as we sat together at my kitchen counter, drinking tea and talking about our shared experience of living with cancer. "I feel so afraid." She had called me the day before, asking if we could get together because she needed help. "How do you do it?" she asked. I wasn't sure I had any answers, but here we were, and so I told her something I learned almost twenty years ago from my friend Lois. "When Lois was diagnosed with lung cancer, she shared her fears about the challenges that might lie ahead. 'What will happen when I lose my hair?' she asked me on one of our many long walks. And when she did, she enjoyed the sassy looks she could create with outrageous wigs. "'What will happen when I'm on oxygen and can't go on our walks?' she asked. But when that happened, she willingly sat in a wheelchair with her portable oxygen tank and laughed when I did wheelies while pushing her around the neighborhood. "'What will happen when I'm so weak I have to stay in bed all day' she asked, and yet when that time came, she seemed peaceful and content. "Looking into the future, Lois had fears, but when she got right up to the edge of each one, it disappeared. God gave her the strength she needed when she needed it. "All I know is that I trust God to do the same for me," I told my friend that day. "If I face the things I fear the most, I trust that He will give me exactly what I need in that moment." Before she left, I prayed for both of us: "Lord, help us to believe Your promise that You will give us the strength to cope with our circumstances. And help us believe You." Deut. 33: 25 "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be."