Happy Like Lehi

This is a post I started June 21, 2015 - now over 2 years ago... It's been living in the drafts of my blog. I thought that it deserved to be finished. I am sad that I didn't finish it as the passion and inspiration that began the entry have somewhat disappeared with time and negligence. I will do my best to finish what was started: 


Yesterday was my birthday. YAY!! I'm old(er) now.... Yay?... :o ;)

Truly - I like my birthday. It's a day about me and marking my time of making the world a better place just by being birthed (Shout out to my Mamma! Thanks, Ma!) And instead of looking at it as another year I will never get back and farther away from my youth, I have decided to change my perspective that another year older is another year down - another year closer to the next phase of life, which I hear is even better than this one. :)

Yet... at the same time. I'm 29. You know the days of youth when you would write down lists of the things you wanted to achieve and the person you wanted to become? Yeah, well... that hasn't worked out for me [yet]. Life has been one surprise right after another. Without mentioning any specific experience(s) I thought I would have experienced by now, I am tempted to dislike my life because I feel like a failure in those regards. I remind myself daily to not compare my position in life with that of others. That even when I think that I am on plan 'T,' I am still on God's 'Plan A' for my life.

It's at moments like these that the scriptures really add perspective to my life. There's a reason God wants us to read them frequently... like every day :)

A few months into my mission I had started reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning again. I was in the 2nd chapter of the 1st book. God is talking to Lehi in verse 2 and is telling Lehi how blessed he is for being faithful and obedient in declaring repentance his people. Those blessings are those same people were now attempting to kill him.

I think we (or am I alone here?) fail to notice how awesome Lehi is. Probably because it's Nephi's book and we get caught up in his stud-liness that we overlook the old guy that is Nephi's father.

Ooh, which reminds me, I left you with a teaser last week. In 1st Nephi, chapter 2, v. 1, the Lord came to Lehi and said, "Blessed art thou Lehi, because" and then it says thanks for obeying my commandments and ends with and others want to "take away your life". Say wha?! All in the same sentence! I'm blessed because people want to kill me?? Lehi is a great man to learn from. The Lord says, Lehi, go and teach this people to repent. He does it. The people hate it, and then hate on Lehi. But, Lehi's blessed and people want to take his life. Then the Lord comes to Lehi again and tells him to leave his home, his job, his house... everything he knows to go out and live in the wilderness for who knows how long. Talk about hard. So because Lehi is blessed, people want to kill him, he has to leave his home and money, and his sons hate him. Sweet. But what does Lehi do?? 1 Ne. 2:7. He builds an altar and gives thanks to the Lord. Yep. I need to be more like Lehi. Most definitely!! Look up 2 Cor. 12:9. Glory in infirmities. Talk about changing your perspective about hard times. 


That's it... where was I going with this? Before my mid-entry tangent and life hindrance. I remember that a couple days prior to beginning this entry I had a conversation about our beliefs with a friend who is not LDS but falls beneath the Christian umbrella. He told me that though we disagreed, he had a high level of respect for me - even if my beliefs were "kooky". {Mmm... I like cookies... FOCUS KATIE!} I remember feeling complimented that day because he called me "kooky", and I thought that it made me a little bit like Lehi. His family thought he was a little crazy, and he accepted it (1 Nephi 5:1-4). I mean, who wouldn't want to be like the person who can find it in himself to be give thanks and be joyous in the midst of trial, tribulation and the all around hated facing the unknown? He chose to look up and see what God saw, rather than allowing himself to be hindered like so many of us with short sighted-ness.

Yep, I think being happy like Lehi is a worthy goal indeed!