Sunday blog on faith

One of my favorite things to do on Sunday is write in my journal or write on my blog. A la "Harry Potter," it's very peaceful for me to extract my thoughts and capture them in writing.

We had a wonderful church block today, kicked off with a talk by my former roommate Rachelle on faith--one of my favorite topics! She said a lot of very insightful things, but her comparison of her experience learning new, scary moves as a young gymnast to taking leaps of faith in our lives really stuck with me.

She described preparing to do a back handspring on the balance beam and being absolutely terrified. It was difficult for her to even comprehend literally throwing herself backwards into the unknown, not knowing if her hands would find the beam, worried about being off balance; wondering if her hands would buckle and not support her. It was quite literally a leap of faith. And it was terrifying.

But she related another gymnastic experience that taught her something else. She was learning a new flip on the floor. As soon as she bounced off the floor she knew something was wrong--her rotation speed made it impossible for her feet to find the floor before her head did. She was headed for certain disaster.

Then, before she knew it, she had stopped moving. Her feet were still up and her head was close to the floor, but she wasn't flying through the air anymore. Her coach, who was spotting her while she learned something new, recognized that she wasn't going to make it and caught her midair before she could get hurt.

Heavenly Father is our coach. Rachelle understood intellectually the gymnastic moves she was trying to learn, but she couldn't fully understand until she experienced them. And she couldn't learn what she needed to until she decided to take a literal leap of faith. Then, before she could fall, her coach caught her and helped her so she could try again.

She shared a myriad of other helpful ideas: faith is a decision; the direction you are going is more important than the size of your leap of faith; life is the sum of many, many leaps.

Then in Sunday School, Dallin used the book of Isaiah to teach us about what Christ has done for us, what He is now doing for us, and what He has promised in the future. It was wonderful to review all that is in store for us as God's children. Dallin ended with a very appropriate, very cute video clip about being actively patient while waiting for God's promises to be fulfilled.

Rachel rounded out the meeting block with a great lesson on the Restoration. We learned about dates and times, but one of her points was that we avoid distancing ourselves from the Spirit (personal apostacy) by continually experiencing personal restoration.

It was a wonderful three hours that renewed my resolve to have more faith, have more patience, and to continually restore and renew my personal spirituality.