Just Some Thoughs

So in the past I have only used our blog to post pictures with little captions, but today I thought I would write down a few thoughts that have been going through my head the last little while. I definitely need to keep a better journal, but for the time being this blog is mostly what I have so I thought I would share a bit...

I have been mostly thinking a lot about prayer and answers to prayer. It seems that in these troubled times we are faced with challenges left and right. From physical to spiritual, emotional and financial, sometimes it seems that the adversary is lurking around every corner, waiting for the next thing he can use to bring us down. Why I ever even let myself get down at all is just ridiculous because as I look back in my life, especially the last couple years, it is so blatantly obvious the hand the Lord has played in my life. My prayers have been answered in ways better than I ever prayed for or ever hoped for. So why in the middle of trials do we so easily forget how He continues to lead us through it all? The thing is though, I never do loose faith. I know without a doubt that it all will work out, I have even had blessings promising me such, but I still find a way to worry and at times despair as to HOW it will. My thoughts lately have been turned to the stories of healing. Stories from the Savior, but also of when the saints were in Nauvoo, as it was still a swamp, and many were suffering with deathly illness. Before being healed, Joseph would ask if they had the faith that it could be done. It makes me think do I TRULY have the faith to know that these great things that have been promised will happen? I keep praying saying that it is totally ok if they don't and I know it is His will, but I realized I need to have the faith that since they have been promised I need to believe that. I don't know how, or when, but I now know they will. How easy it is to be blinded by our trials and situations during, wondering how it will ever work out. But looking back the Lord ALWAYS has His hand in our lives as we turn our lives over to him and trust that he will lead us to where we need to be.

I don't know if any of you have read the First Presidency Message this month called "Prayer and the Blue Horizon" by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. The whole article is wonderful, but my favorite paragraph is this...
"The answers to our prayers come in the Lord’s due time. Sometimes we may become frustrated that the Lord has delayed answering our prayers. In such times we need to understand that He knows what we do not know. He sees what we do not see. Trust in Him. He knows what is best for His child, and being a perfect God, He will answer our prayers perfectly and in the perfect time."

I am so grateful for the power of prayer in my life and the knowledge that the Lord will answer all of our prayers "Perfectly and in the perfect time."

Sorry if I have just kind of rambled, but all of this has been playing out in my head over the last couple weeks and I thought I would share it out loud.