This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Young Women's Session of the April 2012 Conference.
I had a hard time finding a talk that really spoke to me this session, and I'm not sure why. But I did like this, from President Monson:
I have spoken over the years with many individuals who have told me, “I have so many problems, such real concerns. I’m overwhelmed with the challenges of life. What can I do?” I have offered to them, and I now offer to you, this specific suggestion: seek heavenly guidance one day at a time.…Each of us can be true for just one day—and then one more and then one more after that—until we’ve lived a lifetime guided by the Spirit, a lifetime close to the Lord, a lifetime of good deeds and righteousness.
I think it's interesting that this is the advice he gave for people with such big problems. And it's not like I haven't heard "take things a day at a time!" before, but this time I was thinking about how often my deepest fears and discouragements aren't even quite about what's happening now, but what I fear is going to happen. Hard things feel insurmountable when my thoughts start spiraling toward "…and this is only the beginning!" or "…and this is only going to get harder!" or "What if something even worse comes from this?" or "I'm struggling even with this, so imagine how much I'll struggle with the next part…"
And it's silly! Completely unhelpful! We can't even really pray about these imagined future challenges (although I'm sure we can, generally, ask for peace and future guidance) because they're so looming and nebulous! So I think this is actually really good advice because we can pray about today. We can pray about the specifics we're facing right now. And we can get the "heavenly guidance" President Monson promises about those things, enough to take the next step and then the next. Specifically seeking help for what is hard today can calm my fears enough to reassure me that if tomorrow does bring something harder, Heavenly Father will be there for for that too.
No comments