Let Your Light Shine

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." W. E. B. Du Bois
"I am still in the thrall of one insatiable desire, which hitherto I have been neither able nor willing to check-I cannot get enough books! Books indeed have a special charm. Gold, silver, gems, splendid clothing, a house of marble, beautiful paintings-things such as these give but a superficial pleasure. But books delight us through and through-they talk with us, then give us good counsel, they enter into a living and intimate companionship with us." Francesca Betrarra, 1346

Saturday, January 7, 2012

A Witness by President Henry B. Eyring





Sometimes with all the studying and such, I get a bit mixed up. What exactly are the baptismal and other covenants? I know if I just keep trying and seeking His grace, I'll probably do OK. However, it was wonderful to hear an apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ, remind me in such straightforward words. "First, we promised to become charitable. Second, we promised to become witnesses of God. And third, we promised to endure." Sounds easy but takes plenty of mental fortitude.

He was so tender in the talk about standing as a witness of God. Quoting our dear, departed Marion G. Romney, he put the icing on the cake. “In one who is wholly converted, desire for things [contrary] to the gospel of Jesus Christ has actually died, and substituted therefor is a love of God with a fixed and controlling determination to keep his commandments.”