Drops of Divinity

I saw this amazing post entitledDrops of Awesome on my friend's Facebook page. I shared it on my Facebook page too. It really touched me. Basically, she says to stop being so hard on yourself. That when you do what is right, in that moment, you are who you want to be. We can't always change who we are completely or make the right choice every time, but we can change the next choice we make. Each time you do the right thing, you are adding a drop of awesome into a bucket. But the amazing thing is that you are not alone to fill your bucket. Because really, we never will on our own. But Christ will fill it to overflowing because of his Atonement. It is so beautifully written and expressed in such an eloquent way. I shared it as part of my lesson in Relief Society yesterday.

I decided, and shared in Relief Society, that instead of referring to these as Drops of Awesome, I'd prefer to refer to them as Drops of Divinity. Because we are children of God, we are of divine nature. When we do what is right, when we make good choices, we are being our true selves. We are being who we are meant to be. We all have the divine within us, and it is easy to forget that or to get confused and make poor choices. But Romans 8: 16-18 teaches us: "The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

I spent some time thinking about it yesterday afternoon. We are so hard on ourselves. We often let the mistakes of the past keep us from appreciating the good things we do today or from recognizing that we can change.

Since being called as Relief Society President, I have taken the opportunity to do several small acts of service. Nothing major. But I have tried to reach out, to go beyond my comfort zone, and to listen to the promptings of the spirit. But each time I have done this, there has been a thought in the back of my head that says something along the lines of "You wouldn't have done that if you weren't called as the Relief Society President. YOu wouldn't have helped them before your call. You aren't really that willing to serve others." And perhaps there is some truth in that. I haven't always been as good about serving as I could be or should be. But I am trying to become better. So rather than letting these negative thoughts plague me and make me feel bad, I am going to ignore them, banish them and replace them with the thought that in that moment when I serve, I am adding a drop of divinity to my jar. Right then, I am being who I want to be. And if I keep adding drops, keep repenting when I make mistakes and keep trying to heed the promptings, then someday, with Christ's help, I will become who I want to be and who the Lord knows I can be.

Yesterday, one of the sisters in my ward shared with me how much this had meant to her. She had told her children about it and was planning to buy a jar and each time she or her children did the right thing, they would add drops of water to the jar. Or she said maybe she'd buy M&M's or other candy and add those instead. Then when the jar is full, they'd get a treat, and it would be a visual way to encourage each of them to make more right choices. I thought that was a great idea.