The Winds of Change

     High winds last night and today.  Makes driving fun!  Blowing in winter and blowing out autumn.  I'm sad to see it go.  I like autumn time.  I do love winter in it's way.  It's fun to curl up while it's snowing outside and drink hot chocolate.  It's fun to play in the snow, although I do confess, the older I get, the less of this I do.  I just wish I didn't have to shovel so much (remind me why we decided to buy a corner lot...I forget every winter).  Course there's always a snowblower for Christmas...(wink, wink, nudge, nudge, honey)
     It seems like many things are changing right now.  Taylor and Annie are teenagers and I find I'm having a hard time with it (yes, I hear you chuckling, all you parents who've already had teenagers!).  So many things to worry about.  I don't know what they're thinking anymore and they don't want to communicate.  Friends are the most important things in the world, well, friends and communicating with their friends through smart phones and Facebook that is.  Way too many emotions!  Homework I don't understand and can't help with.  And the fact that they don't live with us and I don't see them all the time just makes it all so much easier (sarcasm intended).
     Other things are changing as well.  Friends and family's lives are changing and growing and mine is more or less staying the same.  It has for the last 5 1/2 years of this infertility rut which makes it so frustrating to see everyone moving on and passing me by while I'm stuck.  In reality, I know that small things about me and my life have changed but on the whole I have a bitter taste in my mouth at the thought of everything else being in motion except for me.  And changing is what I wanted to blog about today.
     I've been reading Brad Wilcox's The Continuous Atonement and I'm really interested in some of the things I've learned about redemption.  Have you ever wondered what the difference between being saved and being redeemed is?  I hadn't.  I didn't know there was a difference.
     One of the definitions of a redeemer that is very significant to me is someone who changes us for the better, one who reforms and reshapes us.  When you really think about it, one of the most important parts of this life is our changing for the better.  In fact, we can't be saved without doing that very thing.  Heavenly Father requires us to learn and grow and become 'bigger and better' or 'new and improved'.  Heavenly Father has provided us ways to help us in this regard.
     Repentance is in itself a form of change.  The way I see it, repentance is truly about changing your point of view to look at life/reality through God's eyes...or as close as you can get to it for mortals like us.  And yes, that can hurt an awful lot sometimes.   Truth many times can.  But there's a wholeness about it that helps me accept the hard part because now I'm more like our Savior.
     The most important thing Heavenly Father gave us is his son Jesus Christ and the Atonement to enable us to become more like him.  C. S. Lew is wrote, "The command to Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas.  Nor is it a command to do the impossible.  He is going to make us into creatures who can obey that command."  (Mere Christianity, 205)
     In Wilcox's book (pg 67) it says, "If we view the Atonement as only a way to be resurrected after we die, what motivates us to live?  If we view the Atonement as only a way to clean up after the messes we have made, what motivates us to avoid making messes?  If we view the Atonement as only a comforting support when we deal with hurts and illnesses, why are we required to go through such trials in the first place?  What motivates us to learn from those experiences rather than just endure them?  In ease case, the answers we seek are found only as we look beyond Christ's saving role to His redeeming role.  As Latter-day Saints, we know not only what Jesus saved us from but also what He redeemed us for.  We must be renewed, refined, and ultimately perfected in Him...
     "If our whole goal were just to be in God's presence again, why would we have left it in the first place?  We were already with God in the premortal existence, but were painfully aware that we were not like Him physically or spiritually...The goal is not just being with God, but being like God." (pg 68)
      "The Atonement is fundamentally a doctrine of human development, not a doctrine that simply erases black marks." (Hafen and Hafen, Belonging Heart, 79)
     There's one line in the book that made me realize the importance of becoming someone new through Christ.  Bro. Wilcox states, "If saving were all we needed, Satan's plan could have worked."  That to me is a very profound thought.  I don't think I ever realized that one of the main differences between Lucifer's plan and Jesus's plan was that only the latter helped prepare us to live with God again by making us more like Him.  Our lives should not be only be about accepting Christ as our Savior, but about allowing him to change us.
     And what a long process!  I feel it working in my life at times and I know it's still working in my life when I don't feel it.  It can only start with choosing to follow Jesus Christ and to keep his commandments, which will hopefully help us be willing to let Christ change our hearts and wills so that we show his image in our countenances.
     I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets discouraged through this long journey.  Sometimes I wonder if I can ever really be good enough.  I should know better than to doubt the power of my Savior in my life.  Jesus showed many times though his miracles that he has the power to change things that seem impossible.  I think I get more caught up in wondering not if He can change me, but if He will.  Doubt again.  It's a killer.  Why should I doubt that if I'm doing my best to keep my covenants and live a clean life so I can feel His spirit's guidance that He'll hand down the blessings He's already promised me?  I have no reason to doubt Him.  He's never broke a promise...to me or anyone else.  I on the other hand am woefully unsteady in my word to Him.  Wouldn't it be more reasonable for Him to doubt me instead of the other way around?  Thankfully, each and every time I return to Him, He accepts me back and picks me up and we carry on together.
     Maybe my change is slow and perhaps right now my life is not changing in the way that I want it too, but I believe in the bigger picture and I think someday the plan of my life will make more sense if I'm patient and allow it time to make me new.