Reasons to Smile

It’s been a bit of a hard week emotionally for me, which culminated in a breakdown emotionally last night (I gotta thank Will and Azalea for helping me through that). As a result, today I just want to do a simple post about reasons I have to smile. As if I needed any more reminders to cheer up after last night, the theme we had in sacrament meeting in my ward today was “Joy in the Journey”. So while I listened to the speakers, I started writing a list of reasons I can smile.

• I have good friends who love me. Just to name a few, Garrett, Eric, and several North Star friends (including Blake, Alex, John, etc.) who I can call or reach out to at a moment’s notice on a bad day.
• My parents love me. Despite me having so many issues, my parents love me and even though I’m twelve hours away from them, they’re still only a phone call away when I need them.
• I live within a block of the Provo temple. Living at the FLSR, I’m super close to the temple, a place of refuge for me, even when it’s just outside on the grounds.
• I have eight temples accessible to me within an hour and a half drive from here: Bountiful, Salt Lake City, Oquirrh Mountain, Jordan River, Draper, Mount Timpanogas, Provo, and Manti. And in the next few years there will be Ogden (rededicated), Payson, and Provo City Center temples.
• I have FINALLY found a major and a career path that I want to follow. With a family studies degree, I’ll be able to help people (and more importantly help families) with issues that in very many ways run their lives unconsciously.
• I can find spiritual insights from random places, like Doctor Who (PS: Later, when I write a post about depression, I’m going to be referencing the Van Gogh episode of Doctor Who, which I LOVED).

• I have a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s hard work keeping it up, but the times when I really feel it, like I did during church today, it’s that little boost I need to keep me going.
• The Savior sacrificed Himself to perform the Atonement so that I could find comfort and solace in my life and so that I could be forgiven of my sins.
• We have a living prophet on the earth today! How cool is that? There is a man on the earth who tells us what God wants us to know. Even better, in two weeks we get to hear him speak!

• I am part of an eternal family. Because my parents were sealed in the Washington DC temple on July 17, 1983, I am sealed to my family for time and for all eternity.
• I have uplifting music I can listen to on a bad day. It’s AMAZING the power that music has to buoy us up and give us strength when we need it! Yesterday, while my problems climaxed, I was grateful to have this song in my iTunes library, showing exactly how I felt at the moment and throughout the past while.

• I had an AMAZING mission president when I was in Toronto. President Brower is one of the most Christ-like, loving, thoughtful, and inspired men I know (that all kind of became redundant after “Christ-like”).

• I have felt God’s love. I have days when I don’t feel it strongly or I’m not in a place where I feel it at all, but I know I have felt it. Despite my mistakes, my weaknesses, and my faults, He loves me. And nothing I can do will change that.

Those are the reasons I found to smile today during church and I know I have more. Please share in the comments what reasons you have to smile, on your good days and your bad days.