I've figured it out...

... I'm a really bad blogger because I kick butt at writing in my journal.

Seriously.

I can fill up an average size journal (about 250 pages) in no more than four months. I've been writing in journals since I can remember. I can remember my first journal from when I was about 4 years old: it was this Lisa Frank journal with a lock on it. Don't know what Lisa Frank's designs look like? You must not be a child of the 90's. Let me give you an idea.

(notice that gypsy pig fortune teller one? What in the world...)

I promise have better taste now. 

I write in a lot of detail in my own journal and don't have the energy most days to re-create another entry for the blog.

So here's what I'm going to do. I have a few of my journals from the past 10 years of my life with me here in Logan. At least once a week I'll post an entry from one of my journals (names will be changed to protect the innocent, and maybe not so innocent...). And of course I'll try to keep up on the most recent happenings of my life, because there have been a lot. Good, bad, definitely ugly, and definitely hilarious... Like getting trapped in a bathroom stall because someone parked one of those handicapped cruisers right up against the door of the stall I was in. Not cool. 

We'll see how this works out for the next little while. This could be really funny or really bad. Ha.

Sacrifice Brings Forth the Blessings of Heaven

... that has been the phrase that has been running through my head tonight. Making sacrifices can be hard. Sacrifice is the opposite of selfishness. I try not to be a selfish person. But I find as I get older that I am selfish in different ways than my teenage self was. I have let go of the petty high school selfishness that comes with the territory of being at that age, but with that comes different things to be greedy about. If you're not careful, the things you are selfish about when you're older can be more self-destructive.

   So I think I'm coming to understand the importance of sacrifice more and more. I've had to make a few sacrifices lately. Some have definitely been harder than others and if it has been for people I love then I am happy to do it and it leads to a greater desire to make those kinds of decisions. I'm not saying we have to be martyrs and give up all the things we've ever desired. It's been a learning experience for me that when we choose to make sacrifices that we've been asked to make we are blessed ten-fold in other ways. Exercising our agency to make sacrifices and then doing so out of love makes the difference.

    Making a sacrifice out of obedience is a gift, making a sacrifice out of love is power.