Could it be that I’m actually getting back in the habit of writing every night?!?! 😶
I probably shouldn’t jinx myself. 🙃
There’s not really much to say about today. I slept in a bit, and then I went in and chatted with my brother Richard for a little while–mostly gospel stuff.
I’m hungry for gospel stuff.
I’ve starved my soul of it for so long that it just feels so good to have it back. I could probably talk gospel stuff all day every day. 🙃 I love the spirit. I love the flashes of light and truth that illuminate my mind again and again and again.
I’m remembering light and truth that I’ve known for years, and the Lord is adding new insights and new perspectives.
Oh, how grateful I am for the perfect love of God that holds no grudges, feels no resentment, and wastes no time. The moment I’m ready for him, he’s there for me. Ready. Having waited patiently for me to return to him.
Of course, there’s a part of me that thinks about all the lost time and how much I could have learned had I not walked away from the light so many times and for so long.
But I also know that there’s absolutely no sense in worrying about it. God doesn’t care where I’ve been: He only cares where I am. And if there’s something that I need in this life that would be a blessing to me or to those around me, then he will give it to me.
What about the knowledge and truth and growing experiences that I could have gotten had I never walked away from the light? God can help me make up for that if it’s needed and if I want it.
Which I do, of course. 🙃
But I’m not going to spend a moment more pining for lost opportunities. The light is shining brightly, and what I wanted most in all eternity is available before me every single day of my life.
I’m living the dream. A soul deep dream.
A dream, as I see it, that brought me to want to join Father’s family, so he could help me become what I longed to become–a being of perfect love and light.
Certainly, I loved before. Certainly I had light before, but there was a part of me that still wanted to have others put me on a pedestal above them. There was that element of ugly pride that I wanted burned off and replaced with perfect love.
And my light, though already shining with a degree of brilliance, was far from the potential of what was possible with God’s help.
So I jumped at the chance and shouted with excitement to come and have all these experiences to put down my pride and choose love.
And I have those opportunities, all day, every day.
That dream I had eons ago is in process of realization.
I truly am living the dream. 🥰
🐿️
Anyway, so I chatted with Richard in his living room for a bit, and then we ate breakfast and chatted some more, and then we went back to his living room and chatted some more–lots and lots and lots of gospel stuff. 🥰
Then he showed me his house design plans, we talked about houses and land and then cameras and pictures and all sorts of stuff.
Then I gave him a hug and bid him for a while, said goodbye to the others in the house and headed toward Utah County, listening to Richard G Scott’s Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge BYU speech from ’93–one of my favorites from way back in 2010 when I started listening to BYU speeches from Apostles like they were aural candy. 🙃
I listened to it twice in a row. 🙃
Traffic was pretty heavy, and I took one wrong turn, but eventually I made it to the little park right before you go up American Fork Canyon.
That’s been one of my getaway spots since 2010. Love that place. It’s gotten a lot more popular since 2010, when it was a totally battered old park with broken picnic tables and no bridge over the fork in the river.
Way back then, you could drive around the old dirt road on the side just west of the toilet building, and swing around to the back side of the park. The place was just about always empty, so there was peace and solitude and the sound of the running water of the American Fork River.
[sigh]
It’s much more popular nowadays. They’ve put a walking bridge over the river, they fix the picnic tables and added additional picnic tables and a fire pit.
People have improved upon the dams that I built back in 2010, so the water is a fair bit deeper, though still only maybe knee high.
Anyway, I parked in that little parking lot and started looking through my van for the bin that had my garments in it. Do I haven’t been an active member of the church, I think I’ve always figured I would probably end up coming back, so I’ve always kept my garments.
Today was the first day that I actually started wearing the garment again. I wanted to be physically clean before putting them on for the first time in a year or so, so I took a little bath in the American Fork River before heading back to Rover and walking myself verbally through the messages the symbols represent as I put on the garment.
Clean, with the garment on, and with fresh clothes on, I headed to my brother and sister-in-law’s place to visit before saying goodbye.
It was great to be there. Cortney’s kids are wonderful, and it was just fun to be there with my brother and Cortney, and her kids.
Good stuff.
We took some pictures. Jared got some pictures off my phone that I took from the house in Midway and at the wedding, and whatnot. Cortney made tasty pizza from scratch, and we all sat around and talked and joked and had fun.
🥰
I said my goodbyes, and headed to the Super Walmart in Pleasant Grove, where I reminisced for a while watching some old band videos from 18 years ago when I was in a band as a grad student in college.
Courtney had asked me about the songs I played, and I couldn’t remember the title of even a single one, and when I went to look up the songs in the folders on Google drive, I realized that I didn’t have any of my songs from back then on Google drive.
Gosh, I haven’t written a song for a long time. I used to write songs all the time. I’ve got music in my soul, but I guess… I stopped playing and writing.
Anyway, I found the files on my computer, so I uploaded them to my Google Drive for the future, and then I spent some time watching one of our concerts that one of our band member’s wife had recorded, I think.
Then I grabbed the lyrics to one of the songs that I had written and sent it to my brother Jared to forward over to Cortney as an example of a song I’d written.
Right before the Walmart closed, I headed inside to buy some food for tomorrow and for the drive down to Overton, Nevada.
I haven’t done any hiking at all since I’ve been in utah, and it’s been almost 3 weeks, so I’m going to go on a hike tomorrow morning before I head out.
I’m going to miss Utah a little bit more this time than I have in the past. Though I’ve certainly felt claustrophobic at times, I feel a little bit less so this time.
And I haven’t had many of the emotionally heavy days that I often have when I come back to Utah and think about all the history that I have here.
There’s a lot of pain if I think about and dwell on the past… But I haven’t done that much this trip. I’ve been focused on other things, and it’s been good.
Right now I’m sitting in the parking lot of the Planet Fitness in or I’m trying to decide whether or not I’m going to go in and do a midnight workout. 🙃
Or am I just going to go to sleep. 😅
I think I’ll go in for at least a little while, so I’ll finish this up and did y’all a good night.
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful to have been able to spend a great day with Richard chatting about beautiful gospel things and about life and whatnot.
- I’m grateful that, despite the fact that I turned my van upside down looking for where I had packed my garments, that they actually ended up being right on top of the most easily accessible then in the whole van. 😆
- I’m grateful that no one was around when I wanted to take a little bath in the American Fork River 😅 I kept a pair of shorts on, so I wouldn’t have been an unwelcome sight had someone decided to show up, I would have just been somebody sitting in the river, which historically isn’t uncommon for that part of the river.
- I’m grateful that I was able to spend time with my brother and his new family. It’s a lot of fun interacting with the kids. I love kids. I’m sure it’s a heck of a lot easier to be an uncle than to be a father, but I still love kids, and Cortney’s kids are great kids. 🥰
- I’m grateful for Elder Scott. His perspective and teachings on the spirit and receiving revelation are some of the most powerful and moving teachings that I’ve ever heard. They are perhaps most meaningful for me because they echo my own experience of revelation, so it’s kind of a testimony and witness and confirmation of my own experiences.
Success:
- I’ve been doing pretty darn well at remembering why I’m choosing not to do the things I’m choosing not to do and why I’m choosing to do the things I’m choosing to do.
Improvement:
- I am finding myself still pushing the boundaries a little bit, or wanting to push the boundaries on the whole distracted driving thing, when the reality is I’m not doing it to try to be obedient to God or to try to be obedient to the laws of the land. I obey the laws of the land because I want to do that. It’s important to me personally. But I get caught up in the mind trap of the shoulds and shouldn’ts, instead of remembering my own reasons for choosing what I’m choosing.
My love to all of you. 🥰
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 