Plan to be Unplanned

Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I am a MAJOR planner. Everything in my life is planned even down to the food I'll be having at my wedding. (No, there is no wedding in the works! Which makes this even worse!!) For me, planning every hour of my day gives me the security of knowing what I'll be doing and when.

As I was ranting and raving to my parents the other day about how anxious I was to figure out where I'm going to be winter semester (again, way too much planning) my attorney of a father said, "Don't plan so much that you don't leave any room for the Lord's hand." This took me by surprise. As a male, my dad is always one to try and solve my problems yet here he was saying that I needed to just trust the Lord instead of looking for all the ways I could solve my predicament.

This reminded me of one of my favorite scriptures of ALL time: Alma 37:37 -
"Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings,
and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night
lie down unto the Lord,
that he may watch over you in your sleep.."

The Lord will direct us for good if we can just trust Him and trust that He really does know best. Can you imagine a loving Heavenly Father not really caring about the big decisions that we make or the large trials that we face? Of course not!

I also can't imagine a Savior who would die for us and feel all of our pains and sufferings and not be concerned for our well being.
I am so grateful for the Savior who is constantly pleading on our behalf. He is my greatest advocate and friend.
So my invitation to you this week: pray more and worry less!
Focus on sincere prayers and remember who you're talking to. Happy last week of June, everyone!

{Hannah}

This Song

Guys, it's Alyson! Depression is hard... I would know. I struggle with it almost every day. So when I heard this song, I thought of us as a group, and how important it is that we reach out to each other. This song solidifies everything Hannah & I are always talking about.

Keep holding on. Keep fighting.

Ladies and gentleman I give you The River by Imagine Dragons:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6SyQ4XvBxg

 

If you know anything about me you will know that I am obsessed with Imagine Dragons. And not because I heard the song It's Time two months ago and Radioactive is now all over the radio, I have loved them since they were a little tiny thing from Provo, Utah. They're my babes.

If you ignore the semi-lame video and just listen to the music, you will feel it. The sense of hope. Feel it with me, will you?

We're Supposed to Judge, but How Much is Too Much?

Throughout my life I have had a real struggle with judging. I am a fashion fanatic as well as a perfectionist and I will admit, there are times when I look at a person I don't even know and think things like, "bad outfit choice" etc. I realize this is a problem. I also realize I am not a perfect person. However, because the whole "judging a book by its cover thing" is something I constantly do, I figured I've got enough background in this area to tackle this often frustrating topic.

How much judging is too much? Let's start with this question. I have often told my friends that within just 5 minutes of meeting someone I can determine if we will be friends or not... Yeah that's just crap. (Please excuse my lack for a better term) People have so much more to them than you can meet in 5, 10, even 2,000 minutes. I continue to learn new things about friends that I have had for years and years. So can we really judge someone after 5 minutes of meeting them? Absolutely not.

I realize that as humans we are programmed to judge things, in fact we are here to judge good from evil and exercise our agency. However, I do not think that this type of judging applies to the people we have just met.

Story time: I knew a girl in high school. (yeah it's one of those stories...) I thought she had absolutely everything!! Her family rocked, she got good grades, she was popular and beautiful. In my mind she was perfect. I made that judgement until I really got to know her and then I learned about all of these personal problems she struggled with that I had no clue about! I learned a great lesson from this. No matter how great someone's got it going on the outside, you never know what they've got going on the inside.

I guess my point in telling you all of this is to teach a lesson that I am still constantly learning for myself. We never know what someone is going through. We just don't know. So stop judging. Just stop it. It is our Heavenly Father's job to judge, not ours. (See the link for the full beautiful version of this: The Merciful Obtain Mercy)

Lastly, there is the scripture that talks about the way in which we judge will be how we are judged. How terrifying a thought that must be for someone like me who is so judgmental! Ah!! I don't know about you but as I sure as heck need the easiest judging possible considering the crazy amount of mistakes I make!
So here's to giving the benefit of the doubt and letting God be the judge.

Happy Wednesday everyone!!