Don't Limit Yourself

The other day someone told T that I was amazing.  I have heard that before and I have thought the same thing about other people, especially my mother, and it gets me to thinking, "What makes us amazing?"  

Well obviously it is because we do amazing things, but how can we do amazing things?  Were we just amazing to start with and so we can do amazing things or do we become amazing by doing amazing things.  I think that we have the potential to start with, but it is the amazing things that we take on, that develops us into amazing people.  I will call them challenges.  (Some times they are trials, but not all challenges are trials).

My mother is one of the most amazing people I know.

(Here she is pregnant with my youngest brother, she was 46)

She bore and raised 11 kids.  She still takes care of me and my family when she comes to visit and does the same for my siblings.  She is loving, unselfish and Christ like.  I love her.  But as I experience my life, I see that I am much more amazing now than I was 10 years ago.  My capacity to do amazing things has grown as I have met the challenges in my life and worked through them, rather than limit myself.  When I had 2 kids I was completely overwhelmed and wondered how anyone did it with more than two.  Now, I have 7 and I can do it.  My capacity has grown.  

When T was unemployed several years ago, I had a drive to put a hair salon in our house.  As I pursued it, I came across one obstacle after another.  I would get discouraged, but I would think, "If I stop, then I will never have a salon.  If I plug away at it, eventually, I will."  So, I persisted and after about a year and a half, I had my salon.

There is a woman I know who's daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.  In a talk at church, she told how she prayed about this, really struggling to know why, etc. and the answer that she got was, to the effect that, it would be for the growth and benefit of her family.  She prayed how that could be and the answer came that it only would be if she made it that way (or something to that effect).  Basically, it was up to her how she met her challenge.  Did she let is crush her, or did she meet her challenge, with the strength of the Lord, and in the process, become stronger and more capable?

I hear comments from people that they could never do what I do, but they could.  They short change themselves and don't try, therefore limiting their ability.  They forget the words of their Savior in Mark 9:23-24  The Lord was talking with the father of a child with a dumb spirit, that the disciples had tried to cast out, but couldn't. 

"Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."  If we come to God, our Lord who loves us, with our challenges, he will help us.  In fact it is promised to us in Mormon 9:21

"Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth."

So, my take away from all this is, it is by rising to the occasion, meeting our challenges in the strength of the Lord and not giving up that we become amazing.

(It really is just God's way of helping us to become who he already knows that we are.)