SuNdAy InSpIrAtIon

back in march i wrote a sunday inspiration post about how we "look beyond the mark". i talked about how i need to relearn this every so often. and recently i was able to do just that. this sunday at church i was given insight into how that was possible. i had spent months stressing over something i wanted very much to have happen that just wasn't working out. i had cried to my very patient husband and to the Lord about it many times. i prayed for understanding and for direction. my husband told me to let it go and it would work out when it should but how do you do that? how do you not worry about something you want so badly? one day i was looking through the free books on my kindle fire and saw a book called pearl in the sand. it was based on the story of rahab in the old testament. rahab was a harlot in the city of jericho who risked her life to save the spies from israel and they in turn brought her and her family to live with the israelites. rahab eventually married and had a son boaz who married ruth. in the new testament when it recounts the genealogy of the Savior, ruth and boaz are in that direct line. the author of this book did a fantastic job writing a story of how a harlot could have become the mother of a great man and an ancestor of the Savior. while i read this book several truths were whispered to my heart, 1. the Lord knows our hearts and our desires, and he will answer them in the way best for us. 2. forgiveness is necessary even when we feel we have done nothing wrong or that the other person may not feel they have done something wrong. This was very humbling to me. i realized immediately that I had some forgiving i needed to do. That there was one relationship in particular that i had more to do to fix. And that even if i never heard an I'm sorry or had everything back to normal i had to once and for all let it go. so i did. i decided that i was doing it and i let all the anger and hurt go. i stopped letting it eat me up inside. and it feels great. right after that i was confronted with some situations that brought painful realizations connected to what i had been praying would happen. but i found that i was able to overcome them very easily. answers came more quickly and their peace stayed. and keeps staying now. this sunday i was able to realize why this had been able to happen. in relief society we had a lesson based on jeffrey r. holland's conference talk entitled "the laborers in the vineyard". he talks about the parable of laborers in the vineyard and it is truly eye opening. he says " we consume such precious emotional and spiritual capital clinging tenaciously to the memory of a discordant note we struck in a childhood piano recital, or something a spouse said or did 20 years ago that we are determined to hold over his or her head for another 20, or an incident in church history that proved no more or less than that mortals will always struggle to measure up to the immortal hopes placed before them". This is what I learned from that. i had spent so much time and energy both spiritually and physically being hurt by someone else that it was blocking my ability to feel the spirit the way I needed to. as soon as i could let that go the Lord had so much goodness to put in it's place. the last couple of months have been very sweet not carrying that burden around with me. it has been wonderful to feel the spirit so much closer and i realized how much i had been missing. the gospel is true, the Lord loves you and when we can get out of our own way and feel it there is nothing we can't do.

ThE cUpCaKe BlOg

so i've got my cupcake blog up and running...i figured my first wedding was a great place to start.  hope you all enjoy and the recipes will be coming soon!
                                                   sweetescapescupcakes.blogspot.com