Prayers

I love this church and the gospel.  I don't know what I would do without it.  I'm having another rough day (to the point that I ended up calling off because I was making myself so sick.)  I read my Patriarchal Blessing this evening because it's been awhile and it seemed like it was about time to read it again.  There is one line in there that continues to make me cry every single time I read it.  "You knew beforehand many of the trials, tribulations, and challenges you would have to overcome, yet you accepted without hesitation."  First of all, was I crazy?  But putting that aside...it really makes me think.  If I knew in the preexistence the things that I would go through during this life, and yet I didn't hesitate one bit before accepting...then this must truly be worth it.  Something that came up in Sacrament meeting this week was a story with a lesson along the lines of sometimes God asks us to climb one hill to make us stronger to climb another.  If this is the case, if this is the hill that I'm on to be prepared for something else that will happen in the future....well I don't even want to think about it.  I love reading about the strength and faith and courage all these families in the scriptures show.  It truly shows me the Lord knows us and loves us and knows what is best for us, even if we think we know otherwise.  I know that I am being watched over by my Heavenly Father, through answers to my prayers, by friends and people in the branch.  So I always find some of my favorite scriptures when I'm having these rough times, and these scriptures that I find are always an answer to my prayers and they always make me feel like Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are sitting right next to me speaking to only me.  One of those scriptures is:

 -D&C 24:8  "Be patient in afflictions for thou shalt have many:  But endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days."

another one is John 16:33 "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

so today's scripture that I found that helped me is in Mosiah 24:14-15
"And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders , that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.
"And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord."