The Case For Christ

I'm on our ward Relief Society activities committee and we had our RS birthday dinner this month.

For a month I photographed almost all of the sisters in the ward and made a video to show at our activity, but still felt bad that there were 10 sisters at the activity that I never got a picture of for the video! We asked people to send them in too though so they did have an opportunity.

One of my favorite parts of the night though was while we were cleaning up Kasen asked to talk at the podium. (This month during Fast and Testimony meeting he scooted to the edge of the bench and told me he wanted to go talk too.) So I took him up and helped him bare a testimony. After I helped him he said he wanted to talk again and gave his testimony a second time without any help from me! It was so sweet!
 

While I'm on the topic of testimony, a few Sundays ago we decided to check out a movie on Netflix called The Case For Christ and it turned out to be a good movie! I liked it like I liked God's NOT Dead.

Two quotes from the movie that stood out to me were:

"Even in disbelief you take a leap of faith."

Choosing not to believe, then hoping that you are right requires the same faith that it takes to believe, the only difference is that not believing doesn't require you to change anything. Of course not believing in Christ is way easier, but what is there really to gain from it?

And

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance." C.S. Lewis

I've thought about this before, not just about Christianity, but about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

If you live the gospel and after this life find out that it is not true then you have lost nothing, BUT if you live the gospel and after this life find out that it is true then you gain EVERYTHING.

There have been so many things I have been thinking about testimony and the church for the last little while and one little testimony builder, weirdly enough, came from a Grey's Anatomy episode this week!
April has been having a crisis of faith and while talking to her patient Eli he said,
"Faith wouldn't be real faith if you only believed when things were good."
God doesn't guarantee anything. Doing what he asks does not mean that bad things will never happen to you. Nobody lives a life free of suffering. Life isn't going to be fair. We don't get to know why things happen, just like we don't get to know the answers to all the questions we might have either.
"The world is full of brokenness. It is our job to put it back together again."
"Some things just happen and we don't get to know why."

The key is to change our focus to the good things that come from following Christ. Focus on what He teaches instead of requiring all the answers, proof of the truth or expecting life to be fair.

My testimony is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and what the gospel teaches make so much sense for my happiness.

Families, the commandments, the Plan of Salvation all make sense. The things I do know make sense.
There is a right and wrong.
There is a path we need to be on in order to have eternal happiness after this life.

The good news is though that we will be judged on our character. It's not a scale where we hope that our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds. It's about learning from our mistakes and letting them improve our overall character in the end.

Everyone will have times of weakness, moments of doubt, or a crisis of faith, but the strength and knowledge we receive afterward is a blessing.
 I know that Christ is real.
His love for us is real.
That is why I am stoked for General Conference this weekend! And Easter too!
Reminders of His mercy and His miracles are always what my soul needs.
Bring on the spiritual learning!