Been a couple years!

Committing my words to paper (or post?) is the only thing this semester than has made me feel understood. Since coming to college I have struggled immensely to find those that I feel understand me. I have been seeking validation from other sources outside myself, when I need to look inward so that I can express outward. Since I posted last, I went through a complete loss of faith and interest in religion. I am grateful for this season. That dark time in my life had some great memories, but also led me to where I am right now. I learned so many lessons about repentance and sin and Christ. I felt his unending love so deeply. Now, my goal is to express that to others. I overanalyze everything so I am trying to not react to people, but use compassion. I have been reading the Bible so much more and finding little spots of inspiration more so than the Book of Mormon, but that is probably just this stage of my journey of faith. On the topic of love there are multiple golden verses. In 1 James chapter 4 it says "Love is of God; and every one that liveth is born of God, and knoweth God". This verse gives me so much hope. It represents the united and all encompassing care that God has for each on one us, and tells us that every person who loves is of God. Its similar to the fruit metaphor, if the tree bears good fruit, it is of God. This means that every person that loves someone else, no matter the gender or orientation, has a pure love. That it is not wrong, but actually God like. It also shows that christianity is not meant to be one of judgement as I think the majority of the world believes and practices, but is about acceptance and building each other up. It also says in verse 11, "If god so loved us, we ought also to love one another". Wow. This addresses directly our human downfall of a judgement that is unwarranted and ungodly. Who are we to discriminate who receives love? Who are we to say that one is better than another? Everything we do is done from our own perspective, not the greater one above. I believe that we are not seeing the full picture. I think it also important to address this other yet similarly profound principle, "there is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear". Every bad relationship I have been in where I was afraid to show my full emotions and held back, those were not Godly relationships. In a true and complementary partnership, even friendships, both members should feel like they have cheerleaders surrounding them. Friends and partners that allow them to reach their full potential and are grateful to have them in their lives. Some of the best friendships I have I am still able to be my funny self, but they can see beyond that and sense the deeper parts of my identity. This leads me into the next thought. This really got me. Proverbs 4:23 says, " keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life". It is literally telling us that life is deeper and that it is all about emotions and relationships!!! It is telling us to ignore all the craziness around us and take care of our heart, this means doing things that are nourishing to us as well as making hard decisions to let things go. I think this verse often gets misinterpreted as meaning guard your heart and don't let people in, but I think it means the opposite. I think its actually saying to take care of your heart and emotions and value them so that you can use it to its full capacity for love.  This kind of unrestrained love and expression is what I live for, its one of the reasons that I feel connected to Jesus, is because I just feel so passionate about living deeply. I feel like his gospel is the perfect example of this because of what he did for us. The ultimate dramatic move was to die for us. It shows His full devotion to us, even when we do not deserve it. It has only been hitting me lately how much joy can be found. This is why Christ died for us! It was not so that we would feel guilty forever, its the opposite! He took our guilt and pain so that we could experience the deep and passionate joy that He desires for His brothers and sisters!!!!! God is so good!