Inspirations

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen:  not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
C.S. Lewis

In Nazareth, the narrow road,

That tires the feet and steals the breath,

Passes the place where once abode

The Carpenter of Nazareth.

And up and down the dusty way

The village folk would often wend;

And on the bench, beside Him, lay

Their broken things for Him to mend.

The Maiden with the doll she broke,

The woman with the broken chair,

The man with broken plough, or yoke,

Said, “Can you mend it, Carpenter?”

And each received the thing he sought,

In yoke, or plough, or chair, or doll;

The broken thing which each had brought

Returned again a perfect whole.

So up the hill the long years through,

With heavy step and wistful eye,

The burdened souls their way pursue,

Uttering each the plaintive cry:

“O Carpenter of Nazareth,

This heart, that’s broken past repair,

This life, that’s shattered night to death,

Oh, can You mend them Carpenter?”

And by His kind and ready hand,

His own sweet life is woven through

Our broken lives, until they stand

A New Creation—“all things new.”

“The shattered [substance] of [the] heart,

Desire, ambition, hope, and faith,

Mould Thou into the perfect part,

O, Carpenter of Nazareth!”

--Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (Broken Things to Mend, April General Conference, 2006)

... individual development sometimes requires the march of a Zion's Camp, or an arduous Hole in the Rock trek, or special classrooms like the settlements in northern Mexico, wherein special individuals were fashioned.  Those episodes, however, had nothing to do with real estate but everything to do with our second estate!

Neal A. Maxwell

We should not assume...that just because something is unexplainable by us it is unexplainable.

Neal A. Maxwell

The men and women who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom, will find that they must battle every day. 

Brigham Young

        “No pain that we suffer.  No trial that we experience is ever wasted.  It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility.  All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father in heaven.” 

Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

-John Wooden, American Basketball Player and Coach

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?

-Quoted by President Worthen, BYU President

Anyone who imagines that bliss ... is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed.  [The fact is] most putts don't drop.  Most beef is tough.  Most children grow up to be just people.  Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration.  Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. . . . Life is like an old-time rail journey--delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.  The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride ("Big Rock Candy Mountains," Deseret News, 12 June 1973, As quoted by Gordon B. Hinckley).

One of God's greatest gifts is the joy of trying again, for no failure ever need be final.
(President Thomas S. Monson)

Life is not merely a series of meaningless acts or accidents but rather, it is a tapestry of acts that culminate in an exquisite divine plan.
(Author Unknown)

Never let a problem to be solved become more important that a person to be loved.  

(President Thomas S. Monson)

The Lord shapes the back to bear the burden placed upon it.

(Author Unknown)

Personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar.  It is about placing the animal in us upon the altar. (Neal A. Maxwell)

Motherhood

Sleeping soundly, so unaware,

So peaceful, soft, without a care.

I pray each night you're safe and warm

From every day's encircling storm.

Some say this is no place to raise a child,

So small, so pure, so meek, so mild.

But me, I tend to disagree . . .

This child, it seems, is raising me.

(Eliza Terry Roylance)