How do you define yourself?

Elder Trevor Miller Photography

What are you left with when you strip away your style. What happens when you take away your recreational equipment? What if you lost the ability to move your legs? How would you define yourself then? How do you make sense of who you really are? People are not the objects they possess. Hey are also not what their body is. People are adjectives.

I’ve thought about some of those little aspects that I believed made up who I was. Long hair, rock climbing, surfing, skiing, snowboarding, brown leather, traveling, playing my ukulele, singing. These are all things that I love and I hope that they will never go away. But what if they do? What if I get old What if my shoes wear out? What if some of my talents fade away? What if I die? What will I be left with?

-stay with me here, we’ll get back to this point in a minute-

Because we agreed to follow our Heavenly Father’s plan, death won’t be the end. Because Christ lived, died, and lived again, so will we. Christ died for us so we can live again. But what’s the point. Would we really come to earth just to die so we could live again? There has to be a bigger purpose. There is. It’s so we can change. Change is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. I came here so I can change and become somebody who is substantial. So when everything else that I own is stripped away, I will be left with who I truly am. A beautiful person who has changed because of my life EXPERIENCES.

I will face challenges. 20 years from now I will read back over this post and say to myself…. Ohhh if only you had a clue then. Challenges will come. But what are challenges? They are opportunities to prove I WILL put my money where my mouth is.  To put theory into practice and to choose to become the person I want to be. Growth doesn’t come by the experience itself, but how I respond to the experiences I have.

When I die what will I be left with? Who I really am.
Here are a list of adjectives that make up who I am.

Loving. Kind. Patient. Courageous. Bold. Humble. Confident. Firm.
Dedicated. Motivated. Compassionate. Charitable. Faithful.
Knowledgeable. Authoritative. Consistent. Strong. Powerful.
Disciplined. Responsible. Sensitive. Encouraging. Assertive. Positive.
Happy. Fair. Ambitious.  Focused. Personable. Dependable. Creative.
Fair. Organized. Obedient. Hopeful. Genuine. Down to earth. Relatable.
Selfless. Logical. Trendy. Sophisticated. Current. Standoffish. Snide.
Flighty. Wild. Mean. Selfish. Ignorant. Impatient. Weak. Prideful.
Unmotivated. Doubting. Fearful. Belittling. Lazy. Complacent.
Self-absorbed. Unfair. Irresponsible. Depressed. Frustrated.
Disobedient. Unreliable. Distracted. Narrow minded. Harsh. Vain.
Skeptical.

Christ not only died for me, he understands me. In the garden of Gethsemane he suffered for the sins of all mankind. He experienced the heartache, pain, and resistance to any of those positive adjectives that I have felt (knowing I should act a certain way but choosing not to because it’s hard). Because he understands where I fall short, he knows where to pick me up. I don’t have to change and become a substantial person by my own sheer grit and will power. This is called the enabling power of the atonement. How do we access it? Faith in Christ, and asking for his help.

Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of
all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness,
and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace
sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and
if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny
the power of God.
-Moroni 10:32

Through Christ we can become more than we could on our own. It is because he understands us that he knows how to succor us. Because I have seen this change in myself, I KNOW that Christ lives. The positive adjectives are being magnified while the negative ones are in the process of shrinking. This process of change will take more than a life time. I define myself with the adjectives Christ is helping me magnify and also the adjectives he is helping me shrink. I’m not perfect, but I am changing.

 

 

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