A Study of The Dark And The Light

I feel like that should be the title to my life: A Study of The Dark And The Light.

That's what my heart keeps circling back toward.  I am continually amazed by the pains and sorrows, joys and glories of this world.  At one moment I am basking in the thought and care God took to create the growing bud of a tree, that it only exists because God lets it, that it only exists for our use. In the next I'm despairing because of what this world has robbed my beloved mother of- so many memories gone, so many concepts beyond her grasp, so much she deserves, so many experiences she will never have.

And yet I am filled with the knowledge that this is all by His design.  That just as no twig or bird has slipped his notice, neither has each individual moment of our lives not passed without His great, gentle, merciful attention.  

I know that all of this is for our benefit.  Every moment of boredom, pain, and joy.

How wonderful is it that all of this is to add to your soul?  To make you bigger, stronger, better.  More pure.  That's what this is all for- Purity.  Isn't that fascinating?  God doesn't really want to change your soul, He wants to bring the surface to harmony and balance with the eternal soul within you.  He wants to prove you His.  Deep, heart change is required for the world alters us from the moment we are born and sometimes we choose to change our depths.  It does not change the fact that He knows who you used to be in your soul, and He strives to remind you.  What joy we must have felt in the premortal life when He told us of the wonderful Plan.  I think a lot of this life is God trying to remind us of the joy we felt at the opportunity to suffer.