Becoming the Best You!

                     

Have you ever felt like you were progressing beautifully and then SMACK! You fall on your face!? Well I have. Since I've started my mission I've been shaped, molded, refinded and defined.
Submitting our will to the Lords will is one of the hardest things we'll ever learn to do. Why? Because it's the only thing we can give him that He hasn't already given us. One of my favorite stories of all time to explain my feelings of growing and being cut down and pruned is this:

"President Hugh B. Brown, formerly a member of the Twelve and a counselor in the First Presidency, provided a personal experience. He told of purchasing a rundown farm in Canada many years ago. As he went about cleaning up and repairing his property, he came across a currant bush that had grown over six feet (1.8 m) high and was yielding no berries, so he pruned it back drastically, leaving only small stumps. Then he saw a drop like a tear on the top of each of these little stumps, as if the currant bush were crying, and thought he heard it say:

“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. … And now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me. … How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”

President Brown replied, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down.’”
 

Years later, President Brown was a field officer in the Canadian Army serving in England. When a superior officer became a battle casualty, President Brown was in line to be promoted to general, and he was summoned to London. But even though he was fully qualified for the promotion, it was denied him because he was a Mormon. The commanding general said in essence, “You deserve the appointment, but I cannot give it to you.” What President Brown had spent 10 years hoping, praying, and preparing for slipped through his fingers in that moment because of blatant discrimination. Continuing his story, President Brown remembered:
 

“I got on the train and started back … with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. … When I got to my tent, … I threw my cap on the cot. I clenched my fists, and I shook them at heaven. I said, ‘How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?’ I was as bitter as gall.
“And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, ‘I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.’ The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness. …

“… And now, almost 50 years later, I look up to [God] and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.’"


I know that life is full of challenges. Everyday I find myslef struggling between "my will to Thy will." But I also know that God has a plan for each of us. He knows each of us and wants the best for us. His plan is Always better than our plan. Why? Well because A. He's perfect and B. He can see the eternal picture when we only see this minute or this week or this year. C. He is our Father and He loves us!!! He loves You. If you put your trust and faith in him, you will never fail or be failed. He knows your true potential and he will help you reach it if you let him!! Become what he wants you to become!
I am grateful to have a loving Heavenly Father that knows me and is always with me. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. -Prov. 3:5
 

To learn more about the will of God, ask a missionary, or go to mormon.org or lds.org