Sunday, January 9, 2011

New Beginnings

They say that "Today is the first day of the rest of your life".   If that is true, at age fifty-eight I certainly have had lots of New Beginnings.


There are three new beginnings that changed my life forever. Getting married, having my first child, and joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.


For this weeks Slice of Life I want to write about my New Beginning...joining the Church.


I remember as a little girl, I would lay in bed at night and try to figure out life. It seemed to me we needed a purpose to being here on earth.  I wondered where I came from, why I was here on earth and where was I going when my life ended.  It seemed there was a circle of sorts.  I felt like I would be going back to where I came from.  My family never attended any church together. So, I went to different churches with different friends throughout my young life. hoping to find the answer with religion. 


It wasn't until as an adult and at the invitation of my sister-in-law, Laurel, that Mike and I both met with the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ.  Everything they taught made sense to me, especially when they were teaching the Plan of Salvation.  I learned I was a daughter of Heavenly Father and lived with Him before coming to earth.  I did have a purpose on earth to learn and grow and I could return to Heavenly Father again.  We began reading the Book of Mormon and prayed to know if we should join the Church. It just felt right, I had a peaceful feeling in my heart, and have never looked back.  The changes we had to make for this new beginning have been a great blessing in our lives.


It's funny but I used to get mad at Mike for teasing me about making a good Mormon ( a nick name given to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) because I didn't smoke or drink alcohol or coffee. Latter-day Saints are taught these items are bad for your body.  So, that wasn't a hard thing for me to change.  The hardest thing for our family with this new beginning was paying tithing.  Paying ten percent of our income to the Church would be hard because we were literally living pay check to pay check.  However, there are great blessings associated with paying tithing, this is what it says in the Old Testament.


Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
MALACHI 3:10

Who wouldn't love to have the windows heaven pour out a blessing on their life?  Our missionaries told us not to take their word regarding tithing.  They told us to try it out for ourselves.  It takes faith to tithe not money. So we decided to just jump in and paid that first ten percent not knowing how we would get to the end of the month with enough money to pay our bills.  Then it happened!  We unexpectedly received a check in the mail that was for reimbursements for a travel expense Mike had taken for a job interview.  He had been told at the time that there was no way he would be reimbursed, but miraculously we held this check in our hand that would help us get through to the end of the month.  It happened two more times like that,  getting unexpected checks. I was amazed that paying tithing really worked!  We were hooked. Now, we have been paying tithing for almost 33 years and have definitely seen the the windows of heaven pour blessings on our family.  

Notice I didn't say things are perfect.  We have definitely had our share of challenges. Our New Beginning taught us that we have a purpose on earth,  we have our Savior, Jesus Christ as our wonderful exemplar to show us how to live. And that helps motivate us to work through our challenges.


This was written for Slice of Life.  Please join us here and share a Slice of your Life.

3 comments:

Pirate Princess said...

Beautiful testimony! Certainly a great beginning in your life that has not only blessed yours, but others along the way. :) Thank you!!

FranE said...

Wonderful testimony from a special lady. Miss you in the chats, so I am glad to see you here. I can identify with your new beginnings. :)

Laurel said...

Beautiful testimony! I am glad I had a little part in planting that seed. What a beautiful bouquet of life experiences and blessing have come through finding the love of our Savior and His gospel. I love you.

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