It's one of those days where I'm working hard not to be discouraged...

     Many of you know the crazy circumstances surrounding my life right now. There are so many amazing things happening to my family, and we are recieving innumerable blessings. However, on the path to our exciting future we are encountering a lot of stress, snares, and obstacles. We are learning valuable life lessons about time management, priorities, and relying on God's hand in all things. Before we reap the benefits and recieve the fulfillment of our labors we have several years ahead of us that will be full of extremely hard work and dedication on our part to our jobs, to our church callings, and to each other. Some days the excitement of a new baby on the way, new house and city, and my husbands new career is so much that it is all I can do to stop myself from screaming to strangers on the street about how happy I am. I get so high on life I have to pinch myself to come back to reality! Then there are days like today....today I have found it hard to balance all of the things going on in my life, to stop my mind from racing, and to stop thinking about the negative and focus on the positive.
    Coincidence or not this morning I spent a few minutes looking up information on Satan for my mother. She is Episcopalian, while I am a Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) and we share a great deal of the same religious beliefs but we also differ in a lot of them as well. She is doing a Bible study and they discussed the topic of Satan and she expressed interest to me in our views and beliefs on the topic. So this morning I went to the church website and looked up "Satan" and "Devil" and sent her some scripture and talks from General Authorities that sum up some the way the Church feels about the Adversary. This has pretty much saved my day for me, or at the least stopped me from having a total breakdown. I've been able to recognize that no matter how stressed or upset I feel right now, that those feelings are Satan trying to distract me from the amazing things I should be focusing on. I should be always elated at the blessings from Heavenly Father and be able to think of them and look to Him when the going gets rough. It's a simple thing but counting my blessings one by one is a really quick way to snap out of feeling down or sorry for myself. Writing like this to y'all is already helping me feel better. I am also so lucky to have a husband by my side who is with me through all of this to not only support me but understand when I slip up and let the stresses of every day life take a toll on my attitude and emotions.
    So today, when I get spare seconds here and there, I am focusing on persevering, enduring, and staying positive. I've got a lot of Bible verses and famous quotes that are helping me today. So if you're having one of "those" days whether you're religious or not, Mormon or Espicopalian, male or female I hope these help you like they're helping me! Love ya, Layne


Awesome Quotes:

"Success is usually earned by persevering and not becoming discouraged when we encounter challenges. Paul Harvey, the famous news analyst and author, once said: 'Someday I hope to enjoy enough of what the world calls success so that someone will ask me, ‘What’s the secret of it?’ I shall say simply this: ‘I get up when I fall down.’

An outstanding example of perseverance is Madame Marie Curie, who worked together with her French physicist husband, Pierre Curie, “in an old abandoned leaky shed without funds and without outside encouragement or help, trying to isolate radium from a low-grade uranium ore called pitchblende. And after their 487th experiment had failed, Pierre threw up his hands in despair and said, ‘It will never be done. Maybe in a hundred years, but never in my day.’ Marie confronted him with a resolute face and said, ‘If it takes a hundred years, it will be a pity, but I will not cease to work for it as long as I live.’She was eventually successful, and cancer patients have benefited greatly from her perseverance." --James E. Faust

"Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak." Thomas Carlyle

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn." Harriet Beecher Stowe

 

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens." Kahlil Gibran

 

But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Proverbs 4:18

 

Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually. 1 Chronicles 16:11

 

Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer. Romans 12:12