Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence

I seriously cannot at this moment think of a more influential message that has ever been shared with me in my life. Besides my own personal conversations with God and some trusted individuals, this message has been the most profound that I have been able to keep coming back to in life, over and over again over the course of the last 4 years. It started the day after I made the decision to get baptized. A super hard, frustrating, fulfilling journey full of lots of uncertainty. Sister Stephanie Jarstad sat down on my bed next to me and without even saying much jotted down in a little notebook "Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence- Elder Holland" A year later, when I was struggling to complete my mission papers, and was having some financial setbacks and an extreme lack of support... I reminded myself, "Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence". Throughout the 18 months that I served as a full time missionary, I wrote down this title and printed off a handful of different copies for myself and for different people who were struggling with decisions and lacked confidence that they could successfully do what they had been called to do. About 6 months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with an urgent prompting to write a letter to a dear friend of mine. In it, I included quotations from this talk by Elder Holland along with a copy of the talk in its entirety. The inspired words from Heavenly Father, spoken eloquently through Elder Holland's mouth were influential in helping her make the decision to serve as a full time missionary. She is now serving faithfully in Colorado. The word "CONFIDENCE" has pretty significant meaning for me. As a general rule, when I am in a safe environment, I feel that I am confident with myself. I try to accept my imperfections, although some have proven to be particularly challenging. To me, the opposite of CONFIDENCE is UNCERTAINTY, or ANXIETY... A feeling of worry rather than a feeling of peace. As I have made many important decisions lately, I have felt a very extreme sensation of wavering between CONFIDENCE and ANXIETY. I have fortunately been guided by the Spirit to find outlets to help me feel confidence and assurance of moving in the right direction. The moment I start to feel safe, and confident in my choices... The adversary (aka Satan) decides to sneak out of the corner and try to make me second guess my choices and take away the feelings of direction and hope that I have begun to build up. Satan has been able to make eternally insignificant things (Like finding out I have 5 cavities to fill when only 6 months ago I was supposedly cavity free, and my dental insurance runs out in less than a week) break through the wall that I have worked so hard to fortify to protect myself from him and his deceptions. I have experienced intense drifting between calm, peaceful assurance and reminders of everything that isn't perfect NOW. Tonight, after a long two days of pondering, discussing, studying, thinking, questioning, and second guessing... out of the blue I heard the words- Clear as day- in my head... "CAST NOT AWAY THEREFORE YOUR CONFIDENCE" followed by the most important (to me) quote of the entire 20 minute long talk...

As a reminder to myself, and to anyone who might ever care to read this... You know enough. You know what you need to do. Heavenly Father may, from time to time, re-direct your paths but he will allow you to do so with a feeling of peace and hope, even when uncertainty lies ahead. No matter what lies and deceptions Satan may put into your head and into your heart... There is one feeling that he CAN. NOT. MIMIC... And that is PEACE. If it was right when you prayed about it, and trusted it, and believed in it... It is right now. Trust God, believe in good things to come... All is well.