His love for me is greater than I can imagine.

God has an incredibly special plan for me.

I was just browsing Facebook, chilling, and looking at all of the things that my friends are doing in their lives...and I had that thought. "God has an incredibly special plan for me." For me. His plan for me is tailor-made for me. I don't entirely know what He has planned for me 🤣 but I am so excited to find out in time. Sometimes I wish I could find out faster...but that's not how it works.

This week has been incredibly long...and I had a lot that happened...but I am grateful that I have my Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, to lean on.

One thing that has been incredibly difficult for me lately is that I have been struggling to find a balance. My schedule is incredibly busy and full right now, and I am struggling to find a balance between sleep, homework, school, work, and my rest and relaxation time. I am very excited that I have only ONE MONTH left of school!!! But I am incredibly disappointed that it is going by so slow. Please pray that I will have the patience to get through it! 🤣

I am very grateful for the love of my Heavenly Father, and for His kindness, and for His mercy. He loves me more than I can comprehend. I am grateful for the people that He sends into my life, and for the experiences that help me learn and grow. Even if I don't understand at the moment, and even if I don't ever understand in this life, I know that everything will come together in the end. It's sometimes hard to look at my life and realize that it's not where I thought I would be right now...but I am very grateful for where I am right now. I know that I've got a lot of growth to do, and I'm grateful that I have my Heavenly Father to help me.

I know that God has great blessings and plans for me. I know it. I know it's hard to see sometimes, and sometimes it's difficult to even believe that God's plan for me is better than the plans that I have for myself, but I know that He and I discussed my life here on Earth, and I agreed to it. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I thought that I would be able to handle it with His help. And He knows that I can handle it with His help. And, as I look back on my life...I know that I can handle it.

I hope ya'll have had a great weekend and that you have a wonderful week!! God loves you very much and I am so grateful for you!! I am grateful for your insights, your influence, your love, and your strength and determination to do what's right. I love you!

Xoxo
Mattie

Trusting in God can be hard.

I thought last week was going to be crazy. And it was crazy, yeah, but I swear this weekend has been more crazy than every day last week combined. Not only did I work Friday afternoon like normal, and Saturday night like normal, I had to work today, too. We were done by 7:30, which was great. This morning I was SO EXHAUSTED. I don't know why. I went to bed at a relatively decent hour after I got home from work and did some more homework. Still so tired. I took a nap before work today. Still so tired. Plus a pulsing headache (probably from stress+tired Mattie). And even though I did a ton of my homework Saturday I still have a ton to do tonight. I just wanted to get my blogpost out of the way so I don't have to worry about it. :)

Church was great, apart from me being tired.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about who I am as a person, and where I'm going–now, and in the future. While I have hopes and dreams of where I want to be, I know that my plan is just that–a plan. And plans, when made by men, fail. God's plan does not, and I am so thankful God has a plan for me! I'm not entirely sure what it is yet, but I have hopes that the plan I have is at least similar to God's plan for me. Everything has been falling into place for this major. Even if I don't get in this fall, I have a plan to get my grades up and try to apply again next year for fall 2018. I have felt really, really good about this major/plan, which is more than I've felt about anything, including my major plans for last year. Last year, I had no clue on what I wanted to do, and no plans. This year, I still have no clue, but I do have a plan. Trusting in God can be SO hard at times, but He knows what I need, and He knows what I can handle. ❤️

I've come to several conclusions this weekend about parts of myself that I've been working on, and I'm proud of myself because they've been really hard things for me to work on and I'm making a lot of progress, thanks to my Savior. I haven't always been able to work on these things super well, but because I've been thinking more about my Savior, and trusting Him, it's been easier.

One of the last things that was said in Relief Society today was something that I really needed to hear. It was, "He [Heavenly Father] loves you and is proud of you for what you've accomplished." I am so thankful for the ladies (and guys, but this was Relief Society) in my ward who are in touch with the Spirit and who are able to relate to me what my Heavenly Father knows that I need to hear. ❤️

Heavenly Father knows you, loves you, hears you, and answers you. He will always be there to support you. 

Hope everyone has a great upcoming week. I love you all! 

Xoxo
Mattie

He knows what you need to grow.

This is another little thought that I had last night (sometimes my late night thoughts are really profound):

"I'm dreaming and dreaming. Nothing's come true yet. I still have a ways to go, and a ways to dream. I've come so far, and yet it's not been far at all. It feels like one step forward is sometimes two steps backwards. Why is this so hard? How will this ever work out? I don't even know what I want anymore.
And then it hit me: I.
Yes, yes, I can still have dreams.
But Heavenly Father has a plan for me. A plan that includes dreaming, waiting, and not knowing.
Someday I'll know. And most days I wish that "someday" was today or tomorrow. But until my "someday", I just have to trust Him, and follow Him.
Occasionally there are the days that I forget–I forget my dreams, I forget my wants–and I just am.
Those days, while they may appear dreadfully dull on the outside (or even sometimes to me), are actually quite peaceful.
Just being is oftentimes a blessing in disguise."

Sometimes we get so caught up in what we want to happen that we forget that our Father in Heaven has a plan for us, and we forget to live.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
During the sacrament today, I was thinking about the sacrament hymn, "As Now We Take The Sacrament", and one line in particular stood out to me: "And silently we pray, For courage to accept thy will, To listen and obey". We pray for courage–courage to accept the Lord's will, and courage to listen and obey. We do not always know what's going to happen in our lives, or what the Lord is going to ask of us. But we need to pray for courage to accept His will. Sometimes it's really hard. Sometimes we want one thing, but the Lord has planned something else for us. Sometimes we may not understand why things happen, but we just need to trust Him. He knows what He's doing and He won't let us down. So we just need to have courage and trust Him.

One of my friends bore their testimony today and she said that (it's a little bit paraphrased), "Sometimes the way the Savior helps us is by letting us struggle. Struggle means there's growth. There's no growth in the comfort zone and no comfort in the growth zone."

I love that. Leaving your comfort zone is hard (I know), but it means you're growing and changing. Trust your Heavenly Father–He knows what you need to grow.

Singing and blessings.

Hey!! I don't remember if I told you guys that I auditioned to be able to sing the song "Together" at the movie premiere of Once I Was A Beehive and have my version of that song recorded for the soundtrack. ANYWAY, that's what happened. And I got to the top fifty and I was so excited!! So I told everyone to share/vote for me, and they all tried so hard, I'm so grateful for them, but I didn't move on to the top ten. And I never checked back because I felt really, really sad. So, I was on Facebook earlier today, and the Facebook page for the movie shared the video of the person who won. I just have to say that she has a really good voice, but I'm just really sad. Because guess why? The girl who won....is eleven years old. And I was on Facebook a few minutes ago, and this picture popped up and just made me want to cry and cry:

It made me want to cry because this is now the third time that I've auditioned for something and I haven't gotten in/it. The first two times I auditioned for the school's talent show, and I didn't get it. Right before the first one, though (I think it was the first one, anyway), I got the solo in our stake's "Stand In Holy Places" production, and that made me so, so happy! Anyway, so I didn't get into the talent show, and that made me sad. And now I didn't get the movie thing, and I got beat by an eleven-year-old. Is God telling me that I shouldn't go into music with my voice?? I don't know, and it's making me sad and frustrated. (Also, just FYI–I have been crying a bit as I've been writing this. I'm okay, but I just haven't let out my feelings about not moving on in the competition and I feel like I need to do that.)

I know He loves me, but I just feel like all of these things aren't a coincidence, and I don't know what to do. I absolutely LOVE singing, and I don't know what I'll do if I can't do something with it for the rest of my life. I mean, yes, I love playing the violin, but I also love singing, and I have been singing for longer than I have been performing, and I am just so confused. 

I'm going to start praying and studying my scriptures about this; see if I can find an answer. 

OH!!!! I remember where I was going to go with this. I think I didn't get the movie thing because I'm still a little sick, and singing/talking is hard for me because I keep coughing. Blech! :/ 

ANYWAY.

I'm getting off topic (I do that a lot, in case you haven't noticed). The point of this post was not to cry (though I often cry while writing because I am an emotional person, especially lately since I'm going to college in less than three weeks. EEEK!!!); it was to let you know that God has bigger things planned for you. He has greater things in store. I'm so grateful that He can see ahead on my life's path, because sometimes I get so caught up in the now, and in the past, that sometimes I forget that there's so much more out there for me. I'm so much more than who I was, and who I am. I can be a greater person than I am. God knows what He is doing, and He is guiding me to who He needs me to be and who He knows I can be. 

All of these trials are going to make me a better person. I normally know that, but right now I have faith that they will because sometimes I don't know things; sometimes I just have faith. I know that all of these things will make me a better person and help me in the future. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

Opportunities, blessings, and talents.

Not last year but the year before and the year before that I had the opportunity to be a part of a youth choir for Lehi Family Week and it was so fun. This year, I again have the opportunity to be a part of the youth choir and I am so excited! I love to share messages of the gospel through music and I am excited to be doing it again in a couple of weeks. Sadly, I have just realized this will probably be my last chance to be part of this amazing experience (I did not have a chance to do it last year because I did not get the memo soon enough and by then I did not think I could learn the music fast enough). Anyway, I'm grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it and I'm glad that I have the time to prepare. I'm also glad I have the talents :). I'm so lucky to be blessed with the talents I have and I'm so lucky to have grown up in a place that helps me nourish those talents. I know that God has a plan for me and I know He knows what He's doing to help me become the best me I can be.