Continuing to Learn (He is there)

It feels like it has been over a year since I was in my New Testament class! In reality it has only been a little under a month since I last found myself in my inspiring class. However, I have realized something in the last few weeks that I felt I wanted to share.  To start, I would like to share a story that led to my realization:

For Christmas break I was able to go back to Montana to spend the holiday with my family. After only being there a few days my dad asked me if I would be willing to speak in the following sacrament meeting. Of course I said yes and I asked him what he would like me to speak on. My dad told me He would like me to talk about my New Testament class and how it helped me. Now, for some reason, as soon as my dad told me my topic I froze up a bit. For some reason I felt as if I had nothing to talk about. This thought was crazy! I knew I had learned a lot from the class. I had blogged, spent hours on a semester project, attended all my classes, and yet I couldn't think of what I could possibly talk about. As my talk drew nearer the holiday schedule continued to get crazy. So in an attempt to "get ahead of the game" I decided to write my talk two days before I was going to speak. So I took my time to prepare my talk. I wrote it all out, had it completely prepared and felt good with the knowledge that "now I could focus on the rest of my weekend now that my talk was out of the way." However, even after I wrote my talk I did not feel content with my talk. I kept thinking to myself "this is not what I need to be talking about." I thought this was silly because I had prepared my talk and I had done my best on it. However, the feelings kept coming to me that I needed to change my talk. However, even when I considered what I was going to talk about I had no idea! I had a "stupor of thought" as they call it. The next couple days went  by and the night before I gave my talk I went to bed still thinking about what I should speak on.
 The next morning I woke up and decided this: I had a couple hours before church and I was going to change what I was speaking on. As I started to ponder what I was going to write I thought about one of the biggest things that impacted my learning experience in my class: My semester project.

Basically, what my semester project ended up being was an art portfolio. Not in the sense that I drew anything (I am not artistic at all) but instead I would take pieces of art that had the Savior in them. Then I would ponder the painting and write about the things I noticed, thoughts I had, or feelings I received. For the talk I gave in Montana I decided I wanted to talk a little bit about my project and use an example from it. So i chose to use the example of the painting I chose for one of my first weeks of the class. The painting is "The Lost Sheep" by Liz Lemon Swindle.

As I was writing down what I was going to talk about for this painting I figured I would just include in my talk the things I had written down for my semester project. This things would include the countenance of the girl, the saviors arms, etc.... However, as I started looking a little closer and I realized something I never had before. In this painting shows the Savior hugging this girl in a position where the girl feels his embrace but can not see His face. And the viewers of the painting (like me and you) are not shown the Saviors face. As i realized this I had this incredible realization. This is exactly how the comfort of the Savior works. When we are in our lowest points, when we are struggling and suffering He will comfort us. However, much like this girl, we can not see Him when He comforts us. But He is there. We can feel His comfort and feel His love for us.

So I don't know if my talk changed anybody's life. I am not sure if the people who listened to my words were influenced at all by the words I spoke. However, I am beginning to realize the possibility as to why I had my "stupor of thought" and was required to rewrite my talk; I needed to learn from it. I continued to learn from my new testament class even after I had finished it and it was by the hand of the Lord! And what I learned was this: That sometimes we will do things with good intentions (kind of like how I wrote my talk first talk and prepared it) but even though we do things with good intentions does not mean that is what we are supposed to do. The Lord may have other plans for us. And I also learned truly for myself that Christ is there. Even though I can't see Him I know He cares about me and everyone else and will always be willing to comfort His brothers and sisters.

I am truly grateful for this experience and I am glad that I can see the hand of the Lord and Christ in my life even in the small ways of my life.