Strengthening our
Testimonies
Two years ago my daughter Chloe decided she wanted to be on
a summer swim team. She had her first swim meet on her eighth birthday. She was
in the 7-8 year old age group and did very well for her first year usually
taking first through third place in most of the events she competed in.
The next year she wanted to compete again on the same summer
swim team. Since, she did so well the year before and had enjoyed it so much,
she was excited to do it again. This year she turned 9 and competed in the 9-10
age group. Although, she did well she wasn’t getting as many first, second, or
third place awards and became discouraged.
We compared her times in the same events from both years and
were able to show her that although she wasn’t winning ribbons her times were
actually better than they were the year before. When she looked at the progress
she had made she became less discouraged and worked harder to be a better
swimmer than she was before. She focused more on beating her own time than on
taking a place. Although she is very competitive and likes to win, she realized
that to better herself was a far better goal than trying to outdo everyone
around her.
I’d like to compare this with our testimonies. I’ve caught
myself at difficult times thinking to myself, “If I only knew the scriptures as
good as him or if I only had as much faith as her, life would be so much
easier”. It would be easy to be discouraged if we thought our eternal
progression in the gospel was a competition and only a few could attain the top
prize, but it’s not. The only competition is within us individually. We need to
look at our testimony compared to yesterday, last week, or a year ago and ask
ourselves if we’ve improved. Has our knowledge, faith, and understanding
increased? Our Heavenly Father knows us all individually and gives us different
opportunities to improve ourselves. Much like Chloe was surrounded with
different skill levels of swimmers we will be surrounded by individuals with
different strengths of testimony. As she swam with the faster swimmers it
helped her improve her times. When we are surrounded with people with strong
testimonies we can choose to be strengthened by them or be discouraged because
we don’t know as much or don’t have as much faith. This life is a time to
better ourselves not be better than everyone else. As you think about this I
hope you will have a desire to do the things that will help you improve
yourself and become closer to our Heavenly Father.
Landon Ellison
1 comment:
I loved this! Thanks for sharing. He's a good one, that husband of yours. :)
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