Suddenly I see...: Books and Year in review

While I was at home enjoying the beauty and relaxation that Asheville, North Carolina had to offer me, I had some time, ok a lot of time to do things for pleasure. One of those was working on finishing up a project with my friend Darcy. We decided to challenge ourselves in reading a couple of uplifting books. The first book I decided to read was "Who moved my Cheese?" by Spencer Johnson. It is a book about facing the challenges of change and learning to change with events in our life. (The cheese is what we want and when something unexpected happens or change that is when it is moved.) This is something that I have been faced with lately since I graduated from College and I am sure about which direction I should move in and where in the heck am I going to find a job?! Someone has moved my cheese and I have no idea where it is now or how to go about finding it, but this book gave some good insight into those problems.

One of the most powerful lessons I learned from the book was that my challenge in dealing with change was FEAR! But the author writes "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" I have been using this as my mantra when I am hesitant to make a decision . You have to move beyond your fears in order to progress anywhere. It is in this movement that we often find new direction, which hopefully helps you find new cheese or new purposes in life. The author also talks about concentrating on the positive because of change, think of what you will gain instead of what you are losing. It is often in the change that we find better things, so much so that we could not even imagine the blessings we would receive in the end because of it! I am learning to embrace change a little better and move with the cheese. I still don't have a job but I am trusting in the Lord that I am in the right place and doing what I can to prepare for when my cheese might move.

I am also officially signed up to take the NCLEX on February 2nd at 1:00pm so please set your alarm clocks to go off at that time to send some prayers off in my behalf!

Another book that has helped me realize my potential and what I should be doing during this time of limbo was a book I received for Christmas, "Happy Like Jesus" by Kelly D.Ogden. I love the title of this book because it reminds me of a jubilant baptist praising the Lord and the picture cover describes a perfectly joyful moment in history.

I loved reading this book because it describes Christ's life and how we can become like Him. It is a bit of a spin off of President Gordon B. Hinckley's nine Be's. He writes about how we can be like Christ by being:
Happy
Holy
Spiritually Minded
Humble
Knowledgeable
Serviceable
Prayerful
Peaceful
Fruitful
Obedient
Loving
Forgiving
Long-suffering
Persevering
United
Dedicated
Christlike.

I learned a lot about different scriptures from reading this book and also feel that I gained a greater understanding of what Christ was truly trying to teach us through the way He lived his life. A couple things that stuck out to me was when he wrote about being prayerful and how even though Christ was always surrounded by people he always found the time pray. He would be forced to go without food and sleep at times in order to do so, but he made the effort. He taught the importance o prayer to His disciples when he admonished them about praying while he was in gethsemane (Luke 22:46) "Rise and Pray, lest ye enter into temptation" Prayer is a protecting force against sin and helps us commune with our Father to know Him and His will for us.Yet for some reason I fail to follow Christ's example and counsel to do so. I still think at night about how tired I am and I do not always say the most sincere prayers or in the morning I am more apt to listen to my hunger pains than I am the spirit, which will actually give me the best start to my day. Christ went without to maintain His relationship with Heavenly Father and I know I need to do the same.

Another point that stuck out to me was when the author wrote about the mantra of "I AM THIRD!" This means putting God first, Others Second, and ourselves third in life.

The main point of this book though is hope in Christ and how he has overcome the world and we can be happy if we choose to follow Him and be like Jesus.

Year in review- 2011 started out challenging but proved to have blessings in disguise and amidst any trial I faced.

Was able to see and spend time with family this year

I went on 30 different airplane flights this year in order to see family, for work and to have some amazing world travels to Tonga, fiji, Australia and Mexico!