Higher (TOFW)

I love going to Time Out for Women.  It's always such an uplifting time.  I don't have the right words, ever, to describe the feelings or the genuine emotion that is always involved.  I love feeling the Spirit and being able to have my cup filled.  This was my first year attending in Layton, which also happened to be the very first stop in this year tour.

 

What a great theme for the year and what a great thing to be thinking about at the start of a new year.  This was based off a scripture in Isaiah 55:9 - "So are MY was HIGHER than your ways."

Dallyn Vail Bayles was the musical number for Friday night.  He's incredible.  Such an amazing talent and I am so very happy he's willing to share it with us.  His versions of Bring Him Home and To Dream the Impossible Dream are incredible and just about bring you to tears.




Being able to listen to Sister Virginia Pearce is always a privilege.  She discussed the choices we get to make and how we handle having too many choices - do we get paralyzed or dissatisfied?  She outlined three choices that we can make now.

1. Choose to believe that we have a choice. Agency does work for us and it is critical for us.  Choose to be brave, happy, and grateful!
2. Choose to surrender.  Not to give up.  Surrender your will to the Savior.  He can and will make sure we can do this.  To yield to His = To Trust in Him.
3. Choose to show up, more than just physically.  Show up with ALL of you - be present, have an open heart, open mind, open spirit.

When we surrender and show up, we gain and win EVERYTHING!

Terryl & Fiona Givens were new to Time Out this year.  I did previously ready their book so I was kind of prepared for them.  They went over the Truth of the Restoration:

1. God is a personal entity, having a heart that beats in sympathy with human hearts, feeling our joy, and sorrowing over our pain.
2. We lived as spirit beings in the presence of God before we were born in this mortal life.
3. Mortality is an ascent, not a fall, and we carry infinite potential into a world of sin and sorrow.
4. God has the desire and the power to unite and elevate the entire human family in a kingdom of heaven, and, except for the most stubbornly unwilling, that will be our destiny.
5. Heaven will consist of those relationship that matter most to us now.

- The most difficult choices that face us are between goods, not between good and evil.  To know what questions we should be asking is as important as the answers.


Hilary Weeks is another person who is just freaking amazing.  I love her.  She even debuted a couple new songs.  She shared her clicker story with us, which is actually the second time I've heard it, but the first time I've actually done something about it (BillionClicks.org).

* Note to self: Live as if you matter! 

Dean Hughes is a great writer and I learned also a great speaker.  Love it when you can mix laughter and spiritual matters.  He spoke about Priesthood and Relief Society working together.  As well as the way we make seemingly mundane things into holy things by looking at our motivations.  He gave the example of looking at a mother changing a diaper - this act can become beautiful by our motivations, being a mother and raising a righteous generation.

* It's easy to get bogged down in the why something won't work instead of looking at the bigger possibilities and the things that can come out of the impossible.
* In the middle of things, it's very hard to see the final outcome.
* We don't work toward holiness by giving up our own personality traits.
* Look up!  It makes it easier to keep putting things in place.

Another speaker I absolutely adore - Emily Watts!  So many great laughs, but even more important, things to think about and ponder.

We are told to knock and it shall be opened.  What happens when is it NOT?

1. Trust Him to act according to the bigger picture.  God will respond according to His eternal plan.  Be thankful that Heavenly father trusts you enough to let your faith and character grow.
2. Fair is not perfectly equal.  Fair = getting what you need when you need it the most.  Everything in life does not need to be perfectly balanced.  To be in balance means to be static; to progress you need to take risks and be a bit unbalanced.  Heavenly Father is fair; He's not always equal.
3. Heavenly Father guides and protects us more than we will ever know.  Sometimes He answers prayers but we don't recognize it because it wasn't answered the way you expected it to be.  He may answers prayer you never even prayed.  You don't know who's praying for you or what their prayers may include.
4. We have a part in it; He has expectations of us as well.  Do we have amazing gifts we aren't using be way we are supposed to be?  You don't know what your gifts may be able to accomplish.  Use the gifts Heavenly Father is giving you.

S. Michael Wilcox appears to be so serious and such a deep thinker, which he is, but still always comes across as so approachable.

* One of life's great searches is communicating with our Heavenly Father.
* There is a difference in praying and pouring out your soul.  You empty your soul and He will fill it.  It's a relief to be able to pour things out.
* Never make decisions based on fear - they will always be wrong.
*Remember the promises God makes with you; God does not make promises that He will not fulfill.
*Sometimes we have to have past-tense faith in order to get future answers.
*Sometimes you don't need to say anything, just walk with the Lord.  Sometimes prayer is unexpressed - learn the feelings of quiet.

Jennifer Brinkerhoff Platt was another new addition to the line up.  I LOVED HER!  I am super excited for her book to come out this fall - and I don't even know for sure what it will be about.

*We can have a straight forward learning experience with the Lord daily.
* Do you sign up for something then allow fear to stop you?
* Can't you be a little helpful to someone running their course?
* Do you feel as if you have to be perfect to participate?
* Satan hates us - always has, always will.  His power is limited.  He cannot make us do anything.  We have been given powerful tools to over come and conquer him.
* The key to having joy = "Father, Thy will be done."
* Do my daily routines reflect what I claim to value?


We ended the weekend with Laurel Christensen, who will also have a a new book coming out soon.

* We have a choice to make to let faith rule our life.
* Kinds of fear:

1. Disappointment:  What's the worst thing that can happen?  You must make a decision to move on.
2. Failure:  Don't look back on your fears, failures, and mistakes.
3. Danger/bad things:  Heaven is on your side.
4. Success:  It is our light, not our darkness that we fear the most.  We know we are capable of more.

*Fight Fear with:

1. Power:  Your identity, even if you don't like it, is your comfort zone.  What is it in your situation you like?  We are not meant to live in a comfort zone.
2. Love - with your heart:  When you stop praying for what your heart really wants, your heart stops wanting what you weren't willing to pray for.  The tragedy is not not getting what you want, the tragedy is when you no longer want.  We can't afford to stop waiting what we really want.  God will not waste a miracle on a doubter.
3. Sound Mind:  Sometimes we use the notion of God's will as a notion to mean we abdicate our own responsibility to exercise our own will.  He wants us to have the courage to act on our own will.  He trusts us enough to exercise our own will.  Heavenly Father is not a chess master; He is a brilliant architect.

*Have the courage today to rise above your fears, to live higher.