Blessed Are The Peacemakers

No more the night Holds thee his captive Jesus is risen, my Savior and King Yesterday, I found myself saying something out loud that I think I’ve been feeling for a while: Sometimes life feels like too much. Not just busy. Not just hard. Heavy . The kind of heavy that makes you seriously wonder how long you can keep carrying it. I even found myself confessing a dream I've had about escaping, disappearing to a remote island with my husband, far away from responsibility, pressure and noise. Just peace. Just rest. As I tried to explain it to my family, I cycled through words like anxiety, sadness, fear, stress…. each one touching part of it, but not the whole. The closest I could get, the word that seemed to hold it all, was hopelessness . The last month or so has brought some unexpected and deeply difficult things into our home, the kind that don’t have neat explanations and don’t resolve quickly. So naturally, that...

  Sometimes the world doesn’t need better explanations, it needs people who can recognize the pattern they’re standing in. This Feels Like Progress…. Right? We’ve been here before. That idea lands differently depending on what you believe about existence. Some hear it as despair. I don’t. I hear recognition. Some people hear, “we’re stuck” I hear, “we’re starting to see it” Recognition doesn’t erase the weight of repetition; it transforms how we walk through it. There’s a kind of life that feels like motion but isn’t really progress. Same patterns, same reflexes, same separations dressed up in new circumstances. Call it what you want, but I’ve started thinking of it as: the telestial hamster wheel. You run. You react. You repeat. If you never step back and actually see it, you’ll swear you’re moving forward when you’re really just circling the same ground, over and over. Oh, Yay.... It’s This Lesson Again This s...

When Brothers Contend The message is global in scope, but its implications feel uncomfortably close to home. I just finished listening to Denver’s Blood of Abraham talks, Parts 1 and 2. They really struck me in a way I didn’t expect. The central claim is simple, but not easy: those who share a covenant inheritance aren't merely aligned in belief, they're bound to one another as family . And when family turns on itself, the issue isn't just disagreement, its a violation of something sacred. Framing it like this changes things. It means conflict doesn't release us from responsibility to one another, it intensifies it. It raises the standard. It demands more honesty, more care, more willingness to stand in the light together. And that's where things often break down. Because its far easier to withdraw, to align with one side, to defend a position or to move forward as though separation solves the problem. But if the bond is real, then separ...

  Justified or Sanctified? Question About Violence, Faith and Zion The other day, my daughter was reading the Covenant of Christ and came to the account of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies burying their weapons of war. She asked me a question about it that really got me thinking. “Is that what we’re supposed to do? Or is it okay to be like the Nephites who protected them?” I didn’t have a quick answer for her, and I don’t think that was a bad thing. Some questions are meant to slow us down. Some questions expose a real tension in scripture that we would rather flatten into a simple rule. This felt like one of those. Because this isn't just a question about one story. It's a question about violence, self-defense, holiness, faith and what kind of people Zion requires us to become. Her question also stirred an old memory. Years ago, I remember reading a comment on Denver’s blog from someone who was very much a Captain Moroni, Title of Liberty, Second Amendment kind of person...

  How Scripture Describes the Path to Restoration Some of the most helpful insights in this post have come from conversations with friends who are thinking deeply about these same questions. In one of those discussions, the idea came up that reality and truth might essentially be the same thing. At first glance that makes a lot of sense. If something is true, it must correspond to what is real. Scripture affirms that close connection. But as I've dug deeper  I've noticed something interesting. The scriptures unfold a richer pattern. They describe reality as the foundation, truth as our growing understanding of that reality, justice as the rightful response to it and grace as the divine strength that sustains the whole process. This isn't meant to correct anyone. It's an attempt to let the scriptures expand the picture. Truth and Reality Let's begin where there's clear agreement. Truth is deeply connected to reality. One of the clearest definitions ...

Where Healing Begins In a world that often rewards appearances, many of us learn how to project strength long before we learn how to be whole. We build facades that feel protective, carefully arranged versions of ourselves that can function in public while keeping the more fragile parts hidden. These walls may help us survive, but they can't heal us. And yet, beneath all that performance, most of us long for something more honest. We long for a place where we can be fully seen without needing to pretend, where truth doesn't destroy us but becomes the very place where God begins to restore us. That's why transparency before God matters so deeply. It isn't a decorative spiritual ideal. Its often the place where healing actually begins. When we stop managing our image before Him and allow His light to illuminate what's really there, something shifts. Growth begins. Restoration begins. Reality begins to replace illusion. There's a strange paradox in the gosp...