Happiness is the truth

While I was driving to institute class today, I started thinking about how happy I was at the moment. I was jamming out to good music, I had a good morning, and I was about to be spiritually uplifted in class. My mind drifted to a conversation I recently had with a good friend. She commented on how dark the world was. The world is just filled with darkness. I totally agree with that. But, after she said that, I thought about it and responded with, "Well, yes, but I think we forget how much light and goodness there is out in the world too." And not JUST from the Church, or really, even other Christians. There is GOOD and there is LIGHT to be found out there.

When I got off of my mission, it was my favorite thing ever to discover new songs that were completely unrelated to the Gospel, but were still filled with light. It proved to me that there's a reason why God has placed us in this world. True, we are meant to be IN the world, not OF, but God wouldn't place us somewhere that was absolutely hopeless, that we simply needed to ignore or cut ourselves off from. If that were the case, we'd be commanded to flee from it. If all good was gone, we'd be leaving, just as God commanded His servants to flee Sodom and  Gomorrah. Now, there is a LOT of evil out in the world. Just as bad, if not worse than, Sodom and Gomorrah. But, we are not fleeing, and it is not destroyed yet, because of the strength of the good that there is still out there. For every force of darkness that is out there, the light manages to still outshine it. And it is NOT just coming from the saints.

In institute today, we read Doctrine and Covenants 78:19, which says, "And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious...." My teacher asked us why God might tell us to be thankful for all things. Everybody gave deep, long explanations - that made perfect sense. But to me, the answer was so simple: because it makes us happier. If we are thankful ALL the time, the bad things can't bring us down. The way I see this verse, it's not saying that when something horrible and drastic happens, we should be like, "I'm SO thankful this happened!" Instead, it means that we receive it - acknowledged it happened - and then are thankful for what comes of it, or what didn't happen that could have made it worse, or what did happen that kept it from being worse, or the tender mercies we receive in the midst of the trial. We receive the trial with thankfulness, maybe not because of the trial, but because of everything else surrounding it.

You see, we are not surrounded by darkness; the light is surrounding the darkness. It simply depends on where you're looking, and what your perspective is. If you're focusing on the negative and the bad, you'll feel you're surrounded - no matter how filled with light you may be. But, once you acknowledge the bad, but start focusing on all the brilliant light around you, the darkness diminishes. It's still there, for sure, but it has less power.

As one who has experienced many ups and downs over the past 4 months, this was a very precious lesson to learn, because too often I allow myself to be overwhelmed by the negative. But that's so silly, because it's SO much better to just. Be. Happy. Like I was today. :)

Enjoy this song. This is how I felt.:)