Weaknesses Become Strengths

For #LIGHTtheWORLD today, I shared another of my favorite scriptures on Facebook. Ether 12:27.

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

I know I've seen this in my life repeatedly. My weaknesses are opportunities to learn (when I can remember to think of them that way, lol). And usually what I learn takes me places I never imagined I could go. My depression teaches me compassion and endurance. My struggles to be consistent teach me the value in persistence. My chronic health issues teach me to accept help sometimes ... and they teach me to offer help to others as well. I guess my weaknesses tend to give me a heart to help others. That's not a bad thing. :)

My Christmas Gift to Me

I've decided to give myself some Christmas gifts. This could be tricky, because it involves me setting goals. I tend to stink at accomplishing the ones I really want. But here's the deal. I've posted something on this blog almost every day since going to General Conference on October 2 because I felt like I needed to be a better record keeper. I'm pretty proud of that. And quite frankly, Hannah is the motivation behind that. But see? It proves that I can accomplish things. So....

Here are the gifts I want to give myself for Christmas. They are really just baby steps. But that's what I've got to give right now.

1. The gift of health. I'm going to give myself 300,000 steps by Christmas day. That's roughly105+ miles. It's my Fitbit goal of 10,000 steps a day, which I have to make a concentrated effort to achieve. But I'm gonna do my best.
2. The gift of nutrition. Or the beginnings of it anyway. Drink more water. I'm going to give myself 3000 oz of water by Christmas day. That's 100 oz a day. Or 23 gallons in all. I might have to reevaluate this goal, because...hello, I get seasick at about 50 oz. But I'm gonna do my best.
3. The gift of the gospel. I'm going to read the Book of Mormon in the next 30 days. It's about 8 chapters a day, or 18 pages a day. I can do this. I used to tell my Young Women that if they could read a Harry Potter book (which is generally more than 531 pages) in under a week, then they could read the Book of Mormon in under week. Now I have to prove this, lol.

So there you have it. Wish me luck and cheer me on. :)