Fears

I am reading (or rereading- I have read it before) the Christmas Box Miracle by Richard Paul Evans.  I came across this quote- The greatest shackles we bear in this life are those forged by our own fears-.  I find this so very true.  I don't think I ever really realised how often it was my own fears holding me back until the last few years.  It is so easy to blame things but often for me it is my own personal fears that keep me from doing things or being things I want.  Even when it is good worthy goals I am trying to achieve. Have you ever not even tried to go to the temple every week, serve someone else every week,  or read your scriptures as a family every day because you were to scared to try and fail?  Even though you know you will be blessed just by the effort?  I have.  I didn't really care what others thought.  Most wouldn't even know I set the goal in the first place.  But I have more than once been so afraid of feeling like a failure inside myself that I have kept myself from trying.  I have even not really with all my heart prayed about something for fear that I would fail in being in tune with the Spirit.  I have been working so hard the last five years to move beyond that fear.  To try something even if I am so scared of failing myself and letting God down that I am trembling inside.  Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail- both at the thing I am trying and at the effort of even trying.  Changing is a long scary journey. But I am grateful for that journey.  Even if some days you wonder if you will make it to the other end. . . I am so very grateful for a Heavenly Father who has put people and opportunities in my path that have helped me to find that strength within myself and begin to overcome my own personal shackles of fear.  Many of the strides are very personal and sweet and some our out there for the world to see.  Who would have guessed  years ago that I would not only be good at something creative and beginning to find success with it, but be able to say, not only out loud but to myself, that I am good at it.(okay that is still hard to say- I feel so vain to feel like I am good at anything- yet how depressing is it to feel you are good at nothing?)  I would not have guessed.  I have had many soul searching moments about my photography and if I have done the right thing in following that dream. Am I doing what the Lord wants?  Are my limited energy and resources going to the right place?  I don't know what the future will hold or what the right thing will be later, but I have discovered this past week that this journey with photography has been the vehicle to many other journeys.  That the Lord has used it to make me grow and become a better person.  That many prayers have been answered through it.  I don't right now know what the Lord has in store for me in the future, even with this photography journey.  I am in the process of sorting some of that out right now (I do this every year at this time).  But I am grateful to know that He knows what He is doing when He gives my husband and me promptings and I am grateful for the courage I have had to follow those promptings (okay I don't always- I am certainly no where near perfection but I am trying).

My and my honey whose support has meant more to me then he will ever know.