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Thursday, July 14, 2011

From Literature to real life: How the gospel applies to everything!

This is my first time posting, so if there are any other members of this blog who find this post pretty irrelevant to the main purpose of this blog feel free to let me know.

While my husband and I were traveling across the state of Idaho to his extended family reunion, I decided to use those hours to finish my most recent choice of literature to analyze: Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly.  In the story it shows how difficult situations can affect the belief system and optimism of a creature.  At one point in the story, the creature created by Frankenstein starts to curse at his creator for the terrible life he has been given. He shouts, after multiple experiences where he tried showing kindness but was left alone in desolation because of being misunderstood, "Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live?" Later, because of experiencing the wonder and awe of one of the most glorious creations-- the earth, The monster felt "emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within..." After those emotions were quickly extinguished by another bad experience, he had decided to take vengeance and control of the life of his creator.

After reading the chapters that contain these narrations, my husband and I had a discussion.  It made us think: How often do we as mortals curse our God for unwanted predicaments?  I do it myself by not being grateful and forgetting to be prayerful at the moment where I am feeling overstressed or overworked.  I have met others who become offended or blame their hardships on God and later say things similar to the effect that they will return to God if He does something miraculous toward them first.  Naturally, we as humans want to blame someone else for our times when we fall short, and take full credit when we are blessed.  But, how can God help us if we aren't doing our part to draw closer to Him?  Those who curse God and become like the monster in the book, by deciding to create a relationship with Him on their own terms, will not progress.  God is constant.  He is the one who knows all things. He even knows us and our needs better than we know ourselves.  Throughout the scriptures Christ is constantly saying, "come." He never says, ok I guess I can change some of our Heavenly Father's laws around to better fit your opinions.  As I was remembering that everything can be in God's hands if we let them, and that God knows everything and has a better understanding than we do, the thought brought me comfort.

After discussing this we came to the subject on how little we know of the after life and how there are so many speculations on what could happen.  This brought us back to the truth that God is constant, He knows what He is doing, and although we don't know everything that will happen in the next life, He has told us what He wants us to know. We were also brought back to the truth that although we may not know the purpose for everything in this life, we need to trust Him and remember to only focus on what He has told us to focus on.  We have been told to trust him by obeying his commandments and continually progressing in this life.  He has told us to focus on what we can do now and to prepare ourselves, but not worry, about the future.

It is amazing how such truth can be portrayed in non-religious literature.  Everything can be tied to the gospel if we look :)

My request is that you, who have read my thoughts, reply by telling me about times when you may have come to "curse" your creator and how later you were able to come back to the Lord.  You don't have to write anything too personal, since we don't really know each other and all.  Just write something that you feel comfortable about.

2 comments:

  1. I absolutely LOVE how we can find gospel connections EVERYWHERE. It further solidifies my testimony!

    I know we all have moments where we think, why? We are human, after all. Whenever I have my moments, the best way for me to get out of that funk, is to pray and search the scriptures. Peace and faith always seem to follow shortly.

    BTW--- you should put a pic and write a paragraph about yourself for the About me page! ;)

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  2. Love your thoughts! I love finding truths of the gospel in everything around us. Like Amber, it further solidifies my testimony.

    I have definitely had my why? moments. And even further down the road I still don't fully understand why things happened the way they did. All I know though is that if we keep moving forward, praying and trusting in the Lord, then we will be blessed beyond measure. And those blessings always make me forget about the why?!

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