Gold Star Wednesday

This week's gold star goes to the obvious.

It's Christmas Eve.  It's a sacred night.  As I sit here under the Christmas tree and type this, the house finally quiet, I have some time to reflect on this week's star.  

As I flew across the country this week, I started a book called Trusting Jesus. It's been a long, hard year.  That's no secret.  I've been really looking forward to this year's end, ready for a fresh start but I think part of me is afraid that next year won't be better.  Usually I'm an optimist, always hopeful, always believing.  But lately believing has required an increase in energy.  

Tonight, as we read the Christmas story, I thought about the birth of hope and redemption, an event to which the prophets looked for thousands of years.  And why?  Because without this birth, and subsequent life, the plan of God would have been frustrated and we would have been lost to Him.  What an exciting day it was, the day these prophecies were fulfilled!  We have lived our lives with the knowledge that Christ has come whereas they spent their lives looking forward to that event.  What a relief all must have felt!

I also thought a bit tonight about the faith required of the Nephites as they waited for the sign in the Americas.  Some waited, I'm sure wondering if, if not feeling almost sure, they were going to be disappointed.  Some waited, I'm sure knowing they would be delivered.  I wondered tonight where I am right now.  Am I on the side of believing?  It can sometimes be scary to believe, though I didn't used to feel that way.   In fact, it has always been just the opposite for me.  I think my new, fresh start needs to include the choice to be more believing, to take things as they come in faith, to trust that God will lift the burdens that feel too heavy to bear.  Because as I read back on the record of my life, the evidence that He cares is there, that he is not, as Elder Holland says, a divine referee waiting to tag us out on third.

Tonight's Gold Star definitely goes to the Star of Bethlehem, the signal of the dawn of redeeming grace, a sign that God keeps His promises, a sign of His infinite love for His children.  With evidence like that, how can we not believe?

Merry Christmas.