Gracious Efforts

"for we know that it is by grace we are saved, after all we can do"
-2 Nephi 25:23

I recently posted on my sister blog about my experience of rapid learning and growth in music.
(http://rantingsofacrazyteen.blogspot.com/2015/09/who-you-are.html)

I would like to share a little more about that.

As noted in the article, my career in music began quite suddenly (as far as the viola is concerned) just before ninth grade. I decided to teach myself how to play and I practiced feverishly in attempt to become my best every day. I saw rapid progress. What I didn't mention was how hard that was on me. I mean, it was difficult, sure, but that's not the point. Playing music waaaay out of your level has a certain degree of difficulty to it, but it also adds a lot of stress. I was way out of my league and could not handle the situation I was putting myself into. The strain of it was mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual. I was putting my all into songs that I look back on now with ease, but then they were so foreign in the skills that they required, it was strenuous.

I remember sitting in my room, setting up to work at it, and just practicing for hours. It wasn't easy, and I couldn't do it on my own.


Hold that thought in the back of your mind for a moment.


Grace.

It's a word we hear constantly in the whole of the christian world. Jesus saves us with his grace because he is the savior of the world and that is what he truly wants to do because he loves us.

That's pretty widely accepted, in christian beliefs anyway.

Well there's something amazing about Christ's atonement. It has no time limit. No expiration date. The saints of the old testament used the atonement to repent and they focused their lives on it with sacrifices and covenants made to point them toward Christ's infinite sacrifice long before it had physically taken place. In the time of the new testament, Christ taught disciples to repent and utilize the atonement before he had died on the cross and bled for our sins. Today, two THOUSAND years later, we still repent through the unending power of the atonement. His grace still saves.

But it's not just that.

In the book of Mormon we read that "we know that it is by grace we are saved, after all we can do" and that alone is amazing, but it's not just that either.

His grace saves us in our weakness, notice it doesn't save us in our sins, because Jesus tells us to "go and sin no more"
I used to think that it looked a bit like this when we were judged, that our works were tallied up and then we got to see if you'd done enough to make it into heaven based on the grace you were allowed:

but think. Think of the moments when he has come to you, when he has run to you, when he has succored you and buoyed you up. Hasn't it been in your weakness? He doesn't just abandon us and tell us to do what we can and then he will clean up our mess after we've completely failed, he helps us in the moment to achieve far more than we are capable of by helping us along the way, and then he goes and fills in the gaps and makes up for all of our shortcomings.

I think it would really look a little more like this:

Probably with a little less of the works, proportionally...

Now back to the music thing.

Music is my passion, and I have been incredibly blessed to have such a love for it and to have had such amazing teachers and resources and everything, and I've worked Really Hard, but it's not just me.

I've been sustained through my work, inspired in my practice, blessed to understand, and given the resources I have.

Gospel principles apply everywhere, and I'm not just painting it into a pretty picture for you, I'm completely serious.

Grace is earned. Not entirely, but it's given based on the intent of our hearts, judged and bestowed, by a perfect, all-knowing God. Our Father.

When we really commit and we work hard, we are built into something greater. We are blessed and strengthened and multiplied. Amazing things become possible.


So yes, like the other article says, we have to believe in ourselves and if we work and we believe in ourselves and we really try to become who we are, it will happen, but you should realize that that's the same as faith.

Faith is having an assurance in God. It is believing that he will help you to become, but truly having faith means that you know and understand that you have to do your part. You have to emulate your goal however possible and work your hardest to receive it and know that when you really do, if you dedicate your work to glorifying your Father in service to others, that you will be blessed.

'Lois'

I've had a wonderful privilege recently of meeting a new friend.

She was unlike any I'd ever had before.

We'll call her Lois, just because I can and because she means so much to me.


Lois was a very sweet older lady who lived in my neighborhood.  I was invited to start serving her a couple months ago and she has forever changed me for it.

The first time I went to visit her, I was quite  terrified. I like to do things very subtly--breaking it in slowly. Pretty much with anything: get a new favorite shirt? try to wear it not very often and gradually ease into wearing it all the time. New favorite song? at first play it just occasionally until everyone else gets used to it, then start blasting it non-stop. Make a new friend? start off by talking to them when you see them and eventually you can just text them at any time of day...

Going to see Lois was not subtle.

She'd lived nearby for a long while and I'd never spoken to her... she pretty much just kept to herself and it wasn't like she was around my age or I saw her anywhere but in church...

So going to her house all of the sudden, and knowing that I would be doing this same thing every week was a bit of a scare. This was going to be a very conspicuous change.


I knocked on the door with a plate of cookies in hand and my mind whizzing with all my doubts pertaining to what I was doing there and was unexpected, but welcomed inside the very first time. I didn't even end up talking to her at all that day, just her daughter. And it wasn't a short conversation either.

When I came back the next week they were even more surprised to see me, but I kept coming back, and every time I did, I seemed to love it more.

I made her all sorts of things and brought them over to her. I started talking with her more and more, now that I could better understand her. I started thinking about her all the time.

And then one day I came to her house to discover that her life would soon be drawing to a close. I had come with my viola to play for her and I was so glad that I did. Playing hymns by request wasn't my best performance ever, but it was one of the sweetest. She would smile as I played and tell me how it reminded her of her family, and her father and her husband who both played the violin.

Music has a way of bonding people, of healing people, of communicating with souls.

That night was very special to me, and when I left, I felt so wonderful from it that I went to play for a couple of my other neighbors as well.


but her favorite song was stuck in my head the whole time... 

So when I got home and had some time alone, I sat at the table with her on my mind and this song filling every moment. I decided that I needed to write her the song that she given me.

The words to "Abide With Me, Tis Eventide" (written by M. Lowrie Hofford) are as follows:

1. Abide with me; 'tis eventide.

1. The day is past and gone;
   The shadows of the evening fall;
   The night is coming on.
   Within my heart a welcome guest,
   Within my home abide.
2. (Chorus)
   O Savior, stay this night with me;
   Behold, 'tis eventide.
   O Savior, stay this night with me;
   Behold, 'tis eventide.
3. 2. Abide with me; 'tis eventide.
   Thy walk today with me
   Has made my heart within me burn,
   As I communed with thee.
   Thy earnest words have filled my soul
   And kept me near thy side.
4. 3. Abide with me; 'tis eventide,
   And lone will be the night
   If I cannot commune with thee
   Nor find in thee my light.
   The darkness of the world, I fear,
   Would in my home abide.

And it just felt right to add the line of chorus "Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way" from "I Am a Child of God" (Naomi Ward Randall) to the middle of the existing chorus.

It took me hours and hours and I'm still nowhere near being done with it, but I polished up a version and went to play it for her. She could no longer speak to me or smile, but I knew she was listening, and I felt her sweetness throughout the room.


This woman was a very unlikely friend of mine.

We would have appeared to have had nothing in common at all, but I have somehow become her friend and she has taught me so much.

With her, it was easy to see how faith tied into every day life. She was very humble. She trusted God more than anyone I think I've ever met, and I could tell that she loved me. Visiting her brightened any day.



I've always believed that friendship goes a long way and that we learn some of the most important things from the people we meet, but Lois was a special friend. She taught me how to love people I didn't really know, just by being herself.

Proverbs 27:17
 17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.