My Testimony...

For a blog that is essentially aiming to critique the worldly condition of existentialism that it finds to be deleterious to be replaced by what is fundamentally the same philosophical base with a different perspective, based on the LDS faith, one must be precise and exacting to give any kind of weight to the challenger fighting the undefeated. And this blog is no place for the bearing of one’s personal testimony, right? Even if this is true, I will take the risk of shaking ground and now pause and take a moment to bear my own personal testimony as I believe the author of “Mormon Existentialism” should. 

As I currently experience an incredible abundance in my life, a profuse well-spring of perpetual blessings, a love from all and more significantly love for all, I find a peace and happiness in life and a life I could not have thought possible. This is all because I chose to turn my will over to my Heavenly Father and humble myself. In doing so his will for me to be the best that I can be using my talents and gifts with the utmost efficiency and towards the utmost good has led to a state of absolute and constant gratitude. As I dared myself to turn away from “the world” and turn to Him, little by little and in amounts that I would find growing exponentially coupled with blessings that grow at the same rate, I learned truth. 

These were truths I could not respond to matter of factly and cast aside, this was truth I know with an assurity once encountered and once recognized it became fixed and secure. The crises of “worldly conditional states of being” became no match for the Gospel according to and lived according to Jesus Christ. Following his example, exercising the power of the atonement to release the pain of the past, I was becoming a new person. The insecurity that began in youth that still plagued me was supplanted by the courage to stand and to know, for the first time in my life, who I truly am coupled with the bravery to endure with resolve rejoicingly, and I was born anew. 

With this new sense of self, past weaknesses that had seemed insurmountable now seemed superfluous. I was able to choose and I chose God, I chose family, and I chose eternity, and with the shield of truth there is no temptation from that place in which I no longer reside, that place that I have let go of, that place I have given up for good, that place called “the world.” My life is now one of freedom, of love, of abundance, to be able to give as well as to receive and to feel an assurity of purpose of my mortality and all of existence with an absolute knowledge that makes faith a power not to be reckoned with. I am free from the bonds of “the world,” I accept the burden of mortality but rejoice in the blessings of eternal worth that are showered upon those who choose to turn away from the delusion that is “the world.” 

These blessings might not appear lucrative or lack the potential for power according to “the world” but for those who know Christ and have a relationship with the God of the Universe, these blessings are of immeasurably greater valuable than money or power- the most fickle and fleeting lures of the delusion. These blessings offer charity to be the kind of person to give and giving is receiving to be manifest in ways far greater than those devoted who will attain and obtain can imagine; the blessing of chastity has a power that teaches respect and encourages the reality of Christ’s love, not a delusional one; the blessing of humility turns the will to the Lord who will direct life so that unique and very special gifts bestowed upon all who chose to come to this earth may be used to their most proficient capacity and utilized for the greatest good essentially making the devoted the greatest they can hope to be, and among many other blessings is the blessing of integrity; to exercise truth is to be an honorable person, whose word is valued and is able to be depended on for that.  

One with integrity fulfills obligations and duty and is aware of how to act and what is spoken knowing all are sons and daughters of God and created of the divine and should live as such and not abuse the self or another by dishonesty and falseness of any kind. Such interrupts the Spirit and confuses truth and further adds to the darkness and web of the delusion. Mine is essentially a simple testimony grounded on simple truths that have been learned from the Gospel of Christ and through a profound understanding of the Plan of Salvation that is exercised in my life. 

The abundance of blessings and the joy I experience today is my witness and proves of the reality of the power of this Plan. The blessings are the result of living according to truth. The more this is put into action, the more blessings one receives and further truth will be learned together with a clear sense of reality of the truthfulness of the Gospel. 

This cycle of searching for truth, acting on it, receiving blessings, to be assured with a sense of reality, continues unabated the more one seeks to understand and live accordingly. This blossoming, armed with the spirit, elevated by blessings of eternal joy, with steadfastness and endurance are sure ways to transcend "the world" and live an exalted existence. 

The farther I leave “the world” behind, the closer I come to the God of the Universe, who beckons me and offers me everything, if I but choose to turn to him. And I do. And I don’t walk but I run.