Nourish Your Heart and Hear Him

We are living in interesting and uncertain times and it can be easy to spiral down into feelings chaos, anxiety, and fear.  Throughout the past couple weeks, and especially the last few days, I know that I have found myself feeling a range of emotions.  I am a sensitive person by nature so anxiety seems to come pretty easily to me at times.

When I catch myself falling into a place of anxiety, I have been working to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus Christ.  When I intentionally choose to focus on Him and to hear Him, I feel peace.  I feel faith.  I feel hope.  I feel that He is aware of me, my family, and of all of us.  I see His mercy and His love.  I even feel joy and optimism for the future.

 

 

I am grateful for the resources and tools that I have in my life that help me to fix my eyes on Christ.  Along with prayer, scripture, and the temple, what I have found to be the most effective are the arts – story, poetry, art, and music – and nature (which is made up of the arts).

The arts nourish my heart and a nourished heart leads to hearing Him. … in fact, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the word heart is made up the words Hehear, and art.  The art of hearing Him is developed in the heart.  And it is through the arts that He speaks to our hearts.

I am starting to see the connection between the words that I have felt prompted to focus on throughout the past few years. They all have to do with my heart…

 

2018: Feel – opening the door to my heart

2019: Pray –  turning my heart toward God

2020: Gratitude – letting my heart rejoice and express

 

I also think it is so interesting that President Russell M. Nelson is the Lord’s Prophet on the earth for this exact period in time.

He is an expert when it comes to the heart.

Before leaving his career to become a member of the Quorum of the 12 apostles, he was a world renowned heart surgeon – a pioneer in his field. He helped to pioneer modern heart surgery. Throughout his medical career, he literally touched hundreds of hearts.

Although medicine and science have made major progress in treating and healing the physical heart, more and more people around the world seem to be suffering from other diseases of the heart — including anxiety, depression, loneliness, hate, bitterness and contempt.

I love that President Nelson is helping us to fight against and heal this kind of heart disease as well.

As the world gets crazier and crazier, I have reflected on how grateful I am to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life.  I am grateful for the restoration of Christ’s church on the earth and how it has taught me about and strengthened my personal relationship with my Heavenly Parents and Jesus Christ.

Calming Embrace by Yongsung Kim

 

I am also grateful that a year ago, I was led to the resources and lifestyle of the Well-Educated Heart, which have been helping to develop a soft, open, and receptive heart so that I can hear Him.  The arts aid in opening the channels through which the Lord can speak to me and to my children.

Hearing Him brings peace, calm, assurance, comfort, faith, hope, optimism, and joy.

 

You can read about how I hear Him in this post.

 

 

*I know I keep mentioning WEH in my posts…I’m not getting paid or this or anything.  I just really love this resource because it has impacted my life in a big way and want to share it with others.

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