choose faith

several years ago ago a friend of mine had a young daughter die in a tragic accident. hopes and dreams were shattered. my friend felt umbearable sorrow. he began to question what he had been taught and what he had taught as a missionary. the mother of my friend wrote me a letter and asked if i would give him a blessing. as i laid my hands on his head, i felt to tell him something that i had not thought aobut in exactly the same way before. the impression that ame to me was:

faith is not only a feeling: it is a decision. he would need to choose faith.

my friend did not know everything but he knew enough. he chose the road of faith and obedience. he got on his knees. his spiritual balance returned.

it has been several years since that event. a short time ago i received a letter from his son who is now serving a mission. it was full of convictoin and testimony. as i read his beautiful letter, i saw how a father's choice of faith in a very difficult time had deeply blessed the next generation.

challenges, difficulties, questions, doubts--these are part of our mortality. but we are not alone. as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have enormous spiritual reservoirs of light and truth available to us. fear and faith cannot coexist in our hearts at the same time. in our days of difficulty, we choose the road of faith. Jesus said, "be not afraid, only believe."

~ elder neil l. anderson
october 2008 general conference

this concept of making a conscious decision to choose faith touched me deeply. we are always told to have faith, but that isn't always easy. and then we try and pray for it and then feel guilty when it doesn't come. when maybe just telling ourselves that we are making that choice, like it or not, to have faith, would be easier. i truly believe in the power of our words and our thoughts, instead of just casually allowing things to happen to us and saying, "that's the way it's supposed to be." i believe that we create our lives.