[0:09]Sisters, it has been a joy to be together this evening and feel uplifted by messages and music that invite us to shine forth as women of light. We are grateful you are here with us, and for those joining us online, we welcome you. It is my privilege to introduce our speaker. Sister Tamara W. Runya was called as the First Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency on April 1st, 2023. She was raised in Walnut Creek, California. She met her husband Scott while studying broadcast journalism here at BYU. They are the parents of seven children and simply adore their 16 grandchildren. Brother and Sister Runya were called to serve as mission leaders in the Australia, Sydney Mission from 2018 to 2021. In her many years of church service, she has enjoyed serving in many callings, but especially loves serving as primary music leader and as the young women camp cheer leader. If she had a bumper sticker on her car, it would read, quote, she who loves the most, and the longest wins. Her favorite thing to do is to spend time with her family. Following Sister Runya's message, our closing song will be a musical number by Kenzi Robinson, who will sing her original composition, Heavenly Home. After which, the closing prayer will be given by Natalie Wright, a member of the 2026 BYU Women's Conference Committee. Sister Runya.
[1:58]I love that you're here, and I love that I get to be here with you. I was so excited when I woke up this morning and was getting ready. I brushed my hair, I brushed my teeth, but I didn't floss and I'll tell you why. One of the very first times I was asked to speak to a group of young women, their moms and their leaders, I didn't want to be late. So I wrote down what I had felt prompted to share, I fixed dinner early, I helped my kids with their homework, I was prepared. So prepared in fact, that when I was ready to go, I thought to myself, well, I have about five minutes before I need to leave, what should I do? And then I remembered that I had forgotten to floss my teeth. So, I leaned in really close to the mirror and started flossing, and just begun when something white and small flew out of my mouth, hit the mirror and dropped into the sink. I looked down in shock to see part of my tooth lying there. Now, my dad was a dentist and way back in high school, he had fixed a front tooth that had chipped, but I had completely forgotten about it. So I picked it up not knowing what to do and I looked around. Luckily, right next to the sink was some super glue.
[3:12]Back then, I had long red acrylic nails, they were so lovely. I carefully put the super glue all over that little chip of a tooth and I stuck it back into my mouth and I counted to 10. But when I took my finger away, I realized that I had super glued my lip to my tooth. Now I really started to panic because I could see I was going to be late, and I knew that if I tried to pull it apart, my lip would tear and start bleeding. But just then, when I needed it, I spotted a bottle of fingernail polish remover. Yes. So I quickly poured it onto a cotton ball trying frantically to undo the glue, and it worked, a little too well because now I had red nail polish running down my hands onto my crisp white blouse, and I'm not making this up. 10 minutes later, I had changed my clothes, grabbed my notes, gotten into the car, and I remember looking in the rear view mirror, and picking off the last little bits of cotton ball from my teeth and thinking, I can never tell anyone what just happened.
[4:22]But my next thought was, why not? I was going to speak to those young women and their leaders about being real, and why wouldn't I share what life is really like for me? And fun fact, the super glue actually worked until I made it back to California and had my dad fix it. Tonight I want to be real. So before we go any further, I want to try something together. In a moment, you're going to see some questions on the screens around you. And if a question resonates with you, even a little, hold up your phone light. Or if you don't have a phone, just raise your hand. No pressure, no judgment, just be as real as you can. Let's turn on our phone lights together.
[5:13]Beautiful.
[5:16]Okay, first question, this is an easy one. Raise your light if you like chocolate. Oh, I knew I liked you, I knew we'd be friends. Good. Next. Raise your light if you have felt overwhelmed by life lately.
[5:36]Have you been afraid of the future and what's ahead? Are you carrying stress about things you can't control? Are you tired of comparing yourself to everyone else?
[5:55]Do you struggle to see yourself the way God sees you? And lastly, is the light you're supposed to let shine feeling dim?
[6:10]Once more, let's all hold up our lights. Look around. Every light you see represents a story, a sister of yours who is carrying something heavy. You are not alone, and maybe tonight for the first time, in a long time, you will feel that you don't have to carry it alone. That nothing is beyond the reach of Jesus Christ. Here is a powerful truth. Together, all of these lights help push back darkness. And that's exactly exactly who Jesus Christ is, light in the darkness. He's not standing at a distance waiting for you to have it all together, because his radiance in you doesn't come from your perfection. It comes from your connection to him and to each other. The light that you were seeing is what Jesus Christ does in our lives. He changes stories, and every one of us has a story that includes the Savior. You and I, we are all connected, united in hope. Here is hope. Thank you for being brave. Let's talk for a minute about light. I just saw, and you just saw a minute ago, that the smallest light pushes back that darkness, but did you know that most things don't create their own light? They actually reflect it. The moon doesn't shine on its own. It reflects the light of the sun and in a lot of ways, we are the same. On our own, we sometimes feel dim, afraid, not enough, even overwhelmed, but when we turn towards Jesus Christ, we begin to reflect his light. It reminds me of part of Mother Teresa's daily prayer. She prays, Flood my soul with Your Spirit and Life. Penetrate and possess my whole being. So utterly that my life may only be a radiance of Yours. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul. Let them look up, and see no longer me, but only Jesus! Isn't that beautiful? Letting his radiance shine through you is not about being perfect or even pretending you're perfect. It means staying close to him, so his light naturally shines in your life. We are beings of light here on this planet to gain more light. And because light is an attribute of our Heavenly Father, this becomes part of our quest. I imagine him saying to us, before we left our heavenly home. You'll come back to me and your body will be filled with more light. Our Savior taught, if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you. Just as light waves fill the universe, your light can fill the earth. And tonight, the light waves from your phones filled this Marriott Center. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? What if we started a wave of light right here right now? You know how to do this. Turn on your light.
[9:24]Here we go. We're going to start on this side. You're the first ones to stand up and show your light and do the wave. On three, one, two, three. Over here. Here we go. Keep it going. Keep it going. Keep it going around. Behind the screen, are you ready?
[9:49]Well done. Well done. Right over here. Perfect. You want to keep going? I could do this all night. I could.
[10:04]That was awesome.
[10:10]I saw this going differently in my head.
[10:16]Let's explore what I like to call the Big Three. Things that keep us from shining or reflecting God's light. First, fear that holds us back, second, worry that we're not enough, and three, life's overwhelming heavy load. First, Does fear overshadow your light because you don't know what's up ahead? I'm not sure when it started or even how it's kept going, but sometimes in our family, we surprise each other.
[11:05]It was mostly between the kids, but every now and then one of them was brave enough to hide behind a door and surprise mom and dad.
[11:20]And for a while, we all had this scary what's around the corner feeling anytime we walked into a room, and I'll be honest, it is not my favorite.
[12:03]But lately, that scary what's around the corner feeling is what I have been suppressing all day long. Even though I'm sincerely trying to choose faith over fear, do you know this feeling? Maybe don't raise your phone light, just raise your eyebrows so I know I'm not alone. I've often heard that faith is like a muscle that grows stronger when we use it, but how does that really work? Sometimes when life gets tough, we may quietly wonder, where did my faith go? And if I'm being real, in those moments, I often feel like the desperate father seeking Jesus to heal his son. Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. For some reason, every time I'm going through a rough patch, I keep forgetting that our faith isn't static. It doesn't stay in the same spot. It's like our physical health to maintain it, we just have to keep exercising. Has anyone here ever worked out or trained hard every single day to be at their healthiest, the top of their game and then said, maybe even aloud, well, I've done it, I've reached my goal and now I can quit. In my experience, it doesn't work that way. And every day I wake up and remember that sad truth. And if I ever sending you a text right here, I would add this emoji.
[13:24]Faith too is a lifelong quest. It takes practice and exercise. And if life was easy, and if everything was effortless, our faith in Christ, like a muscle, would grow weak because we didn't have to use it. This is what I have learned. Faith isn't faith until it's tried. And the moment we need it is the moment we may question it, and this is the moment faith can truly expand. This is what I experienced when my appendix ruptured a few months after we arrived in Sydney, Australia on our mission. After emergency surgery, I ended up back in the hospital for the third time. And I remember wanting so badly to be healed and thought I was exerting as much faith as I could muster to get better. We were away from our home and family to serve the Lord, and I have to admit I wondered, Heavenly Father, are you really there? and do you really care? But in those fearful moments, I came to realize this great truth, that my faith isn't in a certain outcome, or even a timely outcome. My faith is in Jesus Christ, and his ability to work all things together for my good. Now, we're away from our heavenly home, and it's like we said surgery before saying yes to surgery before we came to this Earth. And then after the veil, or the anesthesia kicks in, we change our minds because we've forgotten what we agreed to before. There are days when it feels like I'm in the middle of an operating room. And I'm trying to stop the surgeon midway through the operation by saying something like, I am really sorry to bother you right now. I know I said yes to the surgery, but I've changed my mind. I thought it's taking a lot longer than I thought it would, and it is so much messier. Plus, I'm pretty sure it's going to leave a scar. By the way, this is a picture of my appendix surgery. I'm just kidding.
[15:23]It was my gallbladder surgery. No, it wasn't, it wasn't. But it helps me to remember that when we turn to God, we are recapturing the faith that we had before we came to this planet. When we were all together, all of us in our primordial home, we said yes. We may feel weak now, but we weren't then. Remember, our imperfect desperate faith is still faith. And because our faith is centered in Jesus Christ, we don't have to do this alone. I once heard the story of a young blind girl being held by her father on a crowded train. After some time, a friend nearby asked, let me give you a break. He reached over and took the little girl in his arms. A few moments later, the father asked his daughter, do you know who's holding you right now? No, she answered, but you do. When life is messy, and heaven whispers, do you know why this is happening to you? What if we could have the faith to answer, no, but you do. We've been asked to trust that God knows what he's doing with us, even though we can't possibly see how he can do it. And sometimes to move past this fear, I literally close my eyes and try to see with the eye of faith. Your human eye sees what is now present, but the eye of faith sees what is possible with God. It looks to a future that is so bright even when things feel dark right now. Will you be brave and use this eye of faith? As the Apostle Paul put it, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. I believe the eye of faith is like a compass in your heart, looking deeply into a future that only God sees. Not what is now present, but pointing to a future full of hope instead of fear. Are you with me? Can you feel that light of hope shining through you and ahead of you? For many years I had this quote on my fridge. It isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. Do you know who said this? A prophet of God. President Gordon B. Hinckley said, don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. And every day when I open my fridge to make breakfast for my kids, by getting out the milk so I could pour it on their cereal. And late at night, when I snuck into the freezer to eat ice cream, I would say aloud, don't worry, it will all work out.
[18:17]And I thought, right now a prophet of God is saying it too. Okay, maybe he wasn't saying it late at night when he was eating ice cream. But it helped me to feel that our Father in Heaven is not panicking right here right now, because he knows who are going to become here. Therein lies our faith. The eye of faith, it sees the big picture and takes the long view. You and I, we can do this. Pray for the big picture every day so that we can have this kind of faith. Number two, does your light dim because you don't think you're good enough? I remember exactly where I was sitting when I first heard about the social mirror and the divine mirror. The social mirror is like one of those crazy carnival mirrors that distorts your reflection. We know it's not an accurate image of ourselves. But what if this was the only mirror you had, wouldn't you come to believe it? It wouldn't be true, but that's the danger of the social mirror. And if this social mirror could talk, it might say something like, you know, you're not that smart or talented. Or you're never going to be as good as everyone else. Just like the social mirror, social media isn't accurate, and it's based on comparisons, and too often our self-image or self-worth comes from comparing ourselves to others. Comparisons and competition may be fine in some dimensions of our life, but they are not how God sees us. God does not grade on a curve or compare us to others. Rather, he sets standards and then invites and helps us to get there. So when you hear this negative chatter in your mind, you have to say to yourself, maybe even out loud, that can't be true. Because I am Heavenly Father's daughter, and he would never think or say those things about me. It fills me with joy that we have a divine mirror. An accurate mirror that's completely different from the social one. It reflects back to us our potential and what's possible. Each one of us has unique gifts and talents and our nature is divine. This is real. I love in the FSY guide, it says, you social media to uplift, focus on light, faith. Don't compare your life to what other people seem to be experiencing. Remember that your worth comes from being a child of heavenly parents, not from social media. And if we could wake up every morning and after looking in the mirror to get ready, set that mirror aside, get on our knees and ask to see ourselves as Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ sees us. I know it would make all the difference. I know they want us to use this divine mirror. They are pleading with us to remember who we are and whose children we are, and that they love us so much. And the Holy Ghost is the testifier of this truth. He can teach you who you truly are and comfort you on days when you forget this truth. And I can always tell when I forget by the things that I do and say. I remember the aha moment I had when someone pointed out that being critical of others and low self-worth go hand in hand. Just imagine a circle and at the top you have low self-worth, which causes us to be critical of ourselves and others, which leads us back to low self-worth. And when we're in the middle of this cycle, it's hard to see that one creates the other. In fact, the more we do of the one, the more we get the other. So for this next visual demonstration, I'm going to need everyone to scoot forward to the edge of your seats. Just mirror what I am doing. Raise this hand as high as it will go. Yes, you know what's going to happen next, right? Now take this other hand and make some small circles. We're going to just live here for a minute. Maybe you made a list of all the things you were supposed to do today. Maybe you got up early to read your scriptures. You listened to a conference talk in the shower. You did 14 leg lunges and planked for 30 seconds. You even had time to declutter your room and bring cookies to your ministering sister. But what if your day didn't go so well? Maybe you slept in and didn't get to your scriptures early. Not only did you not listen to a conference talk, you didn't shower today. But don't feel bad, I didn't floss. And the only lunging you did was over a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. And you tried to make cookies for your ministering sister, but it ended up turning into one big Pazookie so you ate it all by yourself. Where is your worth? Has this hand moved at all? Sometimes we think we earn our worth by being good at life, or crossing things off a list, but I want you to know that is not true because your worth isn't something you earn. Our worth never changes. It was given to you by God and it cannot be increased or diminished by what you accomplish or don't accomplish by the end of the day. Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. What has made a difference for me? It's being able to separate my worth from what I do or haven't done. I feel like this is a pretty important awareness because sometimes we draw our feeling of worth from outside things, what we accomplish, what we have, or what other people say about us, and that is a slippery slope. Think for just a minute. Can you separate your accomplishments from your identity or who you are? Maybe write it down later tonight. Make a list of what you do, and then make a list of who you are. Maybe you'll write, playing the piano is what I do. A beloved daughter of Heavenly parents is who I am. Working part-time is what I do, but a disciple of Christ is who I am. When we were on our mission, at a Zone conference, we talked about some of the obstacles our missionaries faced. A few missionaries shared that sometimes they weren't as confident or brave as they wanted to be. So we invited them to think of a pose, a power pose, to show they were ready for the day, just before they walked out the door to leave. A confidence pose, a self-worth stance, and as companionships, they would do this every morning. A few weeks later, when our adult children came to visit us, just for fun, each one of them came up with their own power poses. Then we climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge, and at the very top, they took some pictures and asked, do you want to make a short video? So guess what we did. Let's watch.
[25:24]All right. You're laughing now, but guess what you're going to do next. If you could make a self-worth stance or a power pose before you started your day, first thing in the morning, just before you left your bedroom or your front door, what pose would you do? I'm going to give you a second to think about it. Just stand and get ready to show me your pose. But be careful not to bump into your neighbor. Here we go. One, two, three. Good. Well done, well done. Have a seat.
[26:15]You can work on that later tonight. Who knows? Who knows if the power stance is actually a real thing. But the source of your power does matter. Let the Savior's light shine through you because of covenants you have made. His light shines from your eyes and your countenance reflects his image when you make good choices. I remember when my daughter Carly was telling me about a time she was driving with her four-year-old daughter Margo in the back seat of the car. Little Margo was busy eating her chocolate Easter candy. Carly looked back and said, Margo, if you eat all of that candy, you're not going to feel very good afterward, and your stomach is going to hurt and be so sad. It was very quiet in the back seat. So Carly looked in her rearview mirror and then she heard Margo whisper to herself. No, I think my tummy's going to say, thank you Margo, that was delicious. We really like chocolate in our family.
[27:20]Carly's story reminded me of this amazing quote from the FSY guide. Just as your body is affected by what you eat and drink, your mind and spirit are profoundly affected by what you read, watch, and listen to. Because we are beings of light, we're either adding light or losing light by the ordinary decisions we make every day. So when you're watching a show or listening to music, or reading something, or scrolling something, or running faster than you have strength. Can you ask yourself, do I see any light in this? How do I feel right now? How will I feel afterward? You can even ask, is this dimming my light or helping me to shine? When we choose light, our spirits get stronger and tremendous forces are unleashed. Years ago, a friend was in the kitchen after school with her teenagers. And they were sort of joking and teasing her because she'd stopped going to the gym and her muscles weren't as strong as they used to be. Well, she smiled and said, just you wait till you see my spirit body. It's amazing. She said, you're totally going to be able to tell that I've been working it, just you wait and see. So how do we work our spirit bodies? Find yourself in those sacred spaces where there's an abundance of light, an exchange of light. Places like the temple or a Sacrament meeting or even a setting like this, where because of the spirit, you receive more of God's light. Our spirits are getting brighter, and the scriptures confirm this truth. He that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day. So how do we let more light in? In photography, a picture is created when light hits the sensor. Something called the aperture and the shutter speed control how much light is permitted to enter the camera. What is fascinating is that when you are in the dim moments of your life, or in a dim light, the aperture must expand and the shutter speed slows down to allow more light to come inside. And that's just like us when we're in those dark moments, I believe Christ is inviting you to slow down, to be still, to open up to the light, to his light. What if you gave yourself permission to slow down, to be still, to open up to his light? What would you feel? What would you hear? Remember, the spirit has special acoustics and so even in a group this large, he can speak to each one of us. Right now, sound is moving through this room. It is traveling in waves, constantly, whether you notice it or not. You can't see them, but they're real. And if something is really quiet, you might not hear it. Not because it's not there, but because it's hard to pick up. So we're going to try an audio demonstration. Maybe you've heard of the mosquito app. It emits waves at various frequencies, sound waves. And as we get older, it's harder to hear the higher frequencies. So we're going to try this, but you have to be really quiet to hear it. Everybody stand up quietly. And we're going to begin by playing a tone that everyone can hear.
[30:54]Here we go. You're good. All right. Next. We're going to play a tone for 60 years and younger.
[31:13]50 years.
[31:21]40 years.
[31:28]30 years.
[31:32]Can you hear it?
[31:41]We lost a lot of you on that one. Okay, quiet. 15.
[31:50]13.
[31:55]11.
[32:00]Do we have someone still standing? A few? You each get a thousand points. Well done.
[32:11]So I'm curious, how many of you had a moment when you couldn't hear it and you thought to yourself, is she actually playing it right now? I've heard that some high school students use this mosquito tone as their text alert so teachers can't hear when they're getting a text. Yeah, we're on to you. We're on to you. The spirit, like that frequency is always there even when you can't feel him clearly. Hearing Jesus Christ can feel like that. He is always there, but sometimes life gets loud, not just with noise, but with stress, contention, distractions. And sometimes anxiety, depression, or emotional pain can make everything feel muted or distant, even God. I know of this struggle. So if you've ever thought, why can't I hear him, it doesn't mean he's not speaking. And it doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. Is he speaking to you? Yes, he is. And when prophets invite us to hear him, it's not pressure. It's an invitation, a loving invitation to keep looking for him, listening for him, and turning toward him again and again. And lastly, number three, does life feel so overwhelming that you don't have any extra light left to give? I have a theory that everyone we meet carries around a bag of rocks, something difficult that feels heavy. And most of the time we try and hide it, camouflage it, so others can't see that it's there, but it is. And sometimes it's wrapped in a big pretty bow, so others wonder, how hard can that be, it's wrapped in a bow. But it may still be painful. It's been my experience that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a preventative from all pain. It is a resource in the event of pain. Pain that if I'm honest with you has felt so heavy at times. I haven't known where to put it or what to do with it. Do you know this pain? Pain that makes it hard to feel light. Now I want you to imagine, just for a moment, that all of the heavy things in your life have a physical shape or a heft to them, that they are outside you, weighty things that you have to carry around. So you'd probably go and get a basket. You know the kind that you use when you go to the pharmacy. And if a neighbor came up and asked, hey, can I help you with that, you would smile and say, no, it's nothing. In fact, I'm getting my upper body workout right now. But then some time goes by and life gives you more to carry, things you certainly hadn't planned on. So you have to go out and get a grocery cart. Could you push that around? Sure. Even if it was filled with a lot of things, been there, done that. Fast forward to the present, right now. And maybe life really is hard. And you can see that a normal shopping cart isn't going to cut it. You realize that this is going to take one of those orange flatbed Costco carts. You know the ones. And if someone saw you pushing one of those stacked up high with heavy things and came over and said, I can see you're struggling, let me help you with that. You still might say, out of stubbornness and sheer pride, thanks, but I've got this. Because you think to yourself, these are my heavy things that require this orange flatbed Costco cart. It's my stuff. But you're exhausted and you aren't sure you can keep pushing it around all day every day. Do you know this moment? And what if it's uphill? If your life is anything like mine, it it isn't always a flat path. There are mountains and valleys, right? So, I've been working on a song called the Orange Flatbed Costco cart.
[36:10]I'm just kidding. I didn't.
[36:16]But that would have been pretty exciting, right? But this is real. We each have times in our life when we feel like we're at the top of a mountain because things are going well, we have good mental health, we're praying, we're reading our scriptures to connect with heaven. But there are also times when it feels like we're down in a valley. When life feels heavy and we feel anxious or alone, when things aren't easy. It is my testimony to you that Christ is there during your highest and lowest moments, for he is the God of the mountain and he is the God of the valley. It's been my experience that down in that valley at rock bottom, when I choose Christ, his light shines on something I may have forgotten was there. A sure foundation. We have been promised that if we build that foundation on Jesus Christ, the stone of Israel, the rock of heaven, we cannot fall beyond his reach. Three years ago, I was a music leader in primary. One of the all-time great callings in the church, right? And I was teaching a brand new song then. It was called, I will walk with Jesus. And when I got to the third verse, I put the word strips on the chalkboard, and I read them out loud. He will never leave me, even when I fall. I turned and looked at the primary children with tears in my eyes and I said, if you only remember one thing from singing time. I want you to remember this truth. That Jesus Christ will never leave you, even when you fall. And then I thought, I hope they forget about the time I gave away a live goldfish to the best singer in primary. I'll admit that was a bad idea, but I hope that they remember this song. How is it possible that he can never leave you? One way is through his spirit, the Holy Ghost. Remember that the Holy Ghost is the third member of the Godhead, along Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. And as a member of the Godhead, he is a God. And as a percentage of spirit, he's allowed to dwell within you. Through his companionship, you can literally have God with you. This is why we can have his light in us and hope smiling brightly before us. Think of the account in the Old Testament where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into that fiery furnace. And then King Nebuchadnezzar literally turned up the heat. But when the king looked into the fire, do you remember this? The Old Testament says, he saw four men. And the form of the fourth was like the son of God. God is with us. It is literally one of the names of the Savior that was prophesied from before his birth, Emmanuel, meaning God with us. You are never alone. What our human eyes don't see is that he walks with us. Let's use that eye of faith, not only to look forward into the future, but also to look backward, too. What if you could travel back in time, a few years, five, 10, 20, 40? I can go higher. What would you say to your younger self? I've thought about this a lot. For example, if I could travel back in time to before the pandemic, I might say, Tammy, I know this sounds crazy. But you should go out right now and buy toilet paper, loss and loss of toilet paper. But what I really want to say to my younger self is, you ding dong, stop worrying about the small stuff. But then I suddenly have this feeling that I want to alert her to what is ahead. To tell her to watch out to buckle up. But as I look back, I can see the Lord's hand helping me, and how some things fell together beautifully. And how even the most difficult things prepared me for the next, so that I was given exactly what I needed to make it through. And I end up just wanting more than anything to give myself a hug and say, I don't know how you're doing it, this really hard thing, but you're doing it. You're going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Remember, he will lead you along. When you walk in God's light, you write a brighter story. A life and a light that reveal him. I have learned that we shouldn't care if the world spotlight is shining on us. It's more important to know that God's light is shining through us. In other words, don't shine so that others can see you. Shine so that through you, others can see him. I love that my husband often asks, when you walk into a room, do you say, here I am? Or there you are. We are here to reflect God's light, so let your light shine to bless, not to impress. Let's return to these words from Mother Teresa's daily prayer, and envision light all around you as I read this. Flood my soul with Your Spirit and Life. Penetrate and possess my whole being, so utterly that my life may only be a radiance of Yours. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul. Let them look up, and see no longer me, but only Jesus. In a world where people are struggling to feel light and love. This is one thing we can do, and it is my testimony today that when you and I finally get it, this truth, that we are not so different, that we are one in Christ. It feels like God looks down on us, smiles and says, it's working.
