A Year Since the "Spiritual Slap to the Face"

Yesterday marked a year since the day I walked through the Gilbert, Arizona temple open house for the second time (as I had walked through the night before), and I received what I call a "spiritual slap to the face." I've talked about this experience before (here), but to give you a short version, I was an investigator of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at the time, and a skeptical one at that. I wasn't sure if I had really believed any of what the Sisternaries had been teaching me, but I knew that I had felt good inside every time. They kindly urged me to go with the ward to the Gilbert temple open house, so I did. On the way there, I realized that I wanted to get baptized, but I wasn't fully committed to the idea just yet. I went through the first time, and it was incredible, but I didn't take it all in because we were kind of being rushed through it. The second time, I tried to walk a little bit slower, and I tried to take it all in. I said a silent prayer right before we walked through the Celestial room, and then I had a wonderful experience. All at once, I felt this peace and love from above that had been lacking in life. I felt the true and wonderful power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I gained a testimony of the love Christ has for us, and specifically me. When you are literally slapped in the face, your eyes tear up a little, and most often, you weren't expecting to be slapped, and you stand there in complete shock, unable to react to it. I call my experience a "spiritual slap to the face" because I had those "symptoms." And also because I am stubborn. Some people can feel gentle urges from the Spirit and know that the Church is true, but because I needed a little more convincing, I needed a bigger "sign." Just another testimony of the fact that Heavenly Father knows me, and each of us, so well!
Yesterday, I talked a bit about this as I shared my testimony. There were so many thoughts running through my head at the time, but I just let the Spirit guide me. And I shared a well-known quote by Oliver Wilde, and also a variation of it. The original is "every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future." But the variation I found on the internet added a few words.

Buy the patch here, if you want it.

Those words made this quote a hundred times more powerful to me than ever before. The quote itself gives people hope that they can be better than where they are now. But Christ is what provides that hope. Through the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we have the power to change ourselves for the better. I know that I've changed in the past year since I've been baptized. In the song, "Baptism," by Randy Travis, he says "down with the old man, up with the new." The baptismal waters wash away our sins, our mistakes, and our past. But they don't wash away our bad habits. When you make the decision to get baptized, you make the decision to commit to be better. As one of the Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Ezra Taft Benson, has said, "when you choose to follow Christ, you choose to be changed." Why? Because you choose to emulate him. You cannot be a follower of Christ without following and without living His principles. It takes time to do this; I know from experience. There are still bad habits that I'm working on. But God appreciates our effort in trying to change. "...it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do (2 Nephi 25:23)." 

I know these things are true. I know that Christ has made all the difference in my life, and I know that if you are willing to accept Him into your life, He can make a difference in yours as well.