As most of you know, I took all of last week off of work to do another job. I was a full time nanny for a family while the parents went on a cruise. It was one of the biggest blessings and such a great opportunity. I was grateful every day for it. The children I was a nanny for were 14, 9, and 2 years of age. I spent all day at home playing with the little two year old girl named Athena (you know, like the Greek goddess?). She was an angel. The first few days were a little rough, but I gave her a break because of course it was going to be hard being away from her parents all week and being stuck with a stranger. After the first few days, she started becoming more happy and cheerful and completely fun to hang out with and play with. But what I learned from Athena was how obedient she was and how willing she was to do whatever I asked of her. This little girl taught me a huge life lesson. Her three favorite words are..."mhm", "why?", and "okay."
Okay. such a simple word, but had so much meaning behind it. No matter what it was that I asked her to do, she would always respond with an "okay!" and I watched how she would immediately drop whatever she was doing to go and do the thing that I had asked of her. I hardly had to ask her twice and only on occasion would she put up a bit of a struggle. I feel this is what the Lord asks of us. He asks for our obedience and willingness to follow Him. Even when we are feeling sorrowful for missing dear loved ones as Athena had. If we hear Him speak to us through the soft whisperings of the Spirit, we should be simply saying "okay" and dropping our will to do His. The Lord is never going to ask us to do things that aren't necessary and that aren't going to benefit us and make us more happy in the long run. Sometimes we may be told to do something that we might not understand at the moment, or we may be told to do something that is extremely difficult to do, but we do them anyways because we love Him and we trust in Him.
Sometimes it's hard, so so hard. But the most difficult times we experience are the most important ones. They are the times that we are given to grow closer to our Savior and to really feel the love He has for us. I know that I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior. I also know that I can be better at listening to Him when He is trying to speak to me and instead of questioning it or putting up a struggle, I can simply say "okay".
