the golden rule

so, i have this norman rockwell print framed above my couch in my home.

i first laid eyes on it's original mosaic beauty when i visited the united nations with my family ten-ish years ago.

i instantly fell in love. i {needed} it!
it is {so} beautiful to me. *speaks to my soul-style.

"santa" gifted me the framed print for christmas shortly thereafter & it has happily been displayed in a prominent place in every home i've lived in.

to me, it tells a story:

*of a loving father in heaven that knows & cares for all his children no matter who they are, what choices they have made, or where they come from.
*and we as children of god are all on this earth together...learning how to relate & unify & just get along-learning to personally progress & understand each other at the same time.
*but it's super hard sometimes to do that....because we all have weaknesses & differences.
*so we need to get to know {him} & learn of {his} love.......to [truly] love ourselves.
*and once we value our ourselves, we are able to find beauty in, and show that real, honest christlike love to others.

i'm still working through & learning that whole process.
i think we all are, in our own way, at our own pace.

sometimes i feel guilty that it's continually {so hard} for me to just [let go] sometimes. of pride. jealousies. bad feelings. -that my mind/soul feels this natural need to make unjust situations feel fair somehow.

so often, in my little angie-life, i forget the following simple truth:

"In the grand division of all of God's creations, there are things to act and things to be acted upon. As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we have been blessed with the gift of moral agency, the capacity for independent action and choice. Endowed with agency, you and I are agents, and we primarily are to act and not just be acted upon. To believe that someone or something can make us feel offended, angry, hurt, or bitter diminishes our moral agency and transforms us into objects to be acted upon. As agents, however, you and I have the power to act and to choose how we will respond to an offensive or hurtful situation." -David Bednar

i'm so happy to know that through the atonement of my savior, tomorrow is a new day.

another day to practice the golden rule.

a second chance for me & the opportunity to give a second chance to someone else.