August 9: Swimmingly Enduring to the End

 Today I have been thinking a bit about titles for one of my books. It’s the one I’ve started several times that is all about what we do when we’ve done all the things we really had pictured in our minds when we were kids. At least all the biggest ones. We’re married in the temple with kiddos and a home and a (very nice) car. We’ve made and kept covenants from Baptism, to the temple covenants, served a mission and be sealed. And then everyone says after that you endure to the end. And you grit you left teeth and just survive until you die and pass from this world into the next. No way! That’s most of our lives were just surviving or enduring. I think that words matter. What if we say we love to the end. Or flourish to the end. Discover to the end. Receive to the end. Thrive to the end. Explore to the end. Serve to the end. Change to the end. Grow to the end. Sing to the end. Love to the end. Push to the end. Climb to the end. Rejoice to the end. 

So many verbs that bring us hope and light! We hope to the end. We believe to the end. We light to the end. We encourage to the end. We strengthen to the end. We radiate to the end. We swim to the end. We fly to the end. We dig deep to the end. We courageously thrive to the end. So many things to do yet. And the end is not really ever the end. 

Went swimming with Peter and James and my mom and Mike and Anna and Graham and Desmond today. It was really fun. Beautiful day and beautiful pool. I did a bunch of laundry and washed some dishes and took care of Maya the dog. I sent messages to people and called a few. I made dinner and watched a show with James. I played dnd with Ryan and Mike and Anna. I prayed and read scriptures. We studied come follow me. I loved my family and myself and the people around me. 

We connect to the end. We forge to the end. We forgive to the end. We pray to the end. We learn so much to the end. We increase in understanding to the end. We lift to the end. We hug to the end. We repent to the end. We keep renewing those covenants to the end and help our brothers and sisters do the same. We magnify to the end. We study to the end. We love to the end. 

And we chart our own course, write our own story as we do so! It’s after we’ve made those covenants and our backpack is full and ready with our covenants that we take those next steps with all the help our Heavenly Father can give us. And we renew them often. We have to keep filling our water bottle, or rations, getting more lambas bread. We make sure our boots don’t get too worn, and our sunscreen is on. We can’t make the journey without making and keeping those covenants.  But our covenant path doesn’t end when we are sealed in the temple. In many ways that is just the beginning. We’ve entered through the gate, we’ve bound ourselves to our family. We’ve pledged to do all we promise in the endowment session. And we are blessed with power and strength and wisdom and the Holy Ghost as our constant companion. So many gifts and blessings.