"There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way." Elizabeth

After a very long, slow, day at work I am taking the time to write my philosophical happenings.  It really was quite a day.

My Boss, and owner of Porter's Place, talked about stories and the church today.  We fumbled upon the subject after I asked him what he will do with the business after he is gone.. who will take over?    His answer surprised me, since it wasn't so much about the money, the people,  or the entertainment- but simply about a story, Porter Rockwell's story.  He talked about the effort he wanted to take to preserve this story, the legacy of this church figure.  Our little restaurant is almost the last outpost for the history, the little place of knowledge.   In the midst of this little place of knowledge there are crevices and cracks.  Fallacies, that lead to an almost incomplete glorification.  For example, the night before Joseph Smith died he had a drink of wine.  Porter, also, killed several men.  In my mind this is all ok, they were human as well.  Both figures were flawed in many of the same ways we are today.

And yet somehow, at the end of the day, they are glorified.  Written in history books as great and noble men.  They are perfect.  But the facts as previously stated point otherwise.  How does one reconcile both observations and facts into one coherent idea?

This led me to think of my testimony.  Many times we hear over the pulpit and in classrooms that Joseph Smith was a true prophet.  That he restored the Church, that he was noble and select.  All these things are true, yet I think the connotation behind them is not, especially over the pulpit.  It's not so much that Joseph Smith was great as much as it is the fact that he restored God's church.  That GOD had the power and the ability to use Joseph to accomplish his works.  I guess in my mind I had always heard it as a direct compliment to Joseph, when in reality the flawed Joseph was never the beneficiary.

In context, flaws are a complete part of human temperament.  They are present in the absence of true Heaven.  I guess when this hit me, I started thinking of all the worried and squimish decisions I have been trying to make lately. How over and over again I have been trying to make choice that are more about me then they are about God.  You see, I realized it doesn't matter which decision I make as long as the decision leaves me the ability to serve God.   I am flawed and there is no possible decision I can make that would lift me up when it comes to only my glory.  NOT ONE.  I need God, and through that, no matter what, it will all work out.

 This attempted blog post is pretty much a complete failure, but to me it makes sense.