Life Lessons, Spiritual

Integrity

I was flipping through my Personal Progress book on Sunday, and a particular “experience” (Integrity #3) really stuck out to me. I don’t know why, exactly. Usually, I think, “yeah, that one should be easy enough right now.” or “um, I should probably work on that one.” or something to that effect. But they don’t usually hit a chord. This one did. So I’ve been working on it this morning. Instead of writing it down in my journal, the thought came to me that I should put it on the blog. It says share your experience, so I guess this is a good way to share it.

The funny thing is, when the instructions said to think about a time that I showed integrity and it was not easy or popular, a story instantly came to mind. An incident that was close to 20 years ago. I don’t know what recalled that particular instant, but it hasn’t left me since.

I was in 8th grade. We had this really boring text book in my Leadership class. The whole class hated it. One day, the teacher stepped out of the room, probably to go make copies or something. The entire class hid their textbooks. The teacher was pretty flabbergasted when she came back in. I don’t know what made her do it, but she looked right at me and said, “Keira, where are the books.” Althought I didn’t stand up and tell the kids no (they were reaaaallllly boring books), I couldn’t tell a  bold-face lie. So I caved and told her where they were. I thought for sure, the whole class would be mad at me, but actually no one was. Maybe because they knew I couldn’t like. I don’t know. But we didn’t have to use those books again. And the class didn’t really care. I don’t know why it’s so ingrained into my memory, but it is. I don’t remember a single other thing from that class, but I remember the time I didn’t lie.

Integrity Scrabble Brick

It’s no surprise that the first example the Young Women Personal Progress book gives is that of the Savior. Even when He realized exactly how hard it was to comply with the atonement, He did it. He suffered for our sins. If He hadn’t had integrity, there would be no plan.

Joseph showed integrity with Potiphar’s wife. To me, that’s not just showing integrity in the obvious way. Not committing adultery is a definite  commandment. But honoring the wishes of an employer and getting out of a potentially bad situation (as well as making a bad situation good without complaint) are also ways to show integrity.

Esther is one of my favorite examples of integrity. I don’t know if I’d have the courage to put my life on the line to stand up for others. I mean, I guess you’d just have to do it. I like that she fasts and prays before she does what she does. In this kind of situation, putting God at the central part of the plan, remembering that all things are possible through him, is the real example of integrity in Esther’s story.

Job never denied the Lord, when times got hard. I think that everyone has those moments when they wonder, with everything going on in their lives, if God loves them, if He really exists, and if He can help. But at the end of it, if you’ve kept the faith, kept believing, then you can show integrity, too. Just like Job.

Daniel didn’t stop praying. God’s commandments are greater than man’s.

Shadrach Meshach and Abednego were willing to die for their faith, but to me the true sign of integrity is something I heard in a conference talk once. I’ve never been able to find it since. In the talk the speaker said once that Shadrach Meshach and Abednego were great examples of the “But If Not” principle. Not only do they stand up for their beliefs, knowing that Christ CAN save them, they know that doesn’t mean Christ WILL save them. The true act of faith, and integrity, is remembering that God’s ways are better than our own plans. They know that they can be saved, but if they are not saved, they know that they will be with their Savior. “But if Not.” Integrity is trusting God. Submitting to His will.

Hyrum showed integrity for delighting in truth and finding what is right.

Paul showed integrity for changing his ways when he knew better. For adimitting he was wrong. That’s a big one!

Joseph Smith showed integrity by never denying what he had seen. “I knew it and I knew that God knew it.” How easy it would have been for him to just give into the world, “yeah, guys, you caught me.” But just because something is easy with Man doesn’t mean its easy with God. Giving into what the world wanted him to do would have eternal repercussions. It would NOT have been worth it. Easy and worth it are definitely not the same thing.

Brag

First Freebie!

Our Young Women Presidency decided we wanted to give our girls a little extra challenge this year. We knew they needed a nudge to strengthen habits. And with the Olympics coming, we decided an Olympic theme would be an appropriate challenge theme. We didn’t want it to be easy. Habits don’t just happen. But since it’s not easy, there are only 3 goals. The first one is to read their scriptures for 120 CONSECUTIVE days. The Second goal is to say their prayers for 120 consecutive days. We also set the goal to attend the temple 8 times with their own names. Our ward is pretty close to the temple, so it shouldn’t be too hard of a goal. If you don’t live so close to a temple, you could just make it a goal to find 8 names that need temple work.

Anyway, I decided, since it’s pretty specific, I’d just make it a freebie instead of loading it up on Etsy.

New photo by Keira / Google Photos

At new beginnings, we will give each of our girls one of these bracelets

New photo by Keira / Google Photos

You can buy them at templesquares.com. I’ll add a little note that these are NOT the bracelets we ordered, but when they got here, we just went with it. They come with this little scripture charm on the leaf, but we took them off because they’ll earn the charm when they complete the goal.

New photo by Keira / Google Photos

They will also get a charm for saying their prayers, but we didn’t want that one to be earned until Girls’ Camp (they can complete it now, but we will have an award ceremony at GC to hand them out there). Our Girls’ Camp Director is ordering those, so I don’t have them.

We ordered our temple charms from Doodle Beads, and I love them! If you need a lot (like we did), I’d recommend you contact them (like I did). They were great to work with, prompt, and very approachable.

I’m sure you could come up with any goal prizes you wanted to. You could award charms or make it so if they earn all 3 goals, they get one big prize. In fact, I will be making a few bracelets of my own soon (clerical error, I have charms we aren’t using), and they’d make great prizes. I’ll post the Etsy link when I get that far.

Anyway, click on the picture and it should take you to google drive, if I did it right, and you can download the page there. If I did it wrong, lemme know. We’ll fix it. 😉