Journal Entry: Sunday, October 7th

          I feel numb and exhausted. I didn’t even want to sing during the rest hymns of General Conference today. I usually love singing the rest hymns. I still think I’m in denial, however, about how I’m feeling. … Guess I’d better quit trying to understand why I’m feeling this way and just face it and work through it. “The pressure of my life [are just] weighing me down,” as Lolly on The Weed said yesterday. I like what she has to say, and I like what a friend told her, “You know that you don’t have to earn God’s love. He doesn’t determine His love for you with a tally sheet of all your good deeds.” And the outcome of hearing her friend tell her that is also relieving to me: 

“It all comes down to my personal relationship with Heavenly Father. He loves me unconditionally and I love Him. I show my love for Him through my actions. I am obedient to His commandments and I serve His children in need. I do this not because I’m worried about what other people might think. Not because I’m trying to earn His love. I do what I do because I love Him. That, in and of itself, is enough to relieve my burdens.”

I’ve thought about Unconditional Love off and on through the years. I’m not sure that Mormons do such a great job of communicating it to others, the DUTY speaks so loudly sometimes. I wonder if the world doesn’t wonder about all of our Duties as Pollyanna did:

Pollyanna sighed now—she believed she was going to hate that word—duty. "Aunt Polly, please," she called wistfully, "isn't there ANY way you can be glad about all that—duty business?"

Duty has certainly been speaking very, very loudly to me lately, and it is a powerful force for action.

But maybe Love should speak louder.

~vbb