Keeping the Sacrament a Positive Experience

I loved this story about the power of the Sacrament, from Sister Esplin, told during Conference:

The sacrament provides a time for a truly spiritual experience as we reflect upon the Savior’s redeeming and enabling power through His Atonement. A Young Women leader recently learned about the strength we receive as we strive to thoughtfully partake of the sacrament. Working to complete a requirement in Personal Progress, she set a goal to focus on the words in the sacrament hymns and prayers.

Each week, she conducted a self-evaluation during the sacrament. She recalled mistakes she had made, and she committed to be better the next week. She was grateful to be able to make things right and be made clean. Looking back on the experience, she said, “I was acting on the repentance part of the Atonement.”

One Sunday after her self-evaluation, she began to feel gloomy and pessimistic. She could see that she was making the same errors over and over again, week to week. But then she had a distinct impression that she was neglecting a big part of the Atonement—Christ’s enabling power. She was forgetting all the times the Savior helped her be who she needed to be and serve beyond her own capacity.

With this in mind, she reflected again on the previous week. She said: “A feeling of joy broke through my melancholy as I noted that He had given me many opportunities and abilities. I noted with gratitude the ability I had to recognize my child’s need when it wasn’t obvious. I noted that on a day when I felt I could not pack in one more thing to do, I was able to offer strengthening words to a friend. I had shown patience in a circumstance that usually elicited the opposite from me.”

She concluded: “As I thanked God for the Savior’s enabling power in my life, I felt so much more optimistic toward the repentance process I was working through and I looked to the next week with renewed hope.”

Like this sister the story is about, I tend to get a bit gloomy and pessimistic about myself and my progress as I struggle with the same things over and over. I appreciate the positive outlook this story gives. 

It is easier to become better, more positive, and more righteous as we focus on the good in our lives. It is easier to become better when we focus on what we have done right. Everyday there are many experiences we have where we make the right choices, watch out for a child, comfort a friend, and see the good in others. Those are what we ought to be looking at. Yes, we need to overcome weakness and sin, but it seems that we put ourselves under the Savior's influence better when we are focused on what we are doing right. When we focus on the right things it makes it easier to do more of the right things. 

We live in a pessimistic and finger-pointing world, we need to stay away from that mindset. We believe in being responsible and accountable, so let's be responsible and accountable for the good that we do also. Maybe that weekly ordinance can help us stay focused on what we can do better. Of course we need to acknowledge and admit our wrongs, but perhaps that's only half of the plan. The other half is to prepare to do more good in the future.