Before I begin this post I want everyone to know that even though I have strong feelings about certain things I talk about especially things related to the church like the Bishops Storehouse I actually have a strong testimony of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. I know it may seem weird that a commandment like tithes and offerings that I struggle to understand is not leading me away from my church. There are experiences in my life that I will not deny that have strengthened my testimony. I'm not going to dig deeper than that at this time. Maybe in a future post I will.
Today is conference and I wanted to share a few feelings I still have after listening to the talks. I did feel like two of the talks were directed at me they were about fast offerings. Again if you haven't seen my other post fast offerings pay for things to help those who are poor and needy like clothes food shelter and bills. I'm going to shorten this maybe at a later date I will dig deeper with these two talks. The first talk said without quoting word for word we need to dig deeper and give more based upon what are financial circumstance can give and that even though some people's hardships were caused by themselves we should not judge but rely on faith that the lord will bless us if we pay a generous fast offerings. The second talk talked about bishops responsability to distribute the fast offerings to help the temporal (and emphasized temporal) needs of families who need assistance. I still have some difficulty with this. I know of people who have put themselves on church welfare through there own actions. I know of families that don't intend on getting a job soon and they been on "temporal" church welfare for over 6 months. I read blogs where families have been on church welfare for up to 10 months. One family that had a blog was on it for 10 months and not once they couldn't lower there standards to go deliver pizzas instead they would go to the temple and wait for the lord to drop a job in their lap? This particular family went to Disneyland six flags (had season passes I believe) went to a work convention and flew all 7 from California to Alabama round trip while on assistance. 10 months is temporal?
I do need to soften my heart. I want to help the needy I want to feel that I am doing something right when I donate my fast offerings but I'm not. I know I need my heart softened but how do you soften it when those who have more than you also need your donations? That's how I feel right now. Am I going to try to at least listen and act upon the council of this subject? Yes I will try and I hope the lord blesses me because I really do need it.
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