"And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way." - Mark 10:52
I always wondered what became of the people that Jesus healed.  Surely they couldn't forget what amazing thing had been done for them.  I love the simpleness yet power of this scripture.  Jesus healed the blind man, and as He healed him he said "go thy way".  But as soon as he received his sight he "followed Jesus".  He had seen the power that Jesus held, he recognized Him as the Christ and therefore changed his way to Jesus's way.  He literally changed the course of his life and began following Christ from that time forth.  I wish I could be more like this blind man, who immediately recognized all that Christ had done for him and showed his gratitude by following Him.  He knew that Christ was the ultimate healer and I suspect he realized that Jesus could heal more than just physical ailments.  Jesus truly is the master healer.  He is there to make us whole, that is why He suffered so much for us, so that we might be made clean, so that one day we might be perfect like He is.  So let us be like the blind man and make our way Jesus's way.  In doing so I know that we will feel His healing power every day of our lives.

Let us learn lives full of joy.  Happiness is by choice not chance.

We are meant to have joy.  God´s plan for us is beautiful, He wants us to be happy and enjoy life.  Elder Nelson spoke to world about how we can find joy no matter what situation we are in.  I know that that is true.  God has given us the means by which we might find joy.  In Luke 15 Christ teaches us the be-atitudes, a word that comes from beatus which signifies, to be happy.  He literally laid out a set of steps for us to follow in order to find joy in this life.  And those steps are, as my New Testament teacher pointed out, the steps of repentance.

1.     Blessed are the poor in spirit.  This is that moment when you realize you've done something wrong and/or aren't as spiritually strong as you could be.

2.     Blessed are those that mourn.  After realizing you're not where you should be, it leads you to sorrow.

3.     Blessed are the meek.  As we receive the desire to change we become more humble and teachable.

4.     Blessed are those who hunger and Thirst after righteousness.  We should begin to act on our desire to change and actively look and seek for good things.

5.     Blessed are the merciful.  God will forgive us of our sins, but we must also forgive ourselves.

6.     Blessed are the pure in Heart.  After having followed the previous steps you can feel the change in your heart as you are living a pure life.

7.     Blessed are the peacemakers.   Its not enough just to find peace, once you have it God expects you to share it.

8.     Blessed are the persecuted.  You become the most vulnerable when opening up to spread the gospel and the news of peace and joy.   Now the question is, How do you respond?  Can you respond in a Christ-like manner.

·      These steps create a spiral staircase up to heaven, it’s a process that we have repeat over and over again.  Yet the more we repeat it, the further up we are on the staircase.

This new perspective on the be-atitudes has completely changed my way of thinking.  Christ gave us a step-by-step ladder of what we should be doing constantly in our lives (for this is a process that we must repeat over and over again).  I know that as we humble ourselves and start up this spiral staircase, that one day we will reach heaven!

I´m sure there are times when all of us have prayed and felt that we didn't receive an answer.  We constantly testify that God hears our prayers and will answer them, yet why are there still those moments when you don't get a "yes" or "no" answer like you want?  It struck me deeply in class when we studied Christ's reaction to the Caananite women who came to Him, begging for His help.  In Matthew 15 it tells us, "But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us."  Jesus answered her with Silence.  Why?  This woman then shows great faith and she submissively and meekly continues to beg for His help.  Her faith led to this miracle.  Richard G. Scott told us in his 2007 April General conference talk that we can receive answers in 3 ways, we will receive a confirmation telling us the right path, or we will feel that it is wrong, or we will not feel anything.  When silence is the answer it is because God trusts us. He is putting faith in us that we know how to make the decision, and if we don't He won't let us go far before telling us "no".  If God trusts us enough to let us make our own decisions, then we need to start believing in ourselves.  We have the light of Christ, that gives us direction of what is right and what is wrong.  I believe that light also guides us in our life-decisions.  We still need to pray about all our doings and decisions, God will guide us; maybe not with a strong, loud "yes" but He will guide us through our thoughts and feelings.  And He will be there watching us all along as we go about making decisions for ourselves.

In all of the miracles that Jesus performed the one that strikes me the most is when He walked on water.  In the midst of a stormy sea Jesus approaches His disciples who had been struggling all day to navigate and row their boat in the middle of a terrible storm.  When His disciples see Him and He tells them its Him, Peter responds "Lord...bid me come unto thee on the water".  So Peter gets out of the ship and begins walking toward Jesus.  He does fine as long as He is looking at Jesus, but the moment he looks away, worrying about the storm he begins to sink.  This truly is like all of us.  As long as we're walking toward Christ with our gave unfailingly toward Him, we are safe. Yet the moment we begin to worry about what's going on around us, what people say or think, worrying to much about our problems, etc., that is the moment that we will begin to sink.  The words Jesus says to Peter cut to the core, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" -Matt 14:31.  Peter may have just walked on water but Jesus was not about to patronize Him and congratulate him.  Jesus always stretches people further.  He knows our potential and that we are capable of so much more.  Peter had a lot of faith in Christ yet he still had work on expanding that faith.  So like Peter, we all have faith, all at different levels, but we all need to keep working to increase that faith.  And as we do so, we just need to remember to always look to Jesus and He will pull us up out of the stormy sea.