The Two Superpowers Everyone Has: Who We Are and the Power to Change .

Of all the tricks of the adversary, the most insideous is the ploy to dissolve our love for ourselves as God's children, the plot to create disdain and hatred for the body we have and ignorance for the divinity within. The messages "only human", "only that which we can use the five senses to identify are real", etc. Are some of the most evil messages that so many accept without question. It is interesting that he seeks to instill in us his hatred and have us own it as our own, pitting us against ourselves and God, disdaining the very things that he cannot ever have and that God gave us with the profoundest love and faith.


The act of creating us and giving us the power to chose was one of the greatest acts of faith, ever. Imagine the faith He has in us to give us all the power to co-create with him in the human family. Because of the massive numbers of people born everyday, we sometimes think it commonplace that we are able to have children. I had one doctor, in CA, that told me "Don't ever let anyone tell you that babies are a biological result. There are too many millions of things that can go wrong in the creation of each child. Each child born is a miracle." I believe that with all my heart.


If the adversary can denigrate the act of creation, if he can create doubt as to it's divine ordination (God created the pathway into this world, marriage, man and woman, etc.), if he can make that process vulgar, dark, ego/baser instinct driven, separate from creation itself he can denigrate the life of the being itself he can undermine our perception of self-worth and our worth to God. When the origin ceases to be seen as sacred, so does the result. Each person and each being is sacred and the way they enter or leave this world is also sacred. Additionally, when the result (human life) is treated lightly the process by which it is brought to pass is also treated lightly.


It seems to me that their are doorways in the eternal scheme of things and they are considered sacred to God. Entering this world, entering His kingdom, entering the level of creation in His kingdom (marriage; the divinely ordained doorway to creation of families), leaving this life and entering the next have all been carefully outlined as to their proper order and in some cases reserved to His omniscient discretion only (only He determines the time to leave this life and enter the next). Each of these laws can be broken because of our agency, but we feel the consequences of them most severely. Clearly there is something written even into our physical DNA that tells us these things are sacred. It seems throughout history that societies that ceased to hold these things sacred also ceased to thrive and eventually to exist.


The key to LIFE is holding life sacred. It is to hold sacred what God holds sacred, to protect what He holds sacred and adhere to His laws.

It is not to hold mortality sacred, but to hold life itself sacred, the eternal being, existence and divine destiny. (Destiny as in our divine potential, not as in a predetermined path we have no choice but to follow) In the scriptures we are given a pattern, an ideal, guidelines that help us while in this mortal state to position us in God's hands and keep us moving toward our divine potential, a greater result than we can comprehend in mortality.


In this sacred path we walk, called life, we have the sacred responsibility to love, serve, obey, and change when necessary (and pain gives us the clue when change is needed) always moving us closer to God (our destiny) unless we cease to walk that path and chose another. Miraculously, we are able to change paths at almost any time and return to follow the path of our divine destiny. If I were to draw a picture it would be where paths diverge and we may go miles away from the path of our divine inheritance, but the Savior creates bridges and connecting roads so we can return to the correct path. Sometimes, it has felt more like being lifelighted from the destructive path to the creative, progressive path (divine potential, inheritence, or destiny).


What a desceptive adversary we have that will sometimes use our intention to help and to nurture, accept, and unite as a means of pulling us to a path of spiritual destruction, effectually damning our progress on the right path. Though, a part of the miracle of the atonement is that the pain and wreckage of our journey in the wrong direction are sanctified through Him for our benefit and become our wings instead of our wounds. The same is true when we have remained on the path and yet suffered from the behaviors of others on destructive paths.


I have been privileged in my life to be able to witness the journey of two brothers who decidedly took paths of destruction and through truth and love were returned to the path of divine potential. I have been hurt by their actions while on the other path and simultaneously been blessed to avoid the turn-offs that they took. I have learned unconditional love by holding fast to God and His guidance while loving them completely (never denying the darkness of their actions, but loving the good and inherent divinity in them even while that divinity was burried by their choices). Having taken my own wrong turns I have learned the value of friends and family members who stood strong in convictions of truth, never justifying my actions or attitudes. They provided and anchor, even when it hurt. I have learned that the worste thing you can do to a person struggling against sin is provide the adversary with another voice by telling them it is okay, or that it is who they are, or that it isn't their fault (which also means they have no power to overcome it). I have learned that the best way to help is always the most truthful, the most accountable, and the most loving.


In holding me accountable for my choices (including the way I let others make me feel) and reminding me of the healing and saving power of the atonement, my friends and mentors have offended me at times, but have helped me remember who I REALLY am: a daughter of God, empowered to chose, to heal and to recover through the Savior. I pray in raising my children that God helps me to remember who they are so course corrections can be made without accidentally giving them the impression that what they've done (their moment(s) of weakness) are who they are. More than anything what we all need is to remember that we are God's children and Christ died for us. Nothing can be more empowering than the truth of our being and the strength and power of Christ to heal, to cleanse (which is honestly healing), and to resurrect, a power extended to each of us as we choose to accept it.


We are divine AND human and there is a GREAT deal of reality beyond what we can detect with the five senses. If the evidence we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell tells us otherwise, we have not looked far enough into it, we have not gotten all the facts. I invite you to seek further.




Liz King Bradley

(Side note: I truly believe that what empowered early scientists to discover what they did was their knowledge of God and their adherence to what they knew was true. In finding results that seemed contradictory, they kept going to find the truth that coincided with the truth they already knew, rather than the mistaken practice of our modern society to throw out divine doctrine if it doesn't align with the limited knowledge of scientific evidence.)