Jesus Made Butterflies For You
The great calm in creating lasting resolutions with the Lord.
Hi, & welcome! My name is Jae—I’m Filipino-American, a wife to a goofy husband, and a doge mum. I like to share personal treasures of wisdom from my life, especially mental health as a Latter-Day Christian. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. You can find me on Facebook (and more to come!) You’re more than welcome to share whatever resonates with you. Thank you for being here. 💌
As I write this I don’t have a title in mind yet. Usually I would know the title but I felt that I would know after writing this chunk first (and I did haha). I prayed this morning and felt impressed to write something on my blog today. I asked the Lord what I should write about and He told me that I will know when I start writing.
I obviously haven’t written a post in almost two months and I don’t want to use my precious energy to react harshly towards myself about it. The holiday celebrations are over and I’ve slowly taken off my holiday hat. Almost immediately, in the start of a new year, I thought about changes I could make. You know, the famous ‘new year’s resolutions’ - It always sounded exciting to me when I start them, however these goals seem to disappear or get lost in the wind as the year goes by.
I am SO sure it’s not just me. In fact, I have experienced many cases of forgotten goals that I wanted to achieve (mostly made in beautifully curated lists that I would make in January), and now that I look back - those goals did not match up to my soul’s flow, pace, and energy. I would make goals in the reflection of something outward. I unconsciously would make goals in comparison to what I see on the media, my community, etc. Something outside of me. I would unconsciously make goals based on how relevant and successful they looked on others, which always looked inspiring (and that never hurt anyone, I thought).
Well, I forgot how this clicked in my brain—new year’s resolution is another wonderful form of an individual’s daily mindful faith unto repentance1 in Jesus Christ and His loving Atonement.
When I started thinking about resolutions this way, it hit me that God wants to be in every part of our transformation. I think of a butterfly’s process from beginning to their first flight in wings unique to each kind. I realized I saw many butterflies around me, with different patterns of growth that seemed beautiful, inspiring—an innate, nature’s rhythm that would specifically work just for them as an individual, and no one else. Not even me. I mean, it could be closely similar in some ways, but never exactly the same.
The Lord created every butterfly’s growth process, even guided them in seasons of change and migration to fill the measure of their creation2 and for His purposes. The Lord can guide you in your unique process too because He knows you perfectly like He knows His butterflies.
I was creating goals that were good, some I would say are righteous desires. Something could always be good, some could be better. However, when we inquire of our Father in Heaven, He can guide and direct us to what’s perfectly suitable and fit to our soul’s ever growing nature. Because of Him, we can turn any goal into something attainable, achievable, approachable, and create an incomprehensibly bright reality. (Oh! Have you heard of SMART goals? I created a realistic one for this year. Just one though, lol)
Another thing that popped to mind is a social media post from President Nelson, beginning of year 2022.
I’m sure many of you are setting aside time today to write down your resolutions for the coming year. May I make a few suggestions?
First, resolve to strengthen your spiritual foundation. This may involve setting a specific time and place to study the scriptures, praying more often, making temple worship a bigger priority, and letting God prevail in all aspects of your life.
Second, resolve to be kind to others. When the Savior Jesus Christ visited the Americas, as recorded in the Book of Mormon, one of the first things He taught was the need to eliminate contention in our lives. So, please be compassionate, be understanding, be slow to judge, and be quick to forgive.
Third, resolve to be resolute. The Lord loves effort. The Lord loves consistency. The Lord loves steadfastness. While we surely will come up short from time to time, our persistent efforts to hear Him and follow the inspiration He gives us will help us to “wax strong in the Spirit” (Mosiah 18:26).
May God bless you, my dear friends, and may this be a wonderful year of purpose and possibilities for all of us.
Stuff that made my creative heart scream in awe in lately—
🍯 Create by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
🍯 Steps to Persisting Through Failure from a Bestselling Author by Paige Sommer (I haven’t finished this one, but I thought you might like it!)
For music lovers (or not), I highly recommend listening to this. This song has been the one I turn to the most whenever I need His comfort and presence. I hope it can do the same for you. I LOVE this song. The first time I heard of it was from Girls Camp. ♡
I just wanted to be transparent that I would be putting up paywalls for MOST of my content very soon. I am considering a few things I could add (or not) for my paywall content and you will definitely see me experimenting with it here and there. Yes, there would be (limited) free content available as well. And honestly, I’m kind of scared— but I know that this would be my way of growing my confidence in my creative work with God. I want to thank those who have supported me here! I hope you know that anything you can kindly contribute (even just being here) helps me to provide for my family and the precious work that I do here. I love, love doing this work with you, and Him.
Question: Would you like me to create voice notes on my blog posts for you guys?
Never hesitate to let me know what more you’d like me to create! — All my love, Jae♡