Kyra Moon

 

I have been writing short essays about the Come, Follow Me topic for the past several weeks. If you are looking for something else to read, check these out! https://kyramoon.substack.com/

Raphael came to paint the Nativity scene.

Today, I'm grateful for toilets and running water. If you want to stop reading there, go for it. Because what follows is an assortment of thoughts that have been floating around my brain for a few weeks. Bear with me. To me, one of the most important requirements for civilization is a good wastewater system. When you are living by yourself or with just a few people, you don't need a fancy system. If there's no one else nearby to worry about, you can probably figure out a way to get rid of it that doesn't make you sick. But as soon as you get a lot of people living close to each other, you need a good system or there will be a lot of water-borne illness. So when a city has figured that out, I count that as a huge success, one that will really allow people to get out of poverty because they won't be dying of cholera or dealing with hookworm. (Look up Lowndes County, Alabama. It's a problem there.) When a society can handle something this unpleasant in a sanitary w

 I once read of someone who believed something but after a lot of prayer and scripture study and temple attendance concluded he was wrong. For me, I began where he ended but after a lot of prayer and scripture study and temple attendance concluded that my original belief (where he ended) was wrong. I'm not here to say whether he's right or I'm right (and we are both allowed to change our minds). But it does make me think that God does care about us knowing truth but He also wants us to have a journey to find it. He wants us to challenge our assumptions and soften our hearts. He wants us to approach Him with curiosity. And of course, some things should be rocks. And I would rather stand on a rock that doesn't move. But if I have to drink unfamiliar water, I'd rather drink water from a moving source than a stagnant source. And I hope that someday we'll all be able to drink the best moving, living Water -- springing forth from an unchanging Rock.

  Note: this is one of my Holy Week posts. And it deals with a lot of heavy pregnancy topics. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent." -Psalms 22:1-2 There were a few weeks when I did everything I could possibly think of to keep the fetus alive last summer. It seems almost silly now, thinking of what I tried to do in hopes that maybe, maybe the swelling in her would go down. First, I refused the X-ray at the dentist because I couldn't bear the thought that the trace radiation would do anything to her. (Perhaps it was good I refused it because it turns out I had two cavities that I would not have wanted to worry about back then.) I then cut out sugar, figuring that  the sugar could possibly be causing inflammation of some kind (while knowing of course that her swelling was because of her body, not mine)

 Boyd K. Packer once said, "Romantic love is not only a part of life, but literally a dominating influence of it. It is deeply and significantly religious." I've been thinking about this quote for several weeks now. I know that for many people romantic love is not part of their lives, and they still live happy, fulfilling lives. I don't think it is necessarily the dominating part of life even for people in a romantic relationship for much of their lives. But I still think there's something special about romantic love, even if it's never reciprocated. I think it's one of the first great introductions to Christlike love. After all, there's more to having a crush than feeling warm and tingly when you're close to the person. More to it than always wanting to be with them. More to it than lying awake thinking about them. There's also this element of surrender, this feeling that you would do anything for them. I remember this feeling well with variou