Elder Christofferson approached belonging from a doctrinal perspective with practical application to belonging.  That approach confirmed what we’ve been discussing here for years on Joy in the Journey Radio.  But it also enlightened my understanding of what it means to belong.  It’s easier to feel belonging when we truly understand the doctrine of belonging.

Elder Christofferson begins by listing the three parts of the doctrine of belonging: “the role of belonging in gathering the Lord's covenant people, the importance of service and sacrifice in belonging, and the centrality of Jesus Christ to belonging.”  Let’s talk about how each of these parts relates to LDS singles.

As the Lord gathers His covenant people across the world, we’d expect, as Elder Christofferson rightly notes, Church membership to become more diverse.  We see that diversity today in every conceivable way, including life situation.  This diversity offers great strength and richness but also great challenge as our biological hardwiring influences us to compare ourselves with others in order to assess how “normal” we are.

Without context, such comparisons can demoralize and depress us.  Elder Christofferson illustrated this effect in the story of Jody King, a married woman confronting infertility.  As I listened to the heartrending emotions expressed in Sister King’s experience, I recognized a great parallel.  You could change the details of her story from would-be-mother to would-be spouse, and the emotions would stay the same.  We need to see less of the details differentiating us and more of our commonality as children of God.

Elder Christofferson recognized that need when he taught,

We too should care about what others around us are becoming more than what they are today.

In addition, we gain a sense of belonging within the Church as we serve and contribute to the larger Church community.  This makes obvious sense and yet the realization of its truth escapes many of us precisely because it is so simple.

We feel like we belong to a larger group when we do what those in the group do.  Singles don’t do everything marrieds do (or at least they shouldn’t), and that distinction highlights the earlier distinction of identity (“I’m single and you’re married”) that destroys any feeling of belonging.

But serving one another is something everyone can do.  Being true to as many covenants as one’s made is something everyone can do.  When everyone serves everyone else and turns their focus there, we see ourselves more doing what the group does and foster the sense of belonging we crave.

Elder Christofferson recognized this truth as he shared,

How often have we singles focused excessively on our own unmet needs?  Think back to such a moment in your life and consider whether you felt like you belonged to the larger Church community in that moment.  However legitimate your unmet needs, focusing there always leads to feelings of isolation and abandonment, not belonging.

Of course, the highest and most important sense of belonging comes through Christ.  We best promote that sense of belonging by nourishing a personal relationship with Him.  We must spend time with Him daily.

As I think back upon my many years of LDS singles life, I can remember many struggles with finding acceptance within my peer group.  What helped me the most in those times was remembering He Who “came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11).  Leveraging my struggle to feel closer to the Lord has helped me feel more belonging to Him, the only sense of belonging that really matters in the end.

Elder Christofferson displayed that perspective as he declared,

LDS singles must live the doctrine of belonging in order to thrive and experience maximum joy despite their circumstances.  As we identify as members of the covenant, strive to keep those covenants while serving one another, and spend time daily nourishing our relationship with the Lord, we can gain a sense of belonging to Him and His Church.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

We all judge too much by what we see directly around us, and this feature especially manifests itself in dating.  Far too often LDS singles look around for someone they’d like to date and, not seeing what they define as acceptable, quickly become discouraged.  That scene repeated often enough leads to hopelessness in the future.

Bright futures start with faith.  Faith helps you see what’s there but not readily seen.  In the context of dating, this could mean, first, you don’t see that acceptable candidates around you because they aren’t doing what you normally do and going where you normally go.  When you branch out and see new vistas, you’re more likely to cross paths with them.  The world is a bigger place than your own backyard.

Second, faith helps you see the person you discounted may be the one you’re looking for.  So many singles insist on having the “perfect” partner that they reject knowing many less-than-top-shelf candidates who’d make good partners.  Falsely assuming only the best can produce joy in life has kept and continues to keep many LDS singles single long than need be.

Lack of hope in the future often attends feeling powerless.  A focus there will lead only to despair.  To change your reality, you must change your focus.  Instead of focusing on the “evidence” for why what you want won’t happen, seek out reasons to believe.

Those reasons to believe will be easier to embrace when you take proper action.  I’ve never seen anyone busy working to make his or her dreams a reality feeling powerless, and neither have you.  That’s because it’s impossible.  When you busy yourself with the business of doing, you’re so immersed in evidence of your own power you can’t feel powerless.  It’s when you’re not doing anything that feelings of powerlessness can take hold.

Start feeling that power and savoring your life by listing what makes up your best life.  If you could have your best life, what would it look like?  What would you be doing?  Put those activities on your list.  Then start to fill your calendar with those activities.

So if you think your best life involves horse riding, great.  When are you going to ride that horse?  If you think your best life involves learning how to crochet, great.  When will you learn that?  Whatever you want your life to be, start doing what you can to live that life.  Don’t let what you lack prevent you from embracing — and finding joy in — what you already have.

While you’re making that list, don’t forget to partner with the Lord.  When you include Him in crafting your best life, you’ll get there much more easily than if you go it alone.  He might even help you see that what you think is your best life really isn’t.  Make the course correction He suggests, and you’ll not leave any joy on the table.

The key to maximizing joy in life is focusing on fundamentals.  Far too many LDS singles focus on finding ways to cross paths with that special someone, all the while forgetting that if they aren’t agreeable enough, no quantity of paths crossed will produce the desired result.  When you focus first on living your best life as much as you can, you make yourself more agreeable and your life more inviting.  That life is also the more joyful one, and that joy will only increase your attractiveness to a potential companion.

The future really is as bright as your faith.  When you focus on fundamentals, you can take more effective action.  More effective action produces more effective results.  More effective results will help you feel more powerful and desirous to do more, and thus the cycle continues ever upward.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

There really was nothing wrong with me, but there was something wrong with my thinking.  Despite seeming natural, these sorts of comparisons with others are never fair.  And I wasn’t alone there; many LDS singles unwittingly compare themselves to others.  But you should compare you with you and no one else.

Comparing yourself to others is inherently unfair.  We all have different backgrounds, different knowledge, different experiences, different ways of seeing the world.  Comparing yourself with others is like comparing apples and oranges.  They’re both fruits, but beyond that they have few similarities.

Yet recognizing that no good comes from that comparison doesn’t stop anyone from doing it.  Why does it seem so natural to compare ourselves with others?  Why are we so prone to make these comparisons despite their inherent unfairness?

The answer is biology.  We’re all biologically hardwired with a basic desire to be loved and accepted.  Since like begets like, that desire translates into a desire to be normal, to fit in, to belong.  And so part of our biological hardwiring assesses what’s normal by comparing ourselves with those around us.

Think of that system as a sort of thermostat.  We set our “temperature” to match the “temperature” of those around us so we’ll be like them and therefore fit in.  This is why fat people who hang out with fat people find it hard to lose weight and fat people who hang out with skinny people find it easier to lose weight.  In both cases, biology prompts the individual to be more like those whom that individual spends substantial time.

The same biological hardwiring works in any situation, including the one in which LDS singles feel like Moroni as they watch their friends leave singles life one by one.  They feel out of place because they’re not like those around them.  Time’s progressing, but they don’t seem to be.

How do you deal with such situations?  If your biological hardwiring has you wanting to be like those around you, and you find yourself stuck and unable to be like those around you, are you doomed to a miserable existence?  My response?  Only if you want to be.

You can’t change your biological hardwiring, but you can redirect its influence.  First, recognize both your propensity to compare and the inherent unfairness in comparing yourself with others.  Then accept comparisons only between you and you.  Every time you find yourself comparing you with anyone else, stop, remind yourself how unfair that comparison is, and then compare you with you.

Essentially, you compare the person you are today with the person you were previously.  It may be the person you were last year, last month, last week, yesterday, or even earlier today.  But if you can see a reasonable improvement between the previous and present you, you’re making progress.  And that’s what really matters.

Of course, simply making progress doesn’t necessarily satisfy the basic need to belong, especially if everyone one around you isn’t comparing them with them.  But that just highlights the need to choose with caution those with whom you choose to spend your time.  Maximize your time around others who’ll help you compare you with you, and minimize your time around others who won’t.

In the end, it won’t matter whether you did this or that within whatever time frame as much as whether the you at the end is better than any previous you, because that will mean you made progress along the eternal path.  And making progress along that path will mean your time spent in mortality was worthwhile.

Stop comparing yourself with others.  They don’t have the same combination of background, knowledge, experience, and perspective you have.  For all we share in common, our individual experience in mortality really is individual.  So compare you with you and no one else.  You’ll turn your focus more on making the progress you need to make, and that focus will then determine a reality of progress.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Yet the theme of broadening the definition of motherhood once more captures my attention.  Especially among singles, we see women who haven’t given birth to children complain about how celebrating Mother’s Day simply rubs in their face the dream they want but don’t have.

The truth is you don’t need to birth a child to be a mother.  But for many, that’s easier said than believed.  So this Mother’s Day, let’s honor motherhood by helping everyone believe that.  Let’s help our single sisters identify themselves as the mothers they are for the care they show to others.  Let’s honor those who play motherly roles to others — the mothers we don’t see.

I call them “the mothers we don’t see” not because we’re blind to them.  Of course we physically see them.  But too often we’ve not seen these women as mothers because they have no children of their own.  We need to see these women for the mothers they already are.

Yes, they haven’t borne children, but they do have children who love them for the care these good women show them.  Some of these women are Primary teachers or school teachers who find great fulfillment by “adopting” the children of others.  And yet other single sisters show great care to grown children of our Heavenly Father.  You don’t need to be a mortal child to appreciate the care shown by single sisters who adopt motherly roles for themselves.

Such broadened perspective reveals meaningful lives because motherhood is about something more fundamental than delivering a physical body into the mortal world.  Motherhood is about sharing love with those who need it.  And that’s something every woman can do, regardless of marital status or life circumstance.  Celebrating those women who make that choice helps everyone adopt a broader perspective on what motherhood really is.

Seeing our single sisters for the mothers they already are can also help them believe in the mothers they could be in the future.  I believe many single sisters (and many single brethren, for that matter) keep themselves from having their own children principally because they don’t believe in their own potential.  It’s always easier to believe in you when others do too.

But most people will take their cues about you from you.  So when you don’t believe in the blessings our Heavenly Father wants you to have, you radiate an energy that broadcasts what you really feel and think inside of you.  And others pick up on that energy.  They presume you’re the expert on you, so if you think you don’t have a blessed future, most will simply defer to your expertise, thereby fulfilling a type of self-fulfilled prophecy.

Think for a moment what might happen if we celebrated women not just for the motherly roles they do play but the ones they could.  We could help those sisters who haven’t believed in themselves to turn around and change course.  We could help them become the mothers they’re capable of becoming, launching loads of love into the lives of people all around.

We’re all biologically hardwired to get our sense of normal from those around us.  So when everyone around us thinks motherhood means bearing children, it’s normal for us to think likewise.

But that works in other ways too.  If everyone around us believes motherhood is really about sharing love with those who need it, then we establish a new standard for normal.  It’ll be easier to believe that’s what motherhood really is all about.  And it’s even easier to believe that when we celebrate the women who live that definition of motherhood.

So this Mother’s Day, by all means celebrate your own mother.  But let’s also celebrate the mothers we don’t see, the women who we traditionally haven’t seen as mothers but who are mothers all the same for the love they share with others in need.  More celebrations of love will encourage even more love, helping to push back the darkness of the world.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

The problem LDS singles have comes when they give too much prominence to what they want.  Then dating becomes all about satisfying their demands to the exclusion of what they have to offer.  As we discussed last week, taking your dating focus off of what you bring takes you out of alignment with the fundamentals of the dating journey.  That’s why you need balance to find the right place for what you want in dating.

As we’ve discussed more times than I can count, your focus determines your reality.  So you won’t truly enjoy your dating journey with the wrong focus.  Enjoying your dating journey requires a focus leading to that reality.

What’s that focus?  There’s a huge clue in the definition of happiness we’ve discussed so many times on this program.  Happiness is giving your all to all the right things for you.  That definition applies just as much to dating as it does to any other part of life.

Being the best complement to your eternal companion, whether or not that person is now in your life, is one of those right things for you.  And happiness comes when you give your all to that and every other right thing for you.  That’s why truly enjoyable dating is about what you bring.

Yet too often LDS singles focus solely on themselves.  They think of their dating journey as the search for what they want, so much so they think little if at all about what they bring to a potential relationship.  As we discussed last week, it’s not about what you want.  When you align yourself with the fundamentals of what you’re trying to do, you find your path to success easier.

Notice I said easier, not easy.  The propensity to approach dating with the focus of what you want is rooted mainly in the natural mindset, which will dominate you if you don’t dominate it.  And that fight for domination isn’t always easy.

That’s because the natural mindset always prioritizes self-gratification over all else.  The natural mindset also always leads to misery.  What else do you expect from a constant focus on taking in order to satiate one’s own desires?  We’ve all been around people who constantly take and give little if anything in return.  No one wants to be around those people.

We all want to be around those who constantly give and take little if anything in return.  So your dating focus should be on being that person.  Be the complement your companion needs, and you’ll more easily find the complement you need in a companion.

This isn’t to say that what you want plays no role in dating.  You’ll of course make choices in who you decide to date, both casually and exclusively.  In these two stages of the dating journey, you have many opportunities to express what you want and the individual uniqueness underlying those inclinations.

But ultimately what you want from your dating journey is a thriving, enriching relationship.  What you want is a complement.  Yet too many chase complication by focusing their efforts too much on what they want to receive and too little on what they have to give.  When you adjust your focus to align with the fundamentals of the dating journey, you’ll stop embracing complication in your dating life because you’ll quit chasing after it.

Balancing what you want in a companion and what you should be in a companion isn’t easy.  But LDS singles who strive to strike that balance center their efforts around complementation.  They focus on being a better complement for the person they want in their life.  This is the right place for what you want in dating.  When you embrace it, dating really will become more about what you bring.  You’ll find it easier to make you a better you and make your life more interesting, thereby making you more agreeable to a potential partner.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Elder Gilbert used some simple math to illustrate the Parable of the Slope.  Some of you think the words simple and math don’t really go together, but I assure you they do.  Elder Gilbert briefly explained his math, but let me offer a different explanation that may help with understanding both the simple math concept and the lesson Elder Gilbert draws from it.

Mathematically, we represent lines on a plot with two reference lines, one horizontal and the other vertical.  We commonly call the point where your line crosses the vertical reference line the intercept.  It effectively measures how far above (or below) your line is from the horizontal reference line at the position of the vertical reference line.  Elder Gilbert’s parable compares your path in life to a line drawn on a Cartesian plane, taking the intercept as a starting position.

As you proceed on your path of life, you’re line can go up or down.  Mathematically, we measure that direction with slope.  A positive slope indicates an upward direction, and a negative slope indicates a downward direction.  Which way it goes depends not on the intercept but on the slope.  Likewise in life, whether or not you achieve your potential depends not on your starting position but on your direction.

I’ve previously visited this idea of direction being more important than position.  LDS singles often evaluate potential dating candidates solely on their position, judging those with less than desired positions as disagreeable, irrespective of their direction.  But direction matters more in the end, because the person you marry isn’t the person you get today but the person you’ll get years down the road.

The importance of direction over position also gives hope to those judged as disagreeable.  You can turn any life situation around when you own your life and focus more on direction than position.  By doing what you can with what you have, you give your life a positive direction that, if maintained, will take your life into more and more agreeable territory.  As Elder Gilbert taught,

Your focus always determines your reality.  Too many LDS singles focus on what they lack — the looks, the body, the money, the talent, the whatever they think they absolutely must have to succeed — and wallowing in that discouragement, their reality is one of lack, disempowerment, and hopelessness.  Focus instead on what you have and can do, and you’ll find a reality of abundance, empowerment, and hope.

Elder Gilbert then continued with

How many times have we talked about partnering with the Lord?  He sees what we don’t see, knows what we don’t know, and loves us more than we can possibly imagine.  When you partner with Him, He’ll guide you to whatever you need to take the next step in your journey towards the enjoyment of every righteous blessing.

I’ll go more in depth in the program today and show how LDS singles can apply these ideas to their lives to have more joy every day starting today.  Even though he didn’t address singles specifically, Elder Gilbert did provide LDS singles with essential information to support the journey towards one’s best life.  I’ve found that to be true for most if not all Conference addresses.

So let’s not wait to apply the Parable of the Slope to our lives.  Let’s start today to place more value on direction than position.  Let’s focus more on what we have, what we can do, and where we’re going.  And let’s partner with the Lord for our lives.  When we do, He’ll guide us along the path leading to our best life.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

How many of us are doing that?  How many of us are taking the action needed to improve our lives?  Again, only action produces results.  And it doesn’t matter how undesired your reality is today.  You can flip any reality into something better when you flip your focus.

Some may find that a bold claim.  If you’re engulfed in your own negative experience, you’ll rightly wonder how simply looking at something different can change anything.  But we’re talking here about focusing, not just looking.

Just because you look at something doesn’t mean you’re focused on it.  When you drive a car, for example, you’ll look ahead for the most part because that’s the direction you’re going.  But occasionally, you look in your mirrors to get a sense of what’s around you.  That’s part of safe driving.  But how safe would you be looking mostly in your rear view mirror?  You’d find driving your vehicle safely difficult if you did that.

That’s the difference between focusing and seeing.  Everyone has undesired experiences in life.  Simply looking at them won’t create a negative reality.  Only when you constantly choose to keep your vision fixed on the negative are you focused on the negative.  And a focus on the negative means a reality filled with negativity.

Changing a negative reality is as simple as choosing a positive focus.  If a negative reality results from a negative focus, then a positive reality will result from a positive focus.  But how exactly does that work?

Many think reality is the collection of what happens to you, but this perspective drives a focus on what others do or don’t do, and the resulting reality is one in which you’re disempowered to change your own life for the better.

What happens to you does play a role in shaping reality, but you play a much larger role with the meaning you assign.  You’ll get a certain result depending on your actions.  And, yes, other people play a role in determining that result.  But whatever the result, you choose what that result means.  And that meaning plays a larger role in creating your reality than what others do.

The same undesired experience can come to two different people, and you can find one in complete turmoil and the other in complete peace.  The same thing happened to both, so why don’t both have the same reality?  It’s because reality is more than just what you experience; it’s also what meaning you choose to give your experience.  And the way you assign meaning is through your focus.  You choose your focus, and thereby you choose the meaning you assign to your experiences, and thereby you choose your reality.

When you understand how it all works, the ramifications can overwhelm.  If you choose your reality, then the one ultimately responsible if you don’t like your reality is you!  That realization usually precedes one of two responses: You’ll either cower back and hide, or you’ll stand up and embrace it.

Cowering can be comfortable, but that choice disempowers you, surrendering you to a victim mentality that keeps you in the prison of always blaming others for why your life isn’t what it should be.  But your best life has you empowered with a victor mentality that liberates you.  And that’s where the harder choice to stand up and embrace the truth comes in.  To have your best life, you must stand and own it.

If you don’t like your current reality, you can flip it when you flip your focus.  Stand up, own your life, and start making intentional choices to seize your power of agency and move yourself towards your best life.  You’ll feel the empowerment that comes from taking control of your life.  You’ll feel the satisfaction that comes from making progress towards your goals.  And you’ll learn how to stay positive no matter what negative experiences come your way.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Christ is of course the ultimate source of hope for anything good in this life or the next.  No matter your background or situation, there is always hope because there is always Christ.  That doesn’t mean you won’t have challenges, but it does mean every problem has some solution in Him.  With hope in Christ, you can joyfully rise above any challenge.

I especially like President Ballard’s reliance upon eternal principles of truth.  He doesn’t really talk about singles until halfway through his address.  He spends the first half laying out the foundational principles that support his remarks on singles.  That’s significant.

Equally significant is his repetition of what Elder Gong shared earlier.  The majority of LDS adults are single.  The public recognition of this demographic change precedes a new thrust by the Church to change LDS culture.  Leaders might not describe it that way, but the Church is certainly publicly reaching more after those who by definition don’t have the traditional marker of belonging in LDS culture, namely being married with kids.

And it’s more than just Conference talks.  Have you seen the Church website lately?  The website has been promoting an upcoming broadcast for singles over 30, the first ever Church-wide broadcast tailored entirely and specifically for this demographic.  There’s also an excellent article in the latest Liahona providing practical advice on helping singles feel more included at church.

This is the power of hope in Christ.  How long have I discussed in blog posts and this radio program the need to embrace a Christ-centered culture in which the mark of belonging is discipleship?  For the past seven years I’ve expressed my faith such a change would come, even amidst the challenges of feeling included in a culture that didn’t always welcome me.  And now I rejoice to see the Lord rewarding the faith I and many others have held all this time.

President Ballard extolled singles everywhere to have such faith.  Said he, “I speak of hope in Christ not as wishful thinking. Instead, I speak of hope as an expectation that will be realized. Such hope is essential to overcoming adversity, fostering spiritual resilience and strength, and coming to know that we are loved by our Eternal Father and that we are His children, who belong to His family.”

How does one achieve such hope?  It comes by faith in Christ who grants that hope to those who wait patiently upon Him.  Because faith is a principle of action, so is waiting upon the Lord.

President Ballard said as much.  He declared,

I love his declaration of increased hope through needed contribution, a concept we’ve long discussed here — the need for singles to have a personal ministry.  When you devote yourself to sharing your unique goodness and light with others, you focus on what you can do.  That focus in turn creates a reality of possibility and potential, which naturally leads to hope.

President Ballard shared other principles that engender hope — the truth no blessing will be denied those who keep covenants, the assurance blessings will be ours though we don’t know all the details, the inclusion of exaltation in God’s plan for all the willing, and faith the Lord will eventually right every wrong experienced in mortality.  Each of these principles encourage us to hold to the promise of better days ahead.

And that promise is true.  It’s not just wishful thinking.  Better days are ahead!  Whether those days come tomorrow, two years from tomorrow, or two centuries from tomorrow, better days will come.  Faith helps us to see those better days, and hope helps us hold true until those days arrive.

There is always hope because there is always Christ.  Let your hope in Christ kindle a fire of faith that promised blessings will be yours.  Let your hope in Christ inspire you to share the light of your goodness with others.  As you embrace your own personal ministry, you’ll see that light grow ever brighter and brighter.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

The rest and renewal you need won’t come to you on its own.  You need to own your life and make what you need happen.  That’s why every so often it’s good to separate yourself from your usual world and bask in the beauty of the world God gave you.

Of course, the first thing that pops into the head of most people when I say that is nature.  And yes, the natural world God created is filled with beauty.  I for one am always moved by the majestic sight of real mountains.  For me they represent so much strength I feel more confident and secure just being around them.

There’s also something refreshing in separating yourself from the artificial world people created and reconnecting yourself with the natural world God created.  For some reason I just find it easier to get grounded when I immerse myself for a time in nature.  There’s an extra renewal I gain when I reconnect with what’s most important while surrounded in natural beauty.

That’s why for the past few years I’ve held a tradition called Retreat.  Every May I plan a day for being out in nature to meditate and write.  The meditation helps me clear away everything not directly connected with the essence of my character, my true identity, and my purpose.  Writing serves as an additional filter to clear away the bad.  But writing also provides cement to solidify the good in place and fortify me to return to the artificial world renewed and ready to face the challenges that await.

Of course, you don’t need to go into the woods on a special trip to reconnect with the essential.  With enough intent, you can do that anywhere.  And you should be getting that every week with the Sabbath.

I’ve often pondered on the words of the Lord to Moses: “...for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed” (Exodus 31:17).  That final word refreshed has always caught my attention.  The Sabbath should leave me feeling refreshed.  I’ve come to learn that if I don’t feel refreshed from my Sabbath day, then I’m probably not keeping it very well.

And I find that’s more of a challenge as life goes on.  My calling keeps me busy, and often I find so much needing my attention on Sundays I wonder if the day of rest isn’t a misnomer.  But I’ve also found when I devote myself with intention to keep the Sabbath day, I do feel refreshed.  I feel renewed and ready to tackle the challenges of another grinding week.  There’s something very beautiful in that, and I can bask in that beauty every week.

There’s other beauty we can bask in regularly.  For example, raising children alone challenges many single mothers, but I’ve heard many talk about moments when they realize how blessed they are to have their children.  That’s beauty to bask in.

I could go on with other examples, but I think you get the point.  We all have challenges in our lives, things we would rather do without.  But we all also have great blessings, things we wouldn’t dream of not having.  Whatever those blessings are, those tender mercies from the Lord are there to make your life more beautiful.

When you open your eyes to see the wonder all around you, you open yourself to wonderful possibilities of joy along your road in life.  And you open the door to many more blessings God wants to give you if you will but open yourself to Him.  So bask in the beauty you have all around you.  Own your life and fill yourself with the refreshment and renewal you need.  You’ll refresh yourself in the blessings you have around you.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Then I thought I might have the wrong focus.  Maybe what I need to focus on, I thought, is focus.  After all, Mother’s Day is hard for many single sisters because of where they place their focus.  Your focus determines your reality, so when you focus on what’s missing, your reality feels like it’s missing something.  When you focus on what’s wrong, your reality can’t help but feel wrong.

But when you focus on what’s right, your reality feels right.  And that focus works not just for Mother’s Day but for every day.  So instead of letting a holiday focus you on what’s wrong or missing, use that holiday to focus on what’s right.  When you focus on the best parts of your life, it’s easier to celebrate the best in you.

Admittedly that’s a hard row to hoe when you’ve got an ideal you’re not even close to reaching pressed in your face at church.  Many wards are stepping up and exercising more sensitivity to their single members, but many wards still have a lot of work to do.  And that begs the question: What can LDS singles do when they find themselves in such a ward?

The worst that can happen is you have a horrible experience at church and then you go home and brood about it.  If church wasn’t what it should have been, why would you torture yourself further by brooding about it?  Your focus determines your reality, so wallowing in the muck of negative experience just brings you the muck of a negative reality.

Choose instead to focus on what’s right.  If church wasn’t what it should’ve been, remember babes in sacrament meeting, go home, and move on.  Have your own celebration that highlights what’s best in you.  Refuse to focus on the negative, and your reality will refuse to be negative.

That may be hard, especially if you have a habit of immersing yourself in negativity.  But like all new habits, actions become easier and more entrenched the more you practice them.  Holidays that traditionally present challenge to singles also provide opportunities to rise above those challenges.

The key is to remember that practice does not make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.  You can practice how to approach something the wrong way, and you can practice it so much it becomes a habit.  But in the end, all your habit will deliver you are less effective results.  Practice doesn’t make perfect.  Perfect practice makes perfect.

So if your habits produce less effective results, here’s some free advice: Change them!  You have the power of agency.  Use that power to play the victor, not the victim.  Change what you need on the inside so you can more readily see the changes you want to see on the outside.

Whatever holiday comes to your door, others don’t have the final say in how you feel.  You have the final say with the focus you choose for yourself.  Control your focus, and you control your reality.

It’ll be hard if you haven’t practiced perfect, but that’s OK.  That just means you need to keep trying.  Keep reaching for the light and the positive choice.  No matter what others decide, determine you will decide your focus.  Determine you’ll celebrate the best in you.

Your focus will determine your reality regardless of what you choose.  The universe obeys its laws irrespective of any of us.  Time is continually moving forward.  You can choose to use that time to embrace the negative or the positive.

The choice is yours, so make the positive choice.  Choose to celebrate the best in you each and every day.  By insisting on making your focus more and more positive, you’ll make your reality more and more positive.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.