Crushed to Extract Oil

So, I haven't yet received my March Ensign and Friend. I've been hankerin' to read them! I actually read one of the articles online last week. It was the one about tackling Food Storage in a more economical and day to day sort of way.

Today I felt compelled to read more from my Ensign, but still don't have it (though they are sending me another since I've never received mine). I planned to read another really great article relating to food storage. Before I could get to it, though, I felt like I just had to read the article by Thomas S. Monson. They were both awesome! I have to mention, because I was hit by it harder than I anticipated, that one particular - OFT quoted struck me harder than ever because it was followed by the verse just after it in the scripture. I've heard the first innumerable times, but didn't recall the other and MAN did it sink deep.

Sure, I ask for things I believe Father wants for me, my family, and others, but it's often not "nothing wavering"! In the studies about the brain and how thought effects reality, I've learned this to be true in the knowledge of Men. To see it in scripture has meant far more to me than all those studies combined. We are SO lucky!!

The Ten Virgins article (the other prepraredness article I read today) was awesome. It's actually what I was referring to in my title. The thing that pierced my soul about this article was that, "Olives are first soaked in water to clean them and purge them of their bitterness, and then they are crushed to extract their oil." Perhaps this is the explanation I've needed to understand why I often feel SO weighed down. The olives were pretty much useless, I would imagine, after the pressing. It was the oil that the operator was after. In my mind the extension from literal to figurativemeans that, for people, the oil press is not meant to completely squash the being into uselessness, but to extract our purity (just like the refiner's fire), which enable us to have more "spiritual oil" for the late arrival of the bridegroom. I'm sure you already knew it, but it's a wonderful and helpful revelation for me! ^_^ I hope my Ensign arrives soon!

Thankfully I have a few Friends and many Ensigns from my Mom, so I haven't been lacking in reading material to feed my soul in the application sort of way that I love my Church magazines for... but the current mags feed differently, I think. While I've read a number of pertinent things in the older magazines, the few articles I've read in March's Ensign have been just what I needed to know right now. Amazing how that works most months!!! :)