Jennifer Platt - Living Your Covenants Every Day

For Jed,
the man I am determined to be eternally bound to.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Platt, Jennifer Brinkerhoff, 1971 author.

Living your covenants every day : bound and determined to be a daily disciple / Jennifer Brinkerhoff Platt.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60907-336-7 (hardbound : alk. paper) 1. CovenantsReligious aspectsThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 2. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsDoctrines. 3. Book of Mormon. Nephi, 2nd, IX. I. Title.

BX8657.P53 2013

231.7'6dc232012049362

Printed in the United States of America
Edwards Brothers Malloy, Ann Arbor, MI

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

It seems that most everyone I meet is living an unexpected life. Certainly life is turning out differently from what we imagined it would be when we were young. Yet recognizing and acknowledging the choices we make each day helps us to celebrate the incremental movement we are making toward our ultimate goal of eternal life.

This book is focused on living our covenants each daydeliberately and intentionally. I draw upon various experiences from my life and the lives of those I know that help me to remember what matters most: creating a life of discipleship. These are my real-life experiences that resulted from real heartfelt need. I invite you to consider your own real-life experiences and how the Lord customizes them specifically for you and your sanctification.

Each chapter has homework assignments and supplementary reading; it is my hope that the Spirit will customize your experience to minister to your needs in His own time. We are bound to God through our covenants; let us be determined to live them intentionally every day.

Taking Control of Our Lives

There have been times when Ive been very unhappy with my life. Although my life was full of many good things, by the time I turned thirty-seven, I was tired and bored. On paper, I had a lot going for me. My life was full of many good things. But I was disappointed and disillusioned with what wasnt happening in my life. Despite efforts to fill my days (and nights) with service, there was an ache for something more. A series of failed relationships haunted me, and marriage seemed completely unattainable. In an attempt to come to terms with the reality of my life, I resigned myself to falsely believing that God had an alternate plan of salvation for me that included marriage in the next life. I was paralyzed by feelings of apathy and disappointment. I was going through the motions in every aspect of my life rather than really living or thriving. I was numb.

Is There More?

I was desperate to find peace, and trusted that the Lord had more in store for me. That trust was important; it gave me a desire to change and a willingness to act. I was committed to doing whatever the Lord asked of me, believing He would speak to me and lead me to whatever I needed to do differently. After all, I had worked throughout my life to come to know His voice through gentle and sometimes nearly indiscernible promptings. This desire for change gave me a heightened awareness of the amount of time I had spent making conditional deals with the Lord, bargaining for a desired outcome based on my behavior. Efforts to protect my heartand not have to push out of my comfort zonehad created a life that allowed me to pass time doing those things I could control. Or at least I thought I could control. The reality was that I was miserable and totally out of control.

Recognizing a need to change, I planned a two-and-a-half week trip to the Holy Land with the intent of pushing myself totally out of my comfort zone. My desire was to open my heart to an honest exploration of every aspect of my relationship with Christ as I traveled. I had a new willingness to do whatever He wanted me to do. I was ready to listen and act.

After a day of exploring Jerusalems Old City, I found myself sitting on the Mount of Olives, studying the city wall. In this quiet moment of reflection and journaling, I wrote an unexpected message to myself: Go back to school and get your PhD. As quickly as I wrote it, I began crossing it out. Was this really what God wanted me to do? My commitment to act on every prompting was suddenly attacked by a lifetime of insecurities. I was quick to dismiss what I was feeling; my most overwhelming emotion was one of being completely and totally stupid. An internal struggle commenced between the surge of energy I felt every time I set foot on a college campus and my feelings of total inadequacy.

I wrestled with the prompting: A doctoral degree? I didnt even know what that entailed. I had earned a masters degree through a university evening extension program. It had been a relatively easy process, and because it had not required extreme effort on my part, I dismissed it. Earning a masters degree did not make me smart. The way the masters program was structured made it easy, or so I thought. Besides, I concluded, it couldnt have been a legitimate program because it didnt require a general entrance exam. Only smart people can pass those exams, I told myself. However, I had promised the Lord that I would act on whatever prompting came to me in my pursuit of seeking His will. I knew I needed to make plans to go back to school.

When I got back home, between jet lag and the passing of a few weeks time, I started to talk myself out of the idea. I rationalized my doubts with thoughts that I hadnt really felt the prompting, or that the prompting was contextual. It wasnt really what the Lord wanted for me, was it?

Pushing Through Fear

Several weeks after this initial nudge, a new acquaintance asked me why I wasnt working on my PhD. I was surprised by the directness of this unexpected questioning; as a result, my initial emotion was defensiveness and anger. How dare someone ask me about something I believed God was asking me to do? He pressed me with questions such as: Why havent you pursued a degree? What are you planning to study and research? Where will you attend school? All of the questions were proactive and forward-thinking.

He started whittling away at my insecurities by focusing my attention on the smaller details of the process. All of a sudden the prospect of working on a doctoral degree didnt seem as far-fetched and impossible. More than that, this man believed in me. He saw something in me that I only hoped to see.

I went back to school. I got a PhD. It was the hardest thing Ive ever done. It seemed that every day was a battle of self-doubt, plagued with feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Id wonder things like: