Feeling wonderfully blessed.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday reading, when I wasn’t napping or knitting. I am well into 1 Nephi in my Reader’s Edition of the Book of Mormon. [I am in Helaman in the audio version which plays in Lorelai as I drive to work.] Some of the local singles have fired up a BoM readalong, which jibes nicely with my spiritual boot camp mindset.

I also read several articles in the June issue of “The Ensign”; I do not know how that magazine can continue to get better and better and better. When I was young[er] and up to my ears in children and broke and depressed, “The Ensign” was part of my lifeline to the outer world. I devoured each issue when it arrived monthly. Would literally drop everything [except for the nursing baby] and read it from cover to cover before handing it over to the children’s father.

It was so nice to read the June visiting teaching message without squirming. I am making varying amounts of progress in the realm of self-reliance. For the first time in my life, I have a budget that appears to be working. There is a little bit in my checking account the day before payday, sometimes not much, but I am seeing that specific blessing which comes from paying an honest tithe: “enough and to spare”. I had some expenses a couple of weeks ago (right after the I have $500 in savings! post) which I took care of out of my savings, and not by hitting my line of credit.

I have been saying no, more consistently, to the crazy-busy-ness and striving to get more sleep, and more rest.

There have been some major challenges this month and a whole raft of minor ones, and they have brought me to tears, but they have also turned my heart more closely to Heaven. And for that, if not for the challenges per se, I am grateful.

This time next year, I anticipate being debt-free, with a growing savings account and a greater ability to follow generous impulses.

The First Presidency message this month is on the blessings of tithing, and how tithing prepares us to live a consecrated life. He lists three ways that obedience to this principle helps us to have the sorts of feelings that people who claim to be Christian should have. [If you want to know what a modern-day prophet would say to you if you bumped into him, read the article; we sustain the president of our church, his two counselors, and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators.]

OK, time for breakfast and a modicum of laundry, after which I will come home and curl up on the couch with my books, my iPod, and my knitting. How thankful I am for my father, who fought in WWII so that I could grow up in freedom.