The sacrament and radiating inner light

I have a favorite dress. I've had it for about four months and I always feel in danger of wearing it too often because I love it so much. I have probably worn it about eight times to church now. I've never really gotten a comment on it before, until this past week.

This past Sunday, I got eight compliments on my dress. Well, seven on my dress, and one on my "aura." "You just shine today!" this sister said to me.

And I believe I did! I believe that people who noticed my dress this past week only thought they had noticed my dress. When you don't recognize inner light upon spiritual sight, it kind of seems like there's "just something about" a person. It can be easy to dismiss a person's glowing light as just them looking nice in their clothes or something. It all comes back to the ability to recognize what you're looking at.

So what made this past week different?

Last Saturday night, I prayed to have as much of God's wisdom transferred to me as I was able to handle. I did feel and later measured a change, however small. But that next day, as I sat at the organ during the sacrament (I'm the ward organist), I prayed for a new heart to match my recent spiritual growth and wisdom upload. I envisioned giving up my old heart, and receiving the new one, the new one that was just that much better.

From here.

I felt different.

I suppose I looked different too. At least, judging by the amount of comments I received on my external appearance.

The sacrament is becoming much more meaningful to me now that I am so much better able at taking advantage of it. Receiving a new heart with additional light is something we can all do every week by partaking of the sacred sacramental ordinance, the bread and water representing the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. For me, I don't think I really even began to understand a fraction of how the sacrament can work until just recently--and I am still learning so much. I know I have barely scratched the surface.

This week, I challenge you to make a lasting spiritual change in your life. Collapse a heart wall. Commit wholeheartedly to following the Spirit the first time, every time. If you haven't read the Book of Mormon, do it! It's short and the most correct of any book on Earth--it will bring you closer to God than any other book on Earth. It complements and supports the Holy Bible.

 Whatever you do, commit to change in a way that brings you closer to God. And then ask for a new heart to match. Let's all clear out the old darkness in our hearts by trading out old hearts in for new ones.

Side note: in my healing work, I recently felt impressed to replace a client's heart with a new one, like this, and he later told me how the next day, at work, a coworker told an off color joke that the client normally would have found hilarious--it wasn't funny anymore, but offensive. There is so much power in actually praying for a new heart, and then visualizing it happening. It really does make a difference.