The Book of Mormon Journal Changed My Scripture Study

A few months ago while I was interning for LDS Living, the Book of Mormon journal came out and I was seriously so excited about it. After hearing amazing things and reading really great reviews, I decided to try it out and incorporate it into my daily scripture study. I’ll just tell you right now -- it has been a game changer.

I’ve always preferred to study a hard copy of the Book of Mormon with a pen, pencil, or marker in hand. I just feel like I get more out of my study when I’m actually trying to find things to mark or comment on. I have seen the same thing in my school work too. Every time I have to read a long article or read chapters in a book, I get the most out of it when I’m holding a pen and making comments in the margins or in a notebook.

Having wide margins in my Book of Mormon has been so amazing and I have seriously learned so much! I have found so much meaning in the chapters that I have never noticed before and it has been humbling and eye-opening. But most importantly, I have come to know my Savior just a little better through the incredible stories and verses in the Book of Mormon. My testimony has never been stronger and I know I’ll look back on my notes and remember the things I felt while going through this stage of my life.

It has also been cool to go through and read the Book of Mormon like I would read an actual book or poem. When I started my degree I had to take a bunch of literature classes that consisted of reading tons of books, short stories, and poetry from as early as the 1500's to the late 1800's. I know it sounds painfully boring (and it was for the most part), but I was so surprised when I started reading the Book of Mormon consistently again and I understood everything. It was literally like I was reading a novel. I had studied such difficult literature that I finally understood what the ancient prophets were saying and it was awesome!

I also learned a lot about how to apply certain phrases and verses to my own life and I was shocked to find just how relevant the Book of Mormon is in our generation. There are so many little things we can learn from the strong people who came before us, and being able to write about how the verses apply to my life has been so incredible.

This is the copy I have. I got mine at Deseret Book, but you can also order them on Amazon! Click here to see the one I have.

Click here for the link to the grey cover and here for another version of the cute floral cover.

I also want to mention a company I found on Instagram that also makes journal editions of the scriptures, and they just came out with a copy of the New Testament. This would be incredible for the new Come, Follow Me curriculum for this year and I have heard amazing things about it. I don’t personally have a copy of the New Testament journal, but I think it would be an awesome resource for anyone wanting to dive deeper into the Come, Follow Me individual study guide. I’ll link their account below! #definitelynotsponsored

If you use any of these resources I would love to know your thoughts! Have they impacted your studies in any way? How do you use them to improve your personal testimony? I’m so excited to hear your stories! Email me at lindseychisholmblog@gmail.com and tell me how you study the scriptures!

p.s. -- This post includes a few affiliate links. If you decide to purchase a journal on Amazon through this blog post, I might receive a portion of the profits (with no cost to you, of course).

When was the first time you felt less than enough?

When was the first time you felt less than enough? Maybe you don’t remember or maybe it’s a vivid memory, but I’m going to assume that you've been there. We’ve all felt that our efforts aren’t enough. That we’re not enough for a loved one or for something great or for a giant goal or dream. But where did that complex come from? When did we decide that we were not enough?

I remember the first time I experienced “not enough” in my own life as a tiny first grader. I had a lot of great friends. In fact, I had MORE than enough. But I was also a people pleaser, and I didn’t have enough time to satisfy everyone. I didn’t have enough energy to play with all of my friends every day. I didn’t have enough hair for everyone to play with (true story), and thus, the complex of striving for more -- a surplus of enoughness -- set in.

Junior high is the actual worst and anyone who has been through it can attest. It’s a time of insecurity and finding who you are, and the feelings of not-enoughness run rampant through the halls that reek of puberty and insecurity. Not enough friends. Not enough Aeropostale t-shirts. Not enough boys interested in you. Social media wasn’t really a thing when I was in junior high, and I can’t even imagine the added layer of insecurity and not-enoughness it brings to these fragile young souls who are trying to find their place in a new, intimidating world.

Then high school comes along and things maybe get a little better, but everything becomes more real. Relationships and emotions run high and everyone is under pressure to perform for the sake of their futures. Not-enoughness rages at a whole new level in all aspects of young adults’ lives and it’s so hard to navigate. I can remember exactly where I was when I received a text from my best friend saying that I wasn’t putting enough effort into our relationship. From that point on, I was highly aware that I lacked enoughness in the friendship area. I was watching my favorite show when a boy I liked jokingly told me that my body wasn’t up to his standards, and thus, I became aware that I wasn’t attractive enough and I needed to do something about it. I took the ACT ten times because I kept telling myself that I would be enough if I just got one more point higher. I would be successful if I could just raise my score a tiny bit. My awesome score felt like a failure every time I logged into the ACT website after a test to find out I got the same score again and again and again. My score was not high enough in my eyes.

Not enough friends. Not enough self-love. Not attractive enough. Not smart enough. We’re programmed from the time we’re little to believe that what we have or what we give isn’t enough. You have good grades? Great. Now get extra credit. Go for that higher ACT score. Get into your dream college. Oh, you got in? Congratulations! Now take more classes. Get involved in more clubs. You better throw in a few hundred volunteer hours to add to your resume too. Ah, your hard work paid off and you were one of the lucky ones who landed a job. But that entry level job isn’t enough to make a comfortable living. Go for that promotion. Get that raise. Move on for better opportunities and greater success elsewhere, and the cycle rages on and on and on. And we never stop grasping for more. We crave the “extra” and tie our worth to how high we can climb in any aspect of our lives. And when we don’t reach what we’re grasping for, the not-enoughness creeps in and eats at our souls. We drown in our efforts to be more.

Don’t get me wrong -- it’s important to set goals and achieve dreams. It’s important to progress in life and work toward things that make us happy, but when we can’t accept that our best really is enough, we’ll always be grasping for more and more and we’ll never be truly happy.

Stop for a minute and take a look at your life. If you’re reading this, you’re alive. Maybe you’re not well, but you’re alive. You’re breathing. Maybe you’re crushing it as the CEO of a new company you’ve been dreaming up for years or maybe you’re eating ramen noodles out of a plastic cup for the third day in a row and trying to figure out what to do with your life. Either way, take this as your personal invitation to take a deep breath. Stop what you’re doing. Realize that you are enough. You have so much to offer. You are beautiful and loved and worthy of every good thing in the world. And even when you feel like you’re not enough and when your efforts do fall short, God lifts you, sustains you, and makes up for every shortcoming you experience. With Him by your side, you will be more than enough.

Toxic Positivity

“Just be positive!” “Good vibes only!” “There are people in the world with way worse problems.” Have you ever heard one of these statements while you’ve been having a rough day? I’m going to guess you have, cause SAME. And I’m also going to guess that you’ve said something similar to a friend to try to make them feel better -- cause SAME.

I’m also going to take a guess and say you don’t love it when people say things like this to you. There’s nothing worse than hearing the words “just be happy” when you’re in the middle of a hard trial or a panic attack. So why do we do it? Why are we so quick to jump on the positivity train and think that telling someone to be happy will fix their problems?

I hate to admit this, but hearing about trials and sad things makes me uncomfortable. It’s easy for me to default to the surface-level response and give advice to “look on the bright side” and “count your blessings.” But honestly, sometimes counting your blessings and ignoring the huge problem you’re going through is not the way to go -- and we need to stop with this toxic positivity.

I read the phrase “toxic positivity” for the first time just the other day on Instagram. Not a lot of things on that little app catch my attention these days, but those two words made me do a double take. How could the word “toxic” and “positivity” possibly be used in the same sentence? But as I thought more about it, I realized that it truly is a huge problem in our society.

We want to mask our problems (and our friends’ problems) with this lie that thinking happy thoughts will fix everything. It can help, and I think it’s important to look at the bright side of things, but it’s also important to recognize problems for what they are instead of belittling them. This is important for a few reasons, and the first is that we can’t experience joy and positivity without going through and actually feeling the hard things.

It’s not fun to feel sad or live through stressful times, but how does it feel when you come out of it? It feels good. Really good. But when you go through sad times and mask your problems with the perception that you always have to be happy and that you’re failing if you’re not happy, you don’t feel what you need to feel in order to heal. And once you’re out of that difficult time, you’ll look back and remember how you failed to be happy. I don’t think that’s what God would want for us. He literally created us to have joy, but He was clear that we can’t experience that joy without experiencing pain.

You also need to remember that your problems are REAL. I spent so many years of my life dealing with my anxiety and depression by telling myself that someone in the world had it worse and I was selfish for feeling pain. I actually felt guilty for feeling unhappy -- which is absolutely absurd. But when we’re bombarded with messages of good vibes and positivity on social media all day long, how can we not feel guilty? It goes back to that failure complex -- that if we’re not happy, we’re failing. But I want to tell you something -- whatever you’re going through is different from what that orphan in Africa is going through. Your trial is different from your friend’s. But that doesn't mean your pain isn’t real.

So next time you’re going through something hard don’t feel bad for feeling bad. Know that it’s normal and that your rough time will end. And next time you’re listening to a friend’s trial, be more intentional about the advice you give. I saw something similar to this on Instagram and wanted to add a few phrases to the list that you can say. And while you can use this on your friends and family members, consider using it for yourself too.