A New Year!

2015 (Prepare...) "Procrastination is a deadly weapon of human progress. Thank God there is no need of a shortage in the oil of preparedness. It is accumulated at will, drop by drop, in righteous living...The responsibility for having oil in our personal lamps is an individual requirement and opportunity." -Elder Marvin J. Ashton

This past week as I've reflected on what my focus for 2015 could be, the word "Prepare" impressed itself on my mind. One of my favorite New Testament stories is the parable of the ten virgins. Many years ago Gayla Prince, (who happened to be my neighbor), gave me a print of her painting, The Ten Virgins. It hangs on my bedroom wall as a reminder to continually collect/replenish the oil in my own lamp of personal preparedness...I want to be counted as one of the wise virgins! “Attendance at sacrament meetings adds oil to our lamps, drop by drop over the years. Fasting, family prayer, home teaching, control of bodily appetites, preaching the gospel, studying the scriptures—each act of dedication and obedience is a drop added to our store. Deeds of kindness, payments of offerings and tithes, chaste thoughts and actions, marriage in the covenant for eternity—these, too, contribute importantly to the oil with which we can at midnight refuel our exhausted lamps.” (Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, Deseret Book Co., 1972, p. 256.)