A Testimony

   As an accompanying blog to the one I posted last week, I will reveal my own strength of testimony. I would not be surprised some might take my testimony as not being strong enough. It has been tried. There have even been times when it was tried so deeply that for a moment I lost it. I remember one such occasion lasted a span of five days, and left me weaker long after.
   I believe in the church.
   I hesitate at times to say I "know" it is true, but, no, I do not consider mine a weak testimony. One scripture says that if a person knows a thing he has no reason for faith. Indeed, I have considered that if God was going to let us know for sure that the gospel is true, that would defeat, in a way, one of the reasons for us being on earth, for we are here to gain faith. That is why we left God's presence and why our memories for pre-earth life were covered.
   Faith it is, then, and faith is fine with me.
   I have a saying, Truth doesn't run from knowledge. I do believe in considering questions if they are honest and searching. I do believe we should not turn away, but rather we should honestly consider all things, even if those things trouble us and our beliefs.
   But, that we find evidence against the church does not mean it is not true. To assume that is to discount the evidence that says the church is true.
   In the time of my testimony's trial, I cried at the prospect the church might not be true. I know longer see that as necessary. This is God's work. What evidence He wants to allow, He will allow. If the church is true, yet appears untrue, that might be because God allows it to be that way. I have come to appreciate the scripture in which the Lord says He will show the world that He is able to do His own work It is His work, and I need not lament how He handles it.
   Let God be God and give to us what evidence He wishes. I think of how Christ, just after performing the miracle of feeding 4,000 with seven loafs, was asked by the Pharisees to give a sign from heaven. Even so it is with us, perhaps, for we have evidences, if we will see them, and it might be that we will not be given more.