I had this thought cross my mind this past week as I had to cancel a bunch of plans to care for a sick kid.

The canceled plans and demolished routines snowballed into an impossibly messy house, missed work deadlines, and little time to myself.

The week just fell apart.

Have you ever thought this before?⁣

“This has all gone wrong.”⁣

There have been a few, much more serious times in my life when I’ve thought this, too. ⁣

But what I’ve learned is one of the most comforting, eternal truths:⁣

“All flesh is in my hands, and I will do as seemeth me good.” (Moses 6:32)⁣

God is in control. ⁣

And if God is in control, nothing is going to “go wrong” from an eternal perspective.

Now, don’t misunderstand: I’ve learned this does NOT mean that nothing will ever “go wrong” in my life. Medical diagnoses, lost jobs, broken relationships… these tragic twists still come.

But in the grand, eternal scheme of things, God isn’t letting any little decision I make, any sickness, any bump in the road throw a wrench into any of His plans. ⁣

God can do anything at any time. ⁣

So if I believe that, then how can I change my perspective right now?⁣

“If I give this all to God, nothing can go wrong.”⁣

Nothing goes wrong when I give it to God. ⁣

And it feels SO much better to think this way. ⁣

He’s got my back. ⁣

Nothing can go wrong.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post This has all gone wrong  first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

I’m not a natural “crafter” by any means, so I was making sure I followed the instructor’s every word!

She told us the next direction, and I picked up my paint brush to do what I assumed she meant.

She quickly mentioned: “Wait, make sure you DON’T saturate it with paint! You want to keep it super light, otherwise you will ruin all the other work you just did!”

I put my paint-drenched paintbrush back in the cup and scraped off a bunch of paint.

Whew. Close call.

It is great to know what to do.

But it’s also great to know what NOT to do, right?

One of the most straightforward examples of this is found in Zephaniah 3:2 this week. Using feminine pronouns to refer to Jerusalem, he taught:

“She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her God.”

Pretty straight forward, right?

Jerusalem didn’t obey the voice of the prophets. They didn’t receive correction. They didn’t trust in the Lord. And they didn’t actively find ways to draw near to their God.

And it didn’t turn out well for Jerusalem.

Knowing that fantastic nonexample, now which area can you work on with even more diligence?

Obey. Receive correction. Trust. Draw near.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post The best nonexample first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Kids would ask me a question and I felt like I needed to know every answer.

I needed to be the knowledge authority in my classroom, right?!

But the best and worst part of teaching sixth grade is that the kids would start to (respectfully, for the most part) call me out when I said something incorrect.

It took a few months, but I finally realized how ironically empowering it was to admit that I didn’t know something to my students.

“Mrs. Black, why did you say THAT part of the story is the climax? Wouldn’t it be THIS part instead?”

I figured out that it felt SO much better (and by the way, MUCH more effective for teaching) to say:

“Oh interesting! Why do you think that? I could totally be wrong!”

The discussions that comments like this would spur were AMAZING. And tons of class members would start to chime in with their opinions, too.

Real learning would occur.

I loved it.

And I feel like right around this same time at the beginning of my teaching career was when I started to adopt this humility into my personal life, too.

Instead of thinking I had the right answer in my marriage, or in my church callings, or in other decisions that I had to make, it was so much more empowering to recognize that I COULD be wrong.

Replacing pride with humility one little step at a time has brought nothing but peace to my life.

In a gospel context:

“Humility enables us to have broken hearts when we sin or make mistakes and makes it possible for us to repent.” —Elder Steven E. Snow

I have found that it’s actually so freeing to acknowledge that I’ve been wrong.

I’m not perfect at it at all.

There are some sins that I want to cling to, like an insecure middle school teacher who insists they know the right answer.

“How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me?” (Exodus 10:3)

I hope I don’t take too long, though, to loosen my grip on those favorite sins, those rationales, those prideful tendencies.

Humility is much more freeing than pride.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Humility and teaching middle school first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

All my plans, my new-year-organization strategies have been thrown out the window as I’ve been knocked sick.

I do a lot each week that requires everything to run pretty close to clockwork.

There were many times this thought has run through my head as I’ve seen deadlines pass, work pile up, house projects left undone:

“This has all gone wrong.”

This isn’t how my new year, just a few months away from having a new baby, was supposed to start.

Have you ever thought this before?

“This has all gone wrong.”

There have been a few, much more serious times in my life when I’ve thought this, too.

But what I’ve learned is one of the most comforting, eternal truths:

“All flesh is in my hands, and I will do as seemeth me good.” (Moses 6:32)

God is in control.

And if God is in control, nothing is going to “go wrong”.

Now, don’t misunderstand: I’ve learned this does NOT mean that nothing will ever go wrong in my little mortal point of view.

But in the grand, eternal scheme of things, God isn’t letting any little decision I make, any sickness, any bump in the road throw a wrench into any of His plans.

God can do anything at any time.

So if I believe that, then how can I change my perspective right now?

“If I give this all to God, nothing can go wrong.”

Nothing goes wrong when I give it to God.

Deadlines will work themselves out. Or maybe I’ll miss them and things will be fine. Or maybe I’ll get clarity on things I need to drop anyways.

And it feels SO much better to think this way.

He’s got my back.

Nothing can go wrong.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post It’s all gone wrong! first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.