Change, Fear, Faith, and Greatness

So, I haven't written for such a very very long time that I have changed almost completely. I mean, not in the basics of my personality etc, but some how i have become more and better. I am working on my Axel in skating, much advanced from about 9 months ago. I am now in the Relief Society Presidency in my ward, and I have gained some new very dear friends in that time. Its because of these changes and so many more that I had to have a thinking moment this morning. In the past two months I have grown so much spiritually and God has kept raising the bar on me. A lot of these changes came about because of good friends. and in the past few weeks a lot of changes have also happened with those friends, a test really that showed the friendship was a true friendship, and stronger than ever, because now i see less of that friend, but yet I think we are closer. also there was a man i met a few weeks back, who changed my view on things again. he made me think today too!! he is also amazing, but also very far away right now. two wonderful weeks, then he was back home to New York. I miss his awesomeness very much. I don't know what will happen in the future, but I would bet we will be good friends from here on out. some people are like that, you can come to know and trust them very quickly, most are not. so that leads me to today's thought, the most important part of this. i will write it exactly as I did this morning: We are more afraid of how great we can be than that we are nothing; more afraid to be truly loved, than rejected; More afraid of true friends, than of fake ones; More afraid of what we can do and handle, than what we can't. We don't want to see what we can do and be, have and love because it comes at a higher greater cost. True friends, true love, true greatness comes as a great and wonderful gift, but at the cost of greater responsibility, sacrifice, faith, trust, and duty. To love someone enough to be willing to die for them, is also to love them enough to be willing to live for them, which may actually be more difficult. To truly care means to know you will feel and share as much pain as you do joy that isn't your own or about you. To know you are great and capable is to know you have no excuse for not doing all you can and should, and to be left with out an excuse is scary. To know you are great and loved, and to love, is to know that you MUST give your ALL, no matter the cost, or stand as if naked before God and face the consequence of not doing what you could, when He gave you everything you needed to accomplish all he asked of you.