blessed

The other day at work I was in one of my patient's rooms giving him his medication and he was watching a televangelist on TV. I was in the room for about fifteen minutes so I was able to hear quite a bit of what he said. This guy was friendly, charismatic, and persuasive. And his topic? How the Mormon church was made up by a delusional man and the Book of Mormon was fiction.
This preacher told us how he has been studying this topic for over a year and he has been teaching us all of these things. He briefly went over everything he had covered up to that point and then moved on. He talked about history and threw out dates and "facts" here and there. And what he said sounded pretty good, if I didn't already know more about what he was saying.
I wanted to laugh at first, then get angry because he was teaching people to hate something that I know and love with all of my heart.
But you know what? It doesn't matter. And it never will. It doesn't matter what that man thinks or what you think or what anyone else thinks. All that matters is what I know and think.
I know that what I believe is true. I don't understand everything perfectly and there is so much more that I need to learn, but what I do believe, I know. And no one could ever change the fact that I know these things for myself.
I don't believe in my religion because of my parents or my leaders or because someone brain-washed me. I am able to think for myself and I consider myself open minded. And yet I believe all of these things with all my heart.
No one will ever take away what I believe about eternal families, keeping God's commandments, prayer, scriptures, living Prophets, and the temple. I know these things make me happy. I don't want to ever live my life without this knowledge. And I don't have to.
I am blessed and grateful. And although my life is no where near perfect, I'm happy that I have the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life.