We hope that today's Good Word gives comfort to your soul today. Have a scripture that's been on your heart? Send it to us, and we'll make it into a graphic!

It's no secret that American society is rife with sinful stuff. Our culture promotes some seriously icky forms of entertainment — there wouldn't be porn movies and strip clubs without a market to support them, right?

And the current cultural climate condones all sorts of things that scripture calls sin: adultery, fornication, homosexuality, abortion, greed, pride, and the list goes on.

Many people believe the government isn't taking a stand on these matters. Worse, many worry that the government isn't going to protect religious freedoms much longer.

These social and political issues are alarming to say the least.

This article is part two of a two-part series.

Author's Note: I hope that you enjoy this. I believe that this idea is critical to our faith and our impact that we have as believers outside of the church walls.

Let me begin with a question:

Is contentment a blessing?

My answer is yes. As I discussed yesterday, contentment means that I can stop and appreciate the blessings that God has given me. Contentment means that I can understand the impact of what God has done in my life.

This article is part one of a two-part series.

Author's Note: Before the actual article begins, I would like to introduce you to this two-part series on the idea of "blessing." It was our Sunday school lesson recently, and it's had me thinking a lot, and I'd like to share some of my conclusions with you readers.

We started our Sunday school recently with the concept of "blessing." The first comment was from a brother who said that we're blessed because we have roofs over our heads and food on our tables, and that's very true.

But that is a physical state.

And I (as well as our teacher) am of the belief that being blessed is a mental state.

For the month of August, we're sharing Miracle Mondays that we received in the past but weren't able to publish. Today, we've got a testimony from Brother Larry Champine that he submitted for the October 2014 theme, which was "death."

The youngest of seven children, I was raised by loving parents in another faith. My father was one of the youngest of 14 children, and his father was one of 13 children. Needless to say, in my growing up years, I attended many, many family funerals. (I even grew to dread the smell of funeral flowers.)

Looking back, I recognize that although there was a devotion to our faith and we were reminded of God's promise of Heaven, it did not seem to bring much comfort. These occasions were always very sad.

To all of you who completed the Summer Reading Challenge, congratulations! We hope you recieved many blessings during your journey through the four gospels. 

We had over a dozen people tell us that they planned to participate. So, our question to ya'll ... how did you do? What did you learn?

Editor's note: We hope you enjoy this imagined newspaper story based on Mosiah 27.

Zarahemla — This weekend marks a major turnaround for the children of King Mosiah and High Priest Alma. For some time now, the king's sons, Ammon, Aaron, Omner, and Himni, along with Alma's son, Alma Jr., have been secretly trying to destroy The Church of God.

That's all changed.

According to eyewitness reports, Alma Sr. gathered a multitude to show what happened to these young men. He told those in attendance that King Mosiah's sons brought an unconscious Alma Jr. to the palace two days earlier. According to their own testimony, they were walking down the road a few hours earlier, and an angel of the Lord appeared. Afterward, Alma Jr. was unable to speak or move.

There are moments in the midst of the storm when all I feel like I can do is throw up my hands. It doesn't always make sense. I don't always understand or have all the answers — or even some of the answers for that matter.

What about those moments when waiting feels like too much to take? Or the trial or temptation just seems too much to handle? Are we just left to our own defenses? Satan wants us to believe so, but Christ loves us way too much for that to ever be the case.

If I read in James 1:5-7, it gives the key to finding help for those moments:

Priorities.

We talk about them a lot.

Spending time with our loved ones. Finishing the projects at the office. Saving for retirement. Watching the newest episode of our favorite television show.

We rank them in our own way, and our days are usually spent with one of them at the top of our mind.

But what about our relationship with the Lord? Shouldn't that come first? I hardly think we would have committed this verse to memory if it wasn't meant to be.

As you know, each month, we introduce a different theme for Miracle Monday. Occasionally, a theme is super popular, and we get a lot of submissions — so many that we can't use them all before the month ends.

What do we do with the extra stories? We save them in hopes that we can share them at a later date. Guess what? That "later date" is now! We're dedicating each Monday during August to publishing beautiful experiences that we've been hanging onto.

Today, we're sharing two stories that Sister Debbie Kyriakakos and Sister Florence Perri sent to us for the money-related Miracle Mondays in November 2014. Enjoy!

Today's Good Word reminds us not to wait. Why not whisper a prayer for someone who you know who's still waiting? Send us a scripture that's been on your heart, and we'll turn it into a pretty graphic that you can share, pin, tweet, and like.

I've done it, and no doubt every person reading this has, too — looked at a picture of yourself or a loved one from the past and compared it side-by-side to a recent photo or the reflection in the mirror.

A Facebook friend posted a picture of her daughter as a toddler next to one of her four years later. She tried to express and process, as we all do, disbelief at the speedy effects of time in her child's life. Her comments ended with something that really resonated with me. She said, "I love what she is becoming."

Today's Blogger's Choice highlight is from Sister Erin Light. She chose her article "Time to Level Up," originally published on April 30, 2013.

She says, "I like when God's inspiration surfaces to 'connect the dots' from our lives to His Word in peculiar ways; this article, for example, is a fun throwback to my 1990s childhood, reliving a familiar pastime!"

I will forever be grateful to my parents for making sure my childhood was chock-full of books, museums, and the great outdoors of trampolines and jungle gyms.

That being said, I secretly knew that when we took an airplane flight, Mom would reach into her purse and pull out the elusive Nintendo Gameboy, complete with "Super Mario Land 2." After takeoff, I'd have a precious hour to fight my way past acrobatic bears and zippy turtle shells until it was homework time and the video game disappeared until the next vacation.

If there’s one parent-ism I’ve said to our kids a zillion times, it’s this: “You might not agree or understand this now, but someday you will.”

It’s different than “Because I’m the mom (or dad) and I said so,” although that’s been heard in our home too. Less dismissive and authoritarian, the first statement stems from a parent realizing (usually after intense bargaining) that no amount of explanation will satisfy the child and the awareness that he/she is not developmentally ready to fully grasp the gravity behind your decision or action. Born out of great love, it implies the child needs to trust you enough to accept what they do not like or understand at the moment.

For today's Best of Miracle Monday, we're republishing "Miracle of the Stolen Books" from November 5, 2012 submitted by Brother Stephen Kyriakakos.

On January 29, 2012, I went out to my car to go to work. I noticed the driver's side door was open and several items were stolen. Among the missing items were my grandfather Rudy Meo's leather bookcase with his Bible and Book of Mormon inside (pictured here).

This devastated me because he had just passed away a year earlier. For a week, I was torn up at the loss of these books because they were one of only two things given to me that belonged to him — and they were just gone.