Let Virtue Garnish Thy Thoughts

"Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven." (D&C 121:45). Garnish can mean to decorate or adorn and I've always loved the idea of virtue making our thoughts more beautiful. But there is another, legal definition of garnish. To garnish wages means to withhold a portion of the wages to satisfy a debt. We all owe an unpayable debt to our Savior Jesus Christ. Christ could garnish all of our thoughts, words and deeds until the end of time and throughout all eternity and we wouldn't be close to paying the debt in full. But the very least we can do is make sure that our first thoughts are given over always to virtue, not with any hope of ever paying off the debt but to show with deepest humility our eternal gratitude for our Savior's greatest gift to us. When a wage is being garnished, it is withdrawn immediately, before we would even get the chance to make a choice to pay back the debt. If we were to let virtue garnish our thoughts in the same way, where we immediately surrender our thoughts to virtue before we even have the chance to give place in our minds and hearts to anything other than virtue, then it will be so much easier for the rest of our thoughts to be dedicated to virtue as well. Then will our bowels be full of charity, our confidence before God will wax strong and the doctrines of the priesthood will distill upon our souls like the dews of heaven. I hope that we will all let virtue have the first and the best of our thoughts as we honor and give thanks and praise to our Savior for paying all of our debts.