By Marnie Pehrson Kuhns

At the turn of the century, I met a woman who changed my life.

Back then, I was running a website called SheLovesGod.com, where I wrote weekly articles on inspirational topics. I’d post them on the site and send them out in a newsletter to my subscribers.

One day, I got a message from a woman named Leslie Householder. She had read one of my articles and reached out for advice on the topic I’d written about. That one email turned into a conversation—then a friendship—then something that would shape the course of both our lives. Leslie began teaching me about the laws of thought, and that knowledge lifted me out of financial bondage. In return, I helped her get her website up and her books into print.

Since then, over the past twenty years, Leslie has gone on to mentor tens of thousands of people with the very information she first shared with me.

Sometime later, as I was spending a day with Leslie, I had this realization: if I hadn’t started SheLovesGod, then in my moment of crisis, the person who held the answers to my prayers would never have found me. She needed help in her own moment of struggle—and found me. But had I never posted those articles, had I never followed the prompting to start that site, we never would’ve crossed paths.

“Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.
Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.”
—Ecclesiastes 11:1–2

If you never cast your bread upon the waters, it won’t be there to return to you when you need it most.

Every action creates a ripple. It comes back. What you sow is what you reap. What you put out comes back to you. The Law of Cause and Effect is a beautiful law when you’re sowing good seeds and investing in your dreams—but it can also be a sobering one when your efforts go in the wrong direction or when fear holds you back.

“There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundation of the world, upon which all blessings are predicated—
and when we receive any blessing, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.”
—Doctrine and Covenants 130:20–21

Universal and divine laws are like a pencil—you can’t pick up one end without picking up the other. When you align with those laws and act in harmony with them, the outcomes tied to them will follow. They must.

If you plant squash seeds, you’re not going to grow green beans. If you feed your mind with hateful or angry thoughts, you’re not going to grow love and kindness in your life. As my information management professors used to say, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

But the opposite is also powerfully true: if you consistently put good into the world—especially when no one’s watching—it will circle back around to you, often in your greatest hour of need.

“If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth:
and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.”
—Ecclesiastes 11:3

Just as surely as rain falls from full clouds, and as certainly as a tree lies where it lands, you will reap what you sow.

There’s a time to sow and a time to reap, but rarely do those seasons come at the same time. You can’t always predict when or from where the harvest will come—but make no mistake, it will come. And often, it won’t be from the same person you gave to. That’s where many people get stuck—they expect a direct return. But that’s not how this law works.

Don’t wait to do something good just because you can’t see the outcome yet. Follow the nudge. Take the step. Give, serve, build, share, create—even when it feels small or unseen. You don’t have to know how or when it will come back around.

By law, it has to.

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