Come What May

"Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come" (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland).  I am so grateful for my mom—and my dad and my siblings and lots of other wonderful people; but for right now I’ll just focus on Mom because today is Mother’s day, which means we have all probably spent a little extra time thinking about our mothers!  Personally, I try to express appreciation and love to my parents more than once a year, but it is nice to have special holidays like these for some additional celebration.  Thank goodness for all of the dutiful, loving, and perhaps a little imperfect mothers that have blessed and impacted so many lives.  But not everyone gets to have their mom on Mother’s Day.  Some moms have been swept into heaven; some moms have chosen to leave their families; some moms are on their own struggling to make ends meet; some are still waiting for the opportu...

“For behold, are we all not all beggars?” (Mosiah 4:19). It has always been easier for me to offer service than it has been for me to receive it.  I don’t mean to say that I always serve whenever I can as cheerfully as I can without fail because that certainly isn’t true; I also don’t mean I am too proud to accept someone’s kindness because that isn’t true either!  I simply find that I would rather be in a position to give service than to receive it.  It is quite different to care for the needy than to be the needy. In high school I volunteered every Sunday at a local nursing home to play the piano.  Many of the residents suffered from various degrees of dementia.  I found myself among a very sweet collection of broken bodies and broken minds, though I sometimes failed to appreciate the fact. One afternoon I walked in to see an old, crippled man staring off into the distance while his son kissed him goodbye.  He didn’t move, he didn’t speak, he ju...

 “I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell” (2 Nephi 33:6). One night while out for a walk I found myself looking out at the top of the hill.  The moon and the stars shone beautifully above me, and the lights from the city glowed below.  I was suddenly very impressed by the strength of the light coming at me in so many different directions.  Even in the darkness of night, light was everywhere. I am sometimes depressed thinking about the political and civil unrest flooding the world, disasters and accidents, dishonesty and immorality, diseases and infirmities, corruption, poverty, abuse, and oppression which has filled so many corners of the earth.  There are a lot of dark places, even and sometimes especially in our most private and personal spaces. I was always a little afraid of the dark.  I was the kid that had to leap into bed from across the room to avoid the scary monsters hiding ...

"Fear not little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world…” (D&C 50:41). Because of particular circumstances both in my personal life and in my work online as a FamilySearch service missionary I have the enlightening opportunity to talk to all kinds of frustrated people.  These friends and strangers are discouraged by limitations or glitches, by family or friends, by foolish mistakes and bad days, by circumstances both within and beyond their control.  I join them in the rankings. Some days I feel like an embarrassing disaster happening right before your eyes.  Recently, while helping a man remedy some errors he made in his family history he sighed discouraged and said, “Can I just delete it all and start over?”  The next day as I reflected on several events of the past week I found myself sighing and thinking the same.  “Can I just delete it all and start over?”  The disappointing answer that came to us both: no. We live i...

“For with God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37). In Genesis the Lord promises Abraham that he will be a father of nations and his wife Sarah will be a mother of nations.  That was probably a confusing promise.  They were old, they had no children; how could a 90-year-old, infertile woman have a son?  I imagine it was difficult to understand, but as they trusted in Heavenly Father all of the blessings promised to Abraham and Sarah were brought to pass.  They did have a son and they did become the parents of nations, but I doubt the process was quite what they anticipated. In August I was a missionary in Chile.  I had been ill for nearly a month and the mission was making plans to send me home.  During this time I asked for a Priesthood blessing.  In this blessing I was told that I would go home to recover so that I could return to the mission field with greater strength.  As difficult as it was to leave, I took great comfort knowing...

“Though we may feel we are “like a broken vessel,” as the Psalmist says, we must remember, that vessel is in the hands of the divine potter.  Broken minds can be healed just the way broken bones and broken -hearts are healed.  While God is at work making those repairs, the rest of us can help by being merciful, nonjudgmental, and kind” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland.) My 20 th birthday was spent in a bed.  Not because I was lazy, not because I was sleepy, but because I was sick and it hurt too much to move.  I am so blessed so I'm not trying to complain, but needless to say it was not the pleasantest of birthdays and since that day I can see that my illness has aged me.  Loud noises make me cringe, large gatherings make me tired, I prefer to stay at home than not, and sometimes I wish there weren’t quite so many party invitations to turn down.  Some people might think my six months of professional treatment should’ve been enough, that it is time to sna...

I feel we need to devote more of our prayers to expressions of gratitude and thanksgiving for blessings already received.  We enjoy so much" (President Ezra Taft Benson). A few weeks ago on one of my daily walks I saw a few runners go by and thought to myself, “I wish I could go on a run!”  After all, I used to be able to; running, backpacking, hiking, all kinds of things.  I started thinking about some of my broken dreams.  Because besides my mediocre health I didn’t finish my mission, I had to abandon a promising military academy application, I still couldn’t go to school, my social life was lame, and my 6 months of partial isolation from the world were making it difficult to function in it.  (Naturally feelings of self-pity began to surface). Then I shook my head and thought about how I lucky I was to be on a walk.  After all, I couldn’t always go walking every day!  Lots of people can’t go on walks.  Lots of people are much less fortun...