I was recently asked to speak to my Alma mater; The BYU
Ballroom Company, during an annual devotional they hold for their teams. It was an honor to be asked to speak. I prayed a lot about what would be the best
message I could give. I felt the spirit
speak to me about how important it is to follow God’s individual path for us no
matter how difficult. And if we keep at
it, then God can make our weaknesses into strengths and our fear into faith. This
message became important to me since I felt the spirit gave it to me specifically. I actually fell in love with the message so I
wanted to share it. Here it is:
When I think about college students, young adults and people
in general I think about the many demands being placed on all of us. When I was a BYU student; dancing, teaching,
and competing on the BYU Ballroom Company and working to put myself through
school, I felt busy and stressed most of the time. The demands were huge. But I look back on those days with fondness because
it seems like life’s demands are continual and ever increasing.
I know some of the demands of life we place on ourselves and
some are placed on us and as those expectations grow we can feel like we don’t
have enough resources to meet the demands.
We can even feel that what our Heavenly Father asks of us, like prayer,
scripture reading, church attendance, etc. is a demand; just one more thing we
have to do, when actually the things He asks of us are resources, and the key
is understanding how to make them be the resources they are.
Elder Anderson spoke at an MTC devotional a few months ago
and talked about the physical side of doing things vs. the spiritual side. He basically
said, ‘We go to church, we read our scriptures, we pay our tithing, we kneel and pray, and we take the
sacrament. Those are the physical things
we do. But there is a spiritual element
to these things that we can be oblivious to as we go through the motions of
checking off our list of “to do’s”. The
spiritual side means instead of just going to church, we actually worship the
Lord and want to show our love for Him by attending church. We don’t just kneel and pray, but we speak,
listen and give attention to the spirit’s voice and receive spiritual answers
and knowledge as we pray. When we read our scriptures we pay attention, ask
questions and seek for understanding. We feel trust and happiness as we pay our
tithing. We don’t just take the
sacrament, but we repent, re-set, express devotion to our savior, and receive
His grace.’
If we don’t get past the physical side of doing things, we will continually see
all the things the Lord asks us to do, as a burden; a demand. We will continue to go through the physical motions
and never get to the spiritual knowledge of what the Lord really wants us to
feel, know and do. What He asks of us is
a resource, to enlarge and strengthen us.
Spiritual knowledge saves us and increases our abilities, but we have to
do the spiritual work we sometimes unconsciously think of as physical demand;
things we have to, “check off” so that we can please the Lord. Getting to the spiritual element of the
things we do fills and strengthens, enlightens and uplifts, but it requires
more spiritual effort on our part.
I developed a relationship at an early age with my Heavenly Father. I didn’t come from a great home life and so I
often found myself on my knees seeking for comfort and understanding from
deity. I learned to listen to His voice,
love Him and want to please Him as He became my peace; my home. Right from the beginning of my life I didn’t
ever just kneel and say words. I needed
Him and I found Him through prayer.
It was a great blessing to me to have a need created so
young that I sought after God early. But
one of the side effects of this home life was fear. I had a tremendous amount of fear as I grew
up. My Bio, list’s things that I have
done that sound impressive but the reality was, was that I was so fearful pretty
much all of the time.
One thing that terrified me to the, “I’m out of my mind
point,” was speaking. I had social
skills, I could be friendly and nice but I couldn’t speak about anything that
was important to me. When I was at girls
camp and all the girls were bearing their testimonies, I never did, it was
terrifying to me! When I came to BYU and
sat in testimony meeting, it was like God was trying to force me to speak; just
pouring the spirit down on me. I would
feel the spirit so strongly I would shake and my heart would pound and my hands
would sweat but I couldn’t do it. I was
so terrified. Once when the tour team
was on tour in China we had a long bus ride and Lee wanted to have a testimony
meeting. It’s the only time we ever did
anything like that and I got so brave, I stood up and tried to speak. Everything I said sounded awful, I balled and
snot was running down my face. I was so
humiliated. I swore I would never try to
bear my testimony again.
But the real story actually starts when I was 17. That was when I received my patriarchal
blessing. When I heard my blessing and
later read it, I thought it was the wrong blessing. I literally felt it was wrong, I could never
be or do all the things it said, because I was opposite of almost everything it
said. One of those things was, “You will
never want for words as you bear testimony of Jesus Christ.” And then it said some other things I would be
able to do because of that.
Absolutely never going to happen. No way could I ever be that.
But God has a sense of humor and since pouring the spirit
out on me wouldn’t make me speak, I started being called to serve as a relief
society teacher in every student ward I moved too. I knew whenever I moved to a new student ward
I would be called to serve as a relief society teacher and I was. When I got married, I thought I would never
be a relief society teacher again, nope, called to be a relief society
teacher. Finally bought our first house
and moved, called to be a relief society teacher. I was a relief society teacher in 5 wards
before I was ever called to do anything else, and then it was a constant
rotation of primary teacher and young woman adviser after that.
Because of my relationship with my Heavenly Father I had a
strong desire to do God’s will and fulfill my callings well, so I kept working
at opening my mouth and he kept giving me those opportunities. Haha, but I did find my voice and I overcame
my fear of speaking eventually, thank goodness.
I realized God could help me be more than I was.
As I listened to the spirit and let it guide me, it lead me
to making some hard decisions that changed the course of my life.
Dancing, choreographing, being a soloist, and teaching at
BYU, was a dream and I felt so happy doing all of those things. I had more dreams. After graduating, I wanted to teach H.S. for
a few years, go back and get my master’s and teach at a university. This burned inside of me. It was such a part of me. Looking back I realize I got a lot of my
self-esteem for accomplishing things and “looking good” according to the
world’s eyes. I think it’s especially
easy to do that when you’re a dancer.
It’s all about looking good, getting a good part, being seen. (In
this day and age, it’s also very easy to live in that place of getting value
from the world because of social media and how fast we can view and judge
everyone’s lives, and our own lives in comparison.) I didn’t know better or different, of how to
get value, but God wanted me to be better than I was and lead me on the painful
path down that road.
I was teaching H.S. when I had my first baby and I felt the
whispering's of the spirit tell me to stay home and raise my children. I was in a dilemma. I knew God, I loved Him, I was always trying
to listen and obey, I repented quickly when I did the wrong thing. But I really wanted, to my very DNA, to
dance, teach and choreograph on a University level.
It was the hardest thing I had ever done, I chose the Lord, quit
my job and stayed home. I pretty much
hated it. It was a refiner’s fire for
me. It took me about 10 years before I
liked it and about 15 years for the Lord to change me enough to where I would
choose it myself if He said I could do whatever I wanted. But when the 15 years was done I knew there
was nothing better that I could do with my life than raise my children well,
and that mothering was the most valiant and valuable profession I could ever
aspire too.
But God wasn’t done with me yet, there was more. I was
putting all my energies into serving in the church and serving my family. But
secretly in my deep sub-conscious, I was still trying to get value from the
world and hoped I could have some leadership calling in the church, or something. But no, I was a teacher endlessly. After 7 years in our first home, we built and
moved into our dream home. I was a
primary teacher for 9 years out of the first 12 years we lived there. I kind of became mad at God, at that point. I remember crying, “Can’t I do anything else,
can’t I ever be a leader or in charge of something: Can’t I ever have something important to do?” God told me, “No!” I felt his words express, “You have to learn
where your value comes from, and it’s not from any visual thing you do or
accomplish.”
That led me to not just fine tuning in my life, but major
dial changing. I had to find out where
true value comes, because I wasn’t going to get it from any big calling in the
church, I wasn’t going to get it from any great career, and I was miserable
trying too. God would not allow me down
that easy path. I could not get value
from the world at all, because I was nothing to the world. I felt like my “current bush” wasn’t being
pruned, it was being ripped out by the roots.
Talk about a refining fire.
It took two years. It
was miserable. (Why does it take me
years to learn life-changing things?)
Anyway, The Lord is patient and kind, and I came out of it with absolute
knowledge that my value comes internally from who I am as a child of God. It doesn’t matter what people think about
you, say about you, or feel about you.
It only matters what God thinks and feels. I knew it to my DNA, and I became very aware
that I didn’t need to do anything sensational to be of worth. Of course, God having
the sense of humor he does, called me to be the Young Women’s President, right
when I felt great about not having a demanding calling. But I knew I only needed
to please God and I knew I was of great worth to Him and so I was at peace.
I was also full of hope.
We didn’t have an easy life raising our children. Everything didn’t happen perfectly because we
were trying to serve God. But we felt
hopeful always that we could solve problems and move forward. But again God had
a refiner’s fire in store.
I have to admit when we were called to serve as Mission
Presidents to WA. I had a perfect plan
of how it would be and what would happen with my children. I had two children who were coming home from
missions and I had the vision of our other three children serving missions
while we served and it would be perfect. They would all find great spouses and get
married. We would be financially
blessed. Etc. etc. It was going to be so
perfect.
Pretty much none of that happened. While we served all of our children
struggled. Only one more child went on a
mission and he had a horrible experience with his physical health and a mission
president that, he felt, didn’t seem to understand or care to help him. He developed depression and anxiety and came
home for a back surgery that ended up not working and then dealing with some
severe anxiety that was debilitating. He
eventually left the church and turned on us for a few years and it was brutal.
We had another son who came to understand he was gay when he
went through puberty and while living in WA decided to live that life style. His life has been pretty much a nose dive
since that decision. That world has a
lot of drugs and sex that surround it and he became addicted to meth, among
other things.
These were two great young men, and all this happened while
we served a mission.
[In our eyes these two boys are still great. We love them so much and getting them through
the last few years has been another refining fire that has been life changing
for me. But through it all I have
learned that God really does love us no matter what we do, because I love them
no matter what they do.]
When we got home things didn’t get any better, as a matter
of fact they got worse. My mother was
dying of cancer. Our family couldn’t
take care of her so that fell to me once I got home. I cared for my mother for 3 weeks while she
struggled to die. It was sacred but
amazingly hard.
I took over the care of my father who had Parkinson’s. I got him into a new assisted living
facility, took him to multiple doctor’s visits, dissolved their estate, rented
out and managed his condo to pay for his expenses, and started to manage his
medication daily.
Don got Parkinson’s disease, we had no job and our finances
weren’t good and we needed to sale our home and move.
This all happened within about the first 6 weeks of being
home and I learned that traumatic events can cause depression as I fell into a
depression that changed me in ways I didn’t know what was happening to me.
As I struggled to understand God’s plan for our family and
how so many things could go wrong when we were giving our all to the Lord, I
heard God’s voice many times. I admit I
wasn’t perfectly trusting and believing at this time, but the voice told me
over and over again to hold on and he would get me there. That He knew what I needed more than I knew
what I needed and I should trust him. So
I held on the best I could.
At this time I read a book by Neil A. Maxwell
called “Not My Will, But Thine”, (The Christ like path of submission to
God’s will). He said something that hit me so hard, “Faith is
strongest when it is without illusion”. This speaks to my very heart and
soul. He says in these few words what I would try to say in volumes and
still not speak very well about. It seems to me my whole life is being
wrapped around this principle. “Faith is strongest when it is without
illusion.”
It’s easy to have faith when prayers are answered, you can
see blessings, things fall into place like you think they will. Yes, I
had trials and challenges, definitely. But I faced them, worked on them,
prayed for help, and got through them, and learned stuff along the way.
Elder Maxwell calls that kind of life, K-12, lessons and experiences. In
1 Corinthians 10:13 it says, “We undergo afflictions such as are common to
man”. That was what I think I was living; afflictions that were common to
man. But Elder Maxwell says, “God will deliberately give us further
lessons and experience which take us beyond the curriculum common to man and on
into uncommon graduate studies or even post-doctoral discipleship. These
trials are often the most difficult to bear.”
I feel like that! I am not in elementary school
anymore. I know God wanted to get me past, “Faith, because it all works
out perfectly”, to “Faith without illusion; that I know God, trust Him and Love
Him when it all doesn’t work out perfectly.”
That is how I feel today.
I know God lives. He does answer
prayers. We need to see the blessings he
offers, even when it’s not the blessing we long for. He has a sacred honor to
protect all of our free agency and he won’t take that away from anyone, but can
we still see the work He is doing in our life, the blessings He is giving? We must see His hand and recognize his voice
even in tremendous pain and sorrow.
His way is The Way.
Our way is just A way. And our
way will not get us to that place of divine potential we aspire too. The decision’s I made all along the way to
follow God changed me. I saw things in
my Patriarchal blessing being full filled and coming to pass the entire time. I was amazed.
God really can make us more than what we can make of our self and our patriarchal
blessings can come to pass.
But there was still one thing in that blessing that I could
never really see happening.
Then I had my eyes opened.
Over the last 7 years God had been working on that too, and I hadn’t
even recognized it. We were called to
serve as mission presidents and worked with huge numbers of missionaries while
our mission was being split and then during the age change. We figured we worked with 600-700
missionaries while we were on our mission.
And then watched them go out and work with hundreds of people
influencing them for good.
When we came home we were called to serve as a Branch
President at the MTC and have worked with hundreds of missionary’s in the last
3 ½ years and have watched them go out and work with hundreds of people. We have been teaching mission prep to BYU
students for 3 years and have taught hundreds of students who have then gone
out and influenced hundreds of people for good.
So, now as I read my blessing, I am amazed that it wasn’t
wrong. Every one of those things have
come true. That is such an amazing
feeling, and worth every bit of self you have to give up to have.
At the time I thought I was making such hard, painful
sacrifices. But getting through all of
that and being on the other side of it, I am gratefully aware that God’s plan
is better. What I wanted for my life would
have never created the lesson’s I needed to get me past myself and onto
something better.
I also recognize none of this could have happened for me
without personal revelation. Because as
I look back I realize the pivotal moment for me wasn’t when I decided to give
up my dream and stay home with my children, or accepting a teaching calling
that terrified me, it was earlier than that.
It was when I was a BYU student and I heard the voice of the spirit say,
“Do your visiting teaching every month no matter how busy you are. Full filling
your calling is the best use of your time.”
And I did it, every month no matter how crazy busy I was. It was also when I heard the voice of the
spirit tell me to stay clean and worthy of the spirit as I dated, and I did.
Following God starts with the little things. And if you do those things he will get you to
the big refiner’s fires in your life that will change you deeply into what your
patriarchal blessing says you can be.
I think of all those stake conferences, zone conferences,
mission conferences, women’s conferences, etc that I had to speak at on our
mission, and all the sacrament meeting talks, new missionary training's, and
Sunday afternoon training's at the MTC and all those mission prep classes we’ve
taught and guess what? I was
never really nervous during any of that.
That is like a miracle. I learned
what God wanted me to know; I only need to please Him, and because of that, I
never want for words as I bear testimony of Jesus Christ.
My main message is:
Listen to the spirit, Obey that voice above all others, stay
with Him no matter how hard life gets, and you will become more than you ever
thought possible, but what God knows is possible.
