Lessons for 2023 from an Amaryllis

I’ve often said that I have a “black thumb” because plants given to me have usually died rather than thrived. Thus, when my sister gave me an amaryllis bulb kit that was intended to bloom at Christmastime, I was worried.

 

Little did I know, as I valiantly tried to strictly follow the directions on how to plant the bulb in the included soil and pot, that observing the growing cycle of this lovely gift over the coming days would help me see how I could make 2023 become a year of increased joy and satisfaction. 

A Simple Phrase that Changed My Life Forever

Fifty-five years ago this morning, I woke up, knelt by the side of my bed in my off-campus apartment at BYU, and prepared to utter the same prayer I had been offering for the previous nine days. 

Ever since I had met David Stone, I had been pleading with my Heavenly Father to tell me if David was indeed the person whom I should marry and be joined to for all eternity. On our first date, arranged over the telephone after a friend of David’s had spoken highly of me, we both sensed that we might have met our future spouse. 

A few days before, the two of us had fasted and prayed to know the Lord's will, and although David felt he had received a positive answer, I hadn't.  Before he left Provo the day before, we had agreed that we would keep in touch and see how our relationship developed.

The Envelope

It started with an envelope.

Yesterday, after we had played several board games, my Kindergartner granddaughter Paige was looking through the various kinds of paper in my craft box, intending to draw or write something during her after-school visit with me. She found a greeting card envelope, selected a piece of yellow card stock, and told me she wanted to make a card for “Grampa.”  

Grampa, aka my late husband, passed away when Paige was not yet three years old. I doubt she can really remember him, but on my kitchen counter are two digital photo frames that scroll through family photos including many of him, some even with her as a baby or toddler. When Paige is eating her after-school snack, she looks at those photos, and often either names some of the people in them, or asks me who they are. Some are of my parents and grandparents, and I have on occasion mentioned that they, like Grampa, have died, and are happily living in Heaven now. Whether seeing photos of Grampa keeps real memories of him fresh in her mind, or that she just continues to love her idea of him, I know not.

No Looking Back

A little over nine years ago, my oldest son and I exchanged good-bye waves and smiled at each other as he backed out of our driveway for the last time. My husband and I had sold our house, and were moving out of state to live nearer our grandchildren.

As he drove off, my son’s head was held high, and he didn’t look back.

He had recently been laid off from his job; but he was now excited about beginning a new career as a writer. Despite the known difficulties of breaking into the ranks of literary professionals, his success in getting several stories published during the last few years spurred him to consider the loss of his increasingly joyless job as an opportunity to jump wholeheartedly into that other field. With concerted effort, determination and a bit of luck, he was hopeful that he would soon be able to make his living doing what he truly loved to do.

As I watched his car disappear around a bend, the tears began to flow, and my mind went back to another farewell experience that had occurred when he was nineteen:

Maintaining Trust When God’s Ways Seem Inscrutable, Part 2: Reflection vs. Reality

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” I Corinthians 13:12 

In the verse above, from a letter the apostle Paul wrote to the relatively new church members in Corinth, he used an analogy that was particularly meaningful to them when he described how we  understand God and his ways. That analogy becomes clearer for 21st century English speakers if we know that the words translated into English as “glass” and “darkly” have slightly different meanings in the original Greek. “Glass” meant a looking-glass, or mirror, many of which were manufactured in Corinth out of polished brass. Those mirrors often revealed a distorted or discolored image of the thing being reflected. The Greek words translated as “darkly” meant “in a riddle or puzzle, by an enigma.”[1]  Paul’s analogy helped the Corinthians resolve questions that were creating disunity in their congregation. I believe it can help us, in our day, to deal with questions about spiritual matters that some find puzzling, or even disquieting.

Maintaining Trust When God’s Ways Seem Inscrutable, Part 1: Understanding the Meaning of Revelations

While a student at Brigham Young University, my husband had a very intriguing personal experience with President Hugh B. Brown (an apostle and a counselor in the First Presidency of the LDS church at the time), his wife, and one of their granddaughters who was a good friend of David’s. The four of them had lunch together in a restaurant in Salt Lake City sometime in 1963 or 1964.

Considering himself a lowly university student, David remembered feeling very much in awe of President Brown. One part of the conversation in particular stuck in his mind, and he told me about it after we were married in 1966, because it raised such interesting questions and possibilities regarding the policy of Priesthood ordination not being available to men of black African ancestry at the time.

Saying "Thy Will Be Done" in Advance

Almost twelve years ago, my daughter Julie became aware of how seriously Alzheimer's disease had affected her grandmother's memory and personality. She, along with several other relatives, visited her in a care center where she was recovering from a serious fall. I was living abroad at the time, on a mission with my husband, and in answer to a letter from my daughter I wrote the following:

Dear Julie,

We appreciated your information on the visit to see Grandmother in the care center on the day of the [family] reunion. I am grateful that you understand things the way you do. I feel the same way. It certainly is terribly sad to see Grandmother suffer, and to realize that she will probably soon leave this mortal existence. But she is ready to go, and she seems to be trying her best to be brave and endure whatever she needs to right now.

We talked to Uncle [D] Friday, and he said that he thought that it was an eye‑opener for most of the grandchildren to see her as she was. He mentioned that perhaps many had not realized the extent to which Grandfather stage‑managed visits when he was present to help her deal with her Alzheimer's disease. Apparently she has times when she is more lucid than others, and times when her memory is sharper than others. (Michael said that his visit with her on Tuesday went well, and that she remembered their conversation when he talked to her on Thursday). But her short term memory is definitely unreliable, and seems to be deteriorating rapidly.