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.

How I Came to Embark on an Exciting New Adventure

After David passed away in 2014, I had no plans to serve a full-time mission for my church. Since I had served a proselyting mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a young woman in France, and then had served full-time with my husband, David, for ten years––first when he was President of the Dominican Republic Santo Domingo West Mission for three years, and then while he served in Area Presidencies as a General Authority Seventy for seven years––I felt that my place henceforth was to serve my family and local ward members, not serve another mission.

However, a few months ago, after serving several years as an ordinance worker in the Seattle Temple in the summer, and the Dallas Temple the rest of the year, for some reason I began to think about the desirability of serving a temple mission for a year sometime in the future, perhaps in the spring of 2019.

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.

Staying in the Lane

As I was driving to the Seattle temple by myself for the first time after my arrival in Washington last month, I began to feel very sad that David, my late husband, was not beside me. I felt I had made great progress in the last few months in usually remembering him happily, but at this moment, thinking about how, long ago, he had carefully given me the driving directions I was now carefully following brought tears to my eyes.

Suddenly, my mood completely changed. My mind was flooded with joy as that memory from a decade ago came forcefully into focus. I recalled David’s voice repeating to me the important advice I needed to follow if I was to arrive at the temple on time, “Stay in the lane, Rosalie!” It now struck me in a new way that I knew could help me deal with the waves of sorrow that still threaten to engulf me from time to time.

An Answered Cri de Coeur

The anguished cries of my three-year-old grandson, combined with a statement by Dostoyevsky and hymn lyrics by Isaac Watts, prompted me to ponder how we can discover and attain our deepest desires. 

While visiting the family of our youngest son some years ago, the adults in our group were startled one evening by the sudden, impassioned crying of our three-and-a-half-year-old grandson, David. He was apparently having a nightmare. Our daughter-in-law attempted to calm him with soft words and rocking, but he continued to cry out and talk nonsense which related to what he was dreaming.

She carried him downstairs to join the rest of us, and mentioned that this sort of thing had happened before. Once David was fully awake, she assured us, he would calm down. For a couple of minutes he continued to wail and display deep distress, despite his mother’s efforts to awaken and reassure him.

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.

Oh Say, Where Is Truth? Part 2: Do We “Remember It Well?”

Part 1 of this trilogy of posts about truth posited that fiction could sometimes be more “truthful” than non-fiction. This follow-up post deals with the challenge of finding truth in memories.

When faced with conflicting memories of our past, my husband and I often smiled as we quoted the opening lines from a duet “I Remember it Well.” They epitomize the tendency to we have to believe that we personally remember things correctly, even when faced with evidence that others remember the same events quite differently.

               We met at nine.

                        We met at eight.

 I was on time.

                        No, you were late.

Ah yes! I remember it well[1]

We all tend to believe that we remember things correctly, and often misunderstandings arise when people disagree about what “really” happened. But psychologists have discovered that our minds definitely can be fooled.

Getting it Right

Inspired by a post originally published on “A Prayer of Faith” 12 October 2006

Sometimes I think that the main reason why we have computers is to help us develop one of the most important virtues for a Latter-day Saint woman: patience.

Back in 2006, I got a new laptop computer to replace my old built-in-a-third-world-country-and-updated-over-the-years PC. I was able to transfer everything I wanted to keep, and all was well—except that on my new laptop, my preferred software for copying my music CDs to my hard drive now gave me an error message: I couldn’t copy and save anything in the MP3 format, because for some unknown reason there was supposedly no MP3 encoder on my computer. After following a lengthy series of links to other messages, I finally reached one that told me to contact my computer manufacturer.

Through the fascinating procedure called “remote connect,” the technician I was speaking to on the telephone was able to view what I could see on my monitor. He could then direct me verbally and by drawings that appeared on my screen, so that together we could discover why my software was not functioning properly, and exactly how to correct the problem.

After about half an hour of interaction with the technician, I was told to change just one letter in an entry in the Windows registry, and from then on the program worked perfectly. Just one wrong letter kept a program from doing what it was designed to do.

That set me thinking. How often do I fail to live up to my potential, or fail to be an effective instrument in the Lord’s hands, because I have put off repenting of just one small sin; or neglected to open my heart to the influence of the Spirit. Am I letting pride or selfishness keep me from doing what I was designed to do, or being what I was designed to be as a daughter of God?

I was very pleased to allow a qualified technician access to my computer so that he could guide me through a diagnostic procedure until I could rectify the error on my computer. Am I as willing to allow the Lord to help me discover and correct the errors in my actions, my attitudes, or my thinking? Do I take full advantage of the divine “remote connect” available to me through prayer and Scripture study?

Getting a computer problem fixed often takes considerable time and patience. Getting our spiritual glitches corrected obviously requires a lot more time and patience. I hope I can remember that more peace and joy will come into my life as I accept correction and make the changes I need to. Because of the Atonement of our Lord, eventually “getting it right” is indeed a reachable goal.

Plumbing the Depths without Languishing in the Dumps

(Note: I have never suffered from clinical depression, so in this post I am referring only to my experience with emotions. I recognize that my case may not be typical.)

Mulling & Musing has written a beautiful post on motherhood at her blog, entitled Digging Deep. It set me to thinking about how and why I had grown and changed for the better over the last 41 years since we had our first child.

My memories of being a stay-at-home-mother of six were sharpened earlier this summer, when I received a packet of about 40 letters I had written over a period several years to my sister-in-law, telling of our daily life when the children were growing up. As I read about some of the incredibly demanding times in my life, I recalled how much I had to learn to rely on the Lord to bring me through the tough times.

I could also remember how much I loved being a mother of my children at their different stages of life; and how much joy came into my life--and still comes into my life--because those six amazing spirits had been lent to my husband and me by the Lord. I can't imagine any other career that would have given me the breadth and depth of intellectual, emotional and spiritual experience that I have been privileged to have as a wife and mother.

Even though as LDS mothers we are bound to have feelings of inadequacy, and there are times when we aren't sure we can stand the pressure one more minute, we can know that if we are willing to have faith and trust in the Lord, there is a sure source of divine help that will never fail. Often, for me, the answers or solutions did not come immediately. But when I was willing to let go of my anger and/or anguish, the comfort and reassurance always came. The faith and trust part usually involved plumbing the depths of patience if I wanted to avoid remaining emotionally in the dumps.

My children are all grown now, and I try to treat them as equals--not demanding too much attention, and shying away from giving unasked-for advice. But I will always be their mother; and I continue to weep for their sorrows and rejoice at their happiness and success in life. My love for them only grows stronger, and I will always, always, care about how their lives are unfolding.

In her post, M & M quoted from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s talk “Because She Is a Mother” , given in the April 1997 General Conference. This is a favorite talk of mine, also, and I read that same quote to our Marriage and Family Relations Sunday School class recently because it is a key part of the lesson on the sacred role of mother.

I guess I must have cried a million tears over the years. But I have also laughed a lot more than I have cried. Fortunately, as time goes by, I find that I forget more and more of the sad times, and remember the happy times. As I have sorrowed over my mistakes as a wife and mother, I have tried to fully repent, and then allow the miracle of the Atonement to heal my broken heart. This is still an ongoing process for me, but I can see that I have made progress.

Whenever I am tempted to sink from sadness into despair because of my failures and shortcomings as a mother, I try to remember the sentiments expressed by Elder Holland in that same talk:

Rely on Him. Rely on Him heavily. Rely on Him forever. And "press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope." You are doing God's work. You are doing it wonderfully well. He is blessing you and He will bless you, even--no, especially--when your days and your nights may be the most challenging. Like the woman who anonymously, meekly, perhaps even with hesitation and some embarrassment, fought her way through the crowd just to touch the hem of the Master's garment, so Christ will say to the women who worry and wonder and sometimes weep over their responsibility as mothers, "Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole." And it will make your children whole as well.

That ultimate hope--that my children can be healed of any harm due to my thoughtless or unwise words or actions--sustains me when I wonder if I have contributed to the cause of any of their present sufferings.

Once again, M & M found the way to beautifully express the thoughts of my heart about why I have been, and still am, immensely grateful to be a mother:

. . . I am doing this motherhood thing -- giving so much of my life and self and time and energy -- not just because the children need me (which they do, imperfect as I am), but because I need them. I need to be their mom, to learn to overcome my natural self. This role is teaching me new depths of faith and love and sacrifice and endurance, and helping me feel new depths of God's love and grace and refining power.