Sunday Sermon Returns

Long, long ago in a land far, far away, back when everyone updated their blogs and people actually left me comments, I had a series of posts called Sunday Sermons.  They weren't really sermons at all, just my attempt to record the hand of God in our lives and the lives of those I know, as I could see it.  And I regret that it has become a thing of the past, because surely between that last post and this one, I have witnessed many instances that have gone unrecorded, aside from a few very special ones living in my handwritten, personal journal.

In fact, over the course of the past few weeks I kept having a bunch of ideas and impressions floating around in my mind.  I was positive if I could just sit down and and corral them all into the same place, they would make a lot of sense and bring me some peace and reassurance.  And add on top of those thoughts, experiences of family and acquaintances that were lining up in perfect support of my discombobulated theory. Just let me sit down and write this out and my mind will rest and I and will have the impressions organized into a helpful pile of words.

Weeks later, when I actually made the time to do just that, I sat down and my mind was blank.  Nothing. All the things that had been flooding me were inexplicably absent.  Blame it on a mind blowing at half mast or a natural consequence of procrastination.  In any case, I got the message loud and clear:

Write it down.  Don't wait.  Without a reminder, time makes it easy to forget things you knew.

For me, there is no reminder like going back and reading my own words and thoughts on a subject that allows me to relive an experience.  Pictures help me too, but it's mostly the words.

So Sunday Sermons are back. They may get a new, more up-to-date name or they may not. But I am making a renewed effort at writing down these things, big and small, as they come.

In the midst of a Sunday School discussion this past week, we talked about Jesus Christ's visit to the people in 3 Nephi. During this visit He prayed for the people and it was written that the joy they felt at that act was beyond their ability to describe.

I couldn't help but think about a time in my own life when the love I felt from a prayer in my behalf changed my heart.

I was in my first semester of college.  I was struggling, due in part to what I believe is the natural child to adult transition, partly due to poor choices (despite my general desire to be a good girl), and the rest I owed to the inevitable and necessary processing of the traumatic experience that had shaped my life, yet I had never really faced.

I felt inadequate and forgotten.  My self esteem was low.  My heart had been broken in a way that I thought it could never recover.  And I was having my first experiences in what would turn into an ongoing struggle with feeling safe. I was not the girl I wanted to be. There was sadness but there was also a bit of anger.  Anger at God for making me suffer.  I  was a good girl, why were these things feeling so hard? Why were they all culminating at the same moment?  Why didn't He love me enough to ease up? Did he not see me drowning down here?

During the midst of it, I attended a meeting for the Young Single Adults of the church.  One of the main differences between the Mormons and other Christian denominations is the belief that there is a prophet of God on the earth today.  In 2000 it was Gordon B. Hinckley.  He spoke at this meeting and gave what would turn out to be one of his most well-known talks, casually referred to as the 6 B's.  He counselled the youth of the church to be grateful, be smart, be clean, be true, be humble, be prayerful. It is a beautiful talk and you can read it right here.

But it was the prayer at the end of that talk  which has left me with this lasting impression.  I had heard general authorities of the church pray many, many times.  But that was the first time I heard them pray specifically for the youth, specifically for me. For me.  He prayed for me.  He spoke to God in my behalf. And it is at this point, like the Nephites, that the love that I felt at that time defies my ability to describe.

I  felt the love of this man and the love of Heavenly Father from head to toe.  The feeling was the most reassuring experience that could have happened to me at that time in my life. God did see me.  He did know my hurts.  Because He let me struggle did not mean He didn't love me, in fact it meant quite the opposite. He did love me.  And I would come to learn that those points of desperation were actually a gift.  They allowed me to develop my trust in Him, to develop a relationship with Him, to learn that should I give it to Him, the sacrifice of my will would bring the fruition of His, and His will for me is always better than whatever I had  planned. President Hinckley loved me and God loved me. God loved me, God loved me.

And what the love and those realizations did to me was the crux of this whole story.  Inspired by that love I decided that whatever the prophet asked of me, I would do. From that experience I knew that he, just as my Heavenly Father had my very best interest in mind.  They loved me and wanted me to succeed and be happy.  Right then, I so desperately wanted those same things and for the first time in a while, they actually felt possible.

It was not an overnight thing.  Some things I could clear up quickly.  Somethings came simply with more prayer.  But some things would not be so easy.  I would get through them with the help of other people who loved me, with great struggle, with prayer, and with God.  But all the while I still suffered, I had the reassurance of that love I had felt.

So.  All of this went through my mind in Sunday School.  The teacher asked, "What can the Savior's prayer for the people mean to us today? What can it help us learn for our own life?" Other comments plus the novel above led me to my own little house where I live today with my husband and 3.5 children.

I was reminded that while I am neither the Savior, nor the prophet, I am the mother and wife of these people.   Just as I knew that President Hinckley and Heavenly Father loved me by that heartfelt prayer for me, I can have a similar effect.  When my children hear me pray specifically for them, for the things that are current in their lives, the hard and the easy, they will feel my love for them and their Savior's love more fully. When my husband hears me pray for his concerns and well being he will know that he is my most precious thing.  And perhaps inspired by that love, this family of mine will have a sense of reassurance and a greater resolve to do what is right. To follow those things that we as parents teach and ask of them and the teachings of our God and our prophets.  Because they will know that I love them and God loves them and that we want nothing more for them than the very best of this life and the next.