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Sabbath Devotional :: Building a Zion Community
These are my four great-grandmothers — Gladys, Grace, Lucy, and Marie. I had the rare privilege of knowing all of them in this life. Their personalities were all very different from one another, but each was so strong and interesting in her own way. Recently, while working on some family history, I came across several photographs of these women at various family and community functions; a few even captured multiple grandmothers in the same photographs. Maybe for the first time, I began to give serious thought to how these women might have interacted with one another as peers in the community, long before I came along. I remembered that a…
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Sabbath Devotional :: The Savior’s Healing Commands
Following the “Come, Follow Me” lessons from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many of us have recently read of several of Christ’s early miracles, including His calming of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. The last six weeks have been pretty stormy for me: the loss of all my remaining natural hearing, a foot surgery wound not healing properly and requiring intensive treatment have been my billows tossing high and sky o’ershadowed with blackness. In this moment of time, the story of the calming of the storm and of many other miracles have given me comfort and hope. As Jesus wrought miracles of healing and safe…
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Sabbath Devotional :: The Way of the Peacemaker
I was praying with particular earnestness and focus yesterday morning both because our oldest son was taking his Step 3 medical board exams that day and because our only daughter is off on another madcap solo adventure and planned to rent a car and drive in Ireland. “Please, please protect her, especially as this will be her first time driving on the wrong side of the road,” I prayed. Immediately, the spirit corrected me: “You mean, on the *other* side of the road?” This was said in that characteristically loving and almost indulgent, but gently chiding tone that I’ve come to recognize as the way the spirit speaks to me…
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Sabbath Devotional :: “You cannot do what I need you to do in anonymity.”
“You cannot do what I need you to do in anonymity.” These were the exact words that came to my mind, leaving me both perplexed and a little afraid. I was struggling to know whether to step forward into an opportunity that would require more of me than I felt ready to give. I much preferred to just continue to work quietly behind the scenes, collaborating with other talented women and shielded a bit from both praise and criticism. As I continued to think and pray to fully understand those words that had come with perfect clarity but fuzzy application, I realized that this answer was not just for me,…
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Sabbath Devotional :: He Came, Not to Judge, but to Save
Last week, at a Relief Society activity on mental health, I found myself asking an expert what we are supposed to do with warranted but overwhelming sadness. As I mentioned how difficult it is lately to be even remotely aware of the news without feeling a deep sense of mourning, I noticed other women around the room nodding their heads in agreement. Our expert provided some good tips about the importance of self-care and then moved on to the next question. Throughout the rest of the week, I have been thinking about how I could apply her tips while also trying to manage a very hectic week, attend to my…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Already Light: We are Loved and Chosen
In 2013, London-based Japanese photographer Chino Otsuka undertook a unique project: an essay series where she inserted her adult self into photographs of her childhood to envision what meeting herself as a child might be like. Outside a French bakery, adult Chino nibbles on a pastry alongside childhood Chino. Together they take a stroll on a beach, board a train, build a snowman, nap in a hotel. They share a face, a posture, a spirit, a body — just at different knots in the fabric of time. When I first discovered these photos, I imagined entering my own childhood photos, where adult me, the present me, interacted with childhood me.…
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Sabbath Devotional :: An Unbreakable and Everlasting Plexus of Love and Kinship
This past Thursday night, I sat in the Provo City Center Temple surrounded by loved ones as one of our son’s converts from his mission received his endowment. Devin, our son, served in the Leeds England Mission. As a Mandarin-speaking missionary he taught Chinese students almost exclusively. He had been in Newcastle-upon-Tyne for only one day when he and his companion approached a group of friends on the street. None of them seemed very interested in talking with the two Mormon missionaries, but my son managed to strike up a conversation with one young man named Lui Fangbo. Lui was a doctoral student in electrical engineering who happened to have…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Love That Knows No Bounds
A few weeks ago, I had an interesting experience at the temple. As I entered the front door and handed my recommend to the man at the front desk, another woman walked up next to me and said that she was there seeking a priesthood blessing. She is no longer an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, nor did she have any interest in becoming one, but she said she had come to the only place she could think of because she was in desperate need of peace. I offered to wait with her in the lobby, and we had a few minutes to talk.…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Gratitude
“The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows what it means to live. He has penetrated the whole mystery of life: giving thanks for everything.” — Albert Schweitzer I’ve been thinking about my mother a lot this week. She died around this time of year, a few days after Thanksgiving, twenty years ago. She was only 69. Way too young to die. I still think of her almost every day, but especially during this season of Thanksgiving. My mother was the finest woman I have ever known. She was born in Manti, Utah on July 13, 1928, and grew up on a homestead…
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Sabbath Devotional :: She Will Find That Which is Lost
“I have a choice: / To put aside this seed, Leaving the planting / To the proven growers, Pretending not to care / For gardening, And knowing, / If I do not try, I cannot fail. Or plant, And risk again / The well-known pain Of watching / For the first brave green And seeing only / Barren ground. The seed is in my hand, / The trowel is in the other. I am going to the garden, / And to the Gardener, Once more.” (“Mother’s Day,” So Far: Poems by Margaret Rampton Munk) The poems of Margaret Rampton Munk (a distant cousin of mine) are full of loss. Meg…
