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Sabbath Devotional :: Light of the World
As I was driving my girls to school early one morning, we noticed how beautiful the sky was. In the time since we had left our home in darkness, sunlight had been creeping over the horizon, displaying varying shades of glorious hues on a canvas of clouds. I commented on how beautiful it is to watch the sun rise, and my 8-year-old daughter corrected me: “Mom, don’t you know the sun isn’t really rising? The sun isn’t moving at all!” She was correct. Indeed, the sun wasn’t moving at all. We talked about how strange it was to think about the fact that we were at that very moment spinning…
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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 :: Lucille, Martha, and Amanda
This month I am especially drawn to examples of historical Latter-day Saint women who have persevered in faith and who demonstrated by their actions and gumption ways to improve society. Allow me to introduce you to three remarkable Saints. These brief sketches are taken from BlackPast.org which defines its purpose this way: BlackPast exists to weave the truths of the black American experience into every American’s identity, in order to make our union more perfect and our society more just.” That is a sentiment that should resonate with every MWEG sister. First meet Mary Lucille Perkins Bankhead (1902–1994) “Lucille Perkins . . . was a lifelong member of The Church…
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Sabbath Devotional :: This Glorious News
January has always been my least favorite month. After several weeks of excitement and anticipation for the holidays, suddenly it is all over. The tree needs to be taken down. The decorations need to be packed up and put away. Life resumes the normal day-to-day routines. Winter no longer feels festive — it just feels cold and dreary and long. The widely spread messages of love and goodwill that are so abundant during the holiday season seem to disappear, forgotten, until Thanksgiving comes around again. In addition to the after-Christmas letdown, January is also a time that holds particularly painful memories for me, which has resulted in each New Year…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Being One
Lately I have felt overwhelmed by insignificance. When I witness the unrelenting onslaught of misrepresentations of the truth; egos out of proportion; locked political horns despite 800,000 people struggling without paychecks; families separated at borders or savaged by crime and greed and disloyalty, I feel powerless. What can my one voice do to bring peace to this broken world of ours? I am reminded of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price where, after seeing a vision of the eternities and the vastness of the world and its people, he — “left unto himself” — admits, “I know that [humankind] is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.” Left “unto…
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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 :: Advent: Of Grace Notes and Glory
I’ve had a busy week. Household chores were taxing and unrelenting. Juggling our families’ schedules for upcoming Christmas visits seemed as complex as prepping for the Olympics. Mountains of recycling needed to be schlepped over to the center — cardboard, paper, glass, plastic, metal — heavy, unwieldy and smelly. The mail offered bills and stacks of catalogs we didn’t need from mostly unlikely sources (Cigar connoisseur? Horse & Saddle?) What probably bugged me the most was the sudden dysfunction of my car’s Sirius XM radio. How could I keep up with our chaotic government without the news informing me mile after out-of-signal mile? Despite my frequent efforts to tune the…
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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.…
