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Sabbath Devotional :: The Parable of the Goatheads
A few weeks ago was bike week at my kids’ school. Since it’s about a half hour bike ride from our house, I didn’t quite trust my boys to make it there on their own. So I loaded my little girl into the bike trailer, and away we all went. About one block from the school, I was forced off the street onto the sidewalk. I heard a smattering of little crunching sounds, and saw the culprits scattered across the sidewalk: goatheads. (For the unfamiliar – count your blessings – they are nasty little things, the seeds of a pervasive weed with three sharp thorns that hurt like the dickens…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Easter Musings on the Sixth Principle of Peacemaking
MWEG’s Sixth Principle of Peacemaking: We believe that, through Christ who overcame all, we can have the hope of peace in this life, regardless of our circumstances, and the promise of everlasting peace when Christ comes again to reign forever as the Prince of Peace. In John 16:33, the Gospel writer starkly juxtaposes the realities of mortal life: These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. The scripture sets up a drastic contrast. “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” This is a given. We see it…
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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 :: Come, Ye Disconsolate
Today I was at the funeral for my 17-year-old nephew, Zachary. Zachary had muscular dystrophy, which is a genetic disease that runs in my family. My younger brother had the same disease and passed away five years ago. I have another nephew, still living, who also has this disease. My brother and my nephews have faced enormous challenges and difficulties in life that are very visible. I have become acutely aware that most of us face enormous challenges and difficulties that are not so visible, but no less significant. At the funeral today, my niece sang a beautiful arrangement of a hymn that I was unfamiliar with. The words can…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Discernment
My third child has an artist’s soul. Her world is full of color, music, and words. She lives to create; it is her passion. Her fingers and mind are in constant motion. This consuming need to create also has led to a great deal of frustration when projects fail to meet her high standards and vision. I can only imagine her levels of stress as a young girl, working on her masterpieces with inexperienced fingers, unable to perform as she desired. Tears, many tears, were a constant in our home as she struggled, learning to be patient. One evening as I was fixing dinner, she came to me with her…
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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 :: 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…
