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Sabbath Devotional :: Reflections on Remembering
During more than one lesson I was taught at church during my youth, I learned that President Spencer W. Kimball once said the most important word in the dictionary is “remember” (Spencer W. Kimball, “Circles of Exaltation,” June 28, 1968). This really stuck with me, and I have thought of it often over the years. There have been times in my life when “remember” has been an especially painful word. There have been traumatic events that replay in my mind that I desperately want to forget. There have been losses that sting and ache, and remembering is accompanied by waves of sadness and grief. Still, I recognize that remembering some…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Mighty Prayer
A group of disciples had stopped on the side of a road. The work of teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ was just beginning. There was so much to do, an abundance of knowledge to gain, and many many miles to go before their journeys would end. Their work would span throughout their mortal life and carry on through the eternities. Gathered in a circle, these faithful disciples united in prayer. The scriptures tell us it was a “mighty prayer” (3 Nephi 27:1). Their prayers were full of humility and sincerity of heart (D&C 5:24). Their faithful offering, individually and collectively, brought our Savior, Jesus Christ, before them asking them,…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Succor
As we continue to stay at home all over the country for COVID-19, many thoughts run through my mind. Many of us look at the isolation negatively at times. We miss the touch of loved ones — those handshakes at church or hugs from friends. We miss the freedom of travel and the ability to enjoy family and friends across the country. Many deal with becoming instant homeschoolers. Personally, we had looked forward to more travel, attending sealings, sporting events, and more. Those plans are on pause. For most, we are isolated in bubbles. We are safe at home, antsy for our norms. For far too many, jobs are gone,…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Navigating the Now — and Planning for the After
Has anyone figured this out yet? How to make Now work? We all knew what to do in the Before. Even if there were lots of days when I didn’t like Before, I understood it. I could walk its well-worn paths without needing to pay much attention to the obstacles, vistas, or valleys. But Before is gone, and given how solid and permanent it seemed at the time, it went away surprisingly quickly! So I am figuring out Now along with the rest of you, and while we need to understand Now and make it work, it is still both weird and temporary, because though it feels interminable it isn’t.…
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Easter Sabbath Devotional :: All Glory, Laud, and Honor Anyway
During my time in college, I spent a semester on a study abroad in Jerusalem and the surrounding Holy Land. In Jerusalem, one of the most popular sayings on tourist tchotchkes is a verse of scripture: If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither. It’s written on wall hangings, keychains, and T-shirts in almost every shop in the Old City. The words come from Psalm 137, traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, who relates in narrative verse the lament of the Israelites taken captive into Babylon. The psalm begins, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Every Person Counts
Scripture is replete with references to God and His servants counting their people. As our nation prepares for its decennial census, a count of our country’s population, let’s reflect on some of the instances where we see a census or numbering taking place. In the first chapter of the book of Numbers we read of God asking Moses to take a count of the Israelite community according to their ancestral houses, listing each and every name. Several chapters later, Moses is again directed to take a census or count and use it to apportion the land accordingly. In the Quran, we read in Maryam 19:94 of a Father that “has…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Knowing Christ Through Our Web of Community
In C.S. Lewis’ book “The Four Loves” there is an essay entitled “Friendship.” The following passage is a reflection on the loss of a member of Lewis’ close circle of friends: “In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets… In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious ‘nearness by resemblance’ to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each of us has of God… The more…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Fear, Faith, and Focus
I have been thinking a lot about fear. This is partly because I have been noticing a lot of fear around me. I see it in news headlines and election strategies. I see it in my Facebook feed and on campaign flyers in my mailbox. But the truth is that fear is not just something I have been observing in other people. I have been thinking a lot about fear because I have been feeling a lot of fear myself. I fear big things, like government corruption and global pandemics. I fear not-so-big things, like my children getting their drivers’ licenses. I feel fear when my children are sick or…
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Sabbath Devotional :: The Influence of the Restoration
This year is the 200th anniversary of the First Vision; it’s been 200 years since a young teen asked God which church was true. I stand all amazed at what has transpired since that day. I’ve been pondering what the Restoration has meant in my life. When the missionaries rang our doorbell 38 years ago, I was a young mother with two young daughters. A year and a half later, my husband, our two little girls and I knelt around the altar in the new Atlanta Temple to be sealed as a family. Faithful members in our little branch nurtured, served and loved us. Since then, we have served in…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Preserve the Relationship
I had the privilege to grow up in a lovely ward filled with sincerely good people. Two of them were Marjorie and Gordon Hinckley. Because they were people of great humility and good sense, and probably because my parents were too, to me they just blended in. Sister Hinckley stands out in my childhood memory not as someone I knew to be important, but simply as someone I remember as being fun, warm, and very kind. It is perhaps because of these qualities that six of her words, spoken in a sacrament meeting, have stayed with me for decades. They were simply this: “Above all else, preserve the relationship.” The…
