I love the variety of windows in temples. Having taken a stained glass class, I appreciate the intricate effort needed for these architectural additions, as colored glass is selected, shaped, and soldered together. My quarter-century of temple worship is like a stained glass window—various facets make a beautiful picture through a delicate, time-intensive process that enhances my life.  My academic background in biblical Hebrew leads me to see ancient temple connections. I think about Jesus in every symbol: water in the basin, bread on the table, light in the menorah, the olive-oil anointed one, the High Priest officiating, the veil through which we approach the Father, the Lamb being sacrificed. That is the center picture of my stained glass temple window, the Lamb of God glowing with light. The window of my temple experience encompasses a lifespan from young bride to tired mother, to mother of a missionary and a bride. I find new insight each passing year as the colors and light play out differently against my life background. I love generational connections, which are the structured outlines of my window. As I attended the Salt Lake Temple with my daughter and my mother, my daughter wearing the dress my mom once sewed for me, wearing an apron her grandma sewed and carrying her great-grandmother’s envelope, I also thought of our ancestors who hauled granite to build it and carved its banisters, and then of my great-grandparents who were married there, then my in-laws, my siblings, myself: generations of angels, surrounding us in time and eternity. I confess to being a temple tourist when we travel and taking my kids one summer to do baptisms at all the Utah temples. Witnessing my teenage son baptize my daughters is joy and rejoicing indeed. Here are some of my colored pieces: A night in July, when we finished the work for my grandfather’s eleven siblings. That evening, a rainbow over the Draper temple heralded our welcome, and when we left, fireworks in the valley below felt like a heavenly celebration. I visited their Nebraska cemetery, and as I found so many familiar names on the headstones, realized I’d done the temple work for the entire northwestern quadrant–I imagine a wonderful resurrection reunion. I felt the presence of heaven as proxy for a relative who lived through the Johnstown Flood as a young girl. She seemed scared of water—her name card kept getting lost during the baptismal process. I felt her fear again in the initiatory, and had scriptures about the Lord calming the water come to mind.  These bright rainbows and fireworks, peaceful water and headstones are in my window. There are faces of my family and ancestors. I have wept at the temple with personal grief and loss, darker pieces that give depth to my scene. It is framed in granite and light, in whispers and scriptures. I miss the temple so dearly in these Covid times, and look forward to the light shining through it into my life again.

Josefa di Óbidos Nativity of Jesus. 1669 In April of 1937, my grandmother was sitting in a restaurant with her husband when he suddenly collapsed. Ralph was 25 years old when he died of unknown causes; they had been married just three years. In that same week, the Hindenburg crashed not too far from my grandmother’s Philadelphia home; Fascism was gaining power in Europe, and politics at home were contentious. The Depression had put my great-grandfather out of work, and in her straitened circumstances, my grandmother moved into a women’s boarding home after Ralph’s passing. I don’t know what her feelings were at the time. She was a stoic German Pennsylvanian who didn’t complain about hardship much — but I would have felt that the world was coming to an end. But her world didn’t end. She married again during the early years of WWII, had twins while my grandfather was away serving in the army, burying one of them. She eventually settled into family life on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. I remember her as someone who always had a project to work on in her retirement: painting, gardening, knitting doll clothes, volunteering at her church’s charity shop. She was an attentive grandmother and neighborly to the core, the kind of person who cut out newspaper clippings that might interest her friends and family, who had a special drawer of treats for visiting grandchildren, who gamely went tent camping well into her 70s, and was a diligent letter correspondent. She died at age 82. Remembering my grandmother with love, I come to the realization that family stories like these help me foster hope in my own life. And I’ve tried to tease out the reason that memories of the past should be relevant when hope is supposed to look to the future. Or why stories of hardship would be a comfort to me when hope is supposed to expect good things, not trials. The more I think and read on the topic, the more paradoxical and profound hope seems to me. What is hope? In its simplicity, hope is desire, and the expectation of that desire’s fulfillment. It requires a heartfelt emotion, even though in our conversations, we often use the word dismissively. “I hope so” can be a bland conversation ender, but hope in the true sense should be deep and persistent. In the triumvirate of faith, hope, and charity, hope is necessarily a vital and uplifting feeling. That desire rises out of a lack or need. Just as faith only exists in relation to uncertainty, hope can only be felt along with an awareness of unfulfillment. Hope is one side of a coin: the vision of something better backed by the realization of a less-than-ideal reality. What do we hope for? When I contemplate hope then, I give myself the chance to reflect on what it is that I truly desire. Moroni is the one who taught me that hope can be cultivated and altered. In Moroni 7:41, he asked, “What is it that ye shall hope for?” — a question that has always struck me because it conveys the startling possibility of picking and choosing one’s hopes. Desire can’t be willed into existence, can it? When it comes to what we want, how can we argue with the heart? But this is partly what the gospel is all about: teaching our heart what to desire and what not to desire. Wisdom is knowing which desires are honored by God and which ones are counterproductive to our own or other people’s happiness. It is also knowing how to desire rightly. This is certainly something I have not mastered, but I have a feeling that it’s all right to keep learning throughout an entire lifetime. I have a memory of being very young, probably in the lower elementary grades, and trying to trick myself into not hoping for some treat because I wondered whether lovely things only happened when I wasn’t expecting them. Please understand that I wasn’t a deprived or neglected child. What I hoped for was not something that I necessarily needed. It may have been paper dolls. It may have been a snow day. But I remember this inner conversation as an early attempt to sneakily get what I wanted by trying to convince the universe that I didn’t really care. But this is not a successful strategy. Shutting off one’s desires is not a way to find happy fulfillment. There may be a time to stop internally begging for something, but if the desire is a true one, then it will have its time. In Ether 3:2, the brother of Jared prays and says, “O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires.” Our theology does not tell us to ignore what the heart wants, but to recognize the power of worthy desires and to direct them back to our Creator–to ask for and expect to experience goodness and joy. At the time of this verse, when the brother of Jared recognized that God wanted him to keep desiring, he was experiencing his own hardships and uncertainty: as refugees, he and his family had been living in the wilderness for several years. This moment of prayer was a new beginning, a new push to find their promised land. Past, Present, and Future Hope Three scriptural verses offer different applications of this kind of optimism, the recognition that God wants us to be happy, and the trust in the possibility of joy. They reflect our lived experience within a mortal timeline. Moroni 10:3 says, “Behold, I would exhort you that…ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.” This prescribed exercise in remembrance is also a lesson on the nature of God’s goodness. Looking for mercy in the lives of past, it somehow becomes possible to find it. And if the vast scope of human history may be hard to grapple with, we have memories of loved ones, past family stories or common histories that show us this mercy. Thinking about my grandmother’s experiences, I feel a hopeful appreciation for the miracle of her life and am grateful that she had the chance to be woven into the fabric of humanity, that her life is bound up in my own. Her hardships fortify my own resilience, and my love for her reminds me of a larger concept of goodness. In his letter to the Philippians, 4:11, Paul says, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” Finding peace even in the midst of difficulty, Paul experiences the grace of not needing to look for an escape from the present. Rather than looking to the future as the source for his optimism, the gospel of good news gives him the capacity to rest in the here and now. This is a rare gift, a different kind of hope as Paul turns his desire toward gratitude and trust rather than his needs or lacks. But Moroni also says, in Ether 12:4, “Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world…” This scripture reminds us that belief prompts us to expect something beyond our present experience, to think in terms of change or improvement, to look forward. Of course, Paul is not wrong to find contentment even while Moroni directs us to look for better things. The paradoxes of the gospel make it more, not less true. And what these three perspectives have in common is not their temporal orientation — to the past, present, or the future — but their acknowledgment or anticipation of goodness, mercy, and joy. Hope then is the kind of resilience that is able to find these qualities both in real and potential circumstances. It is always looking for new beginnings, never saying this is the end, but expecting goodness to resurface if we nurture it. Hope is an exercise in perspective, of seeing the world as it is, recognizing the strain and stress of our time-bound existence while trusting in the underlying miracle of goodness that holds and nurtures our mortal lives and the eternal perspective that gives all of us a chance to find our heart’s desire eventually. Christmas and the remembrance of hope I know of no other celebration where hope is so clearly the focus than Christmas. The advent season is by definition a remembrance of expectant hope. We look back to the past of Jesus’ birth and into the future of our own coming festivities. We commemorate this time by storing up gifts to share with loved ones on Christmas day — seeking out the secret hearts’ desire especially of children or of those who are in need, and then rewarding those needs and longings. We celebrate by counting down days using special calendars and by re-reading prophecies of a coming Messiah. The Christmas season is more than the commemoration of a single birthday itself, it is a re-anticipation of Jesus’s birth and an exercise in hope. And that birth itself was not a complete fulfillment, not a happy ending to the story of humanity or even the story of Jesus. As a newborn, Jesus wasn’t yet teaching wise truths, calling disciples away from their fishing boats, or performing miracles of healing. This was a starting point, and the expectation of good things to come was in itself the miracle. Now, as we look back to the first Christmas, we are also each individually at new starting points in our lives. We are always able to start desiring, finding, and creating for ourselves and others the goodness, joy, and mercy in our past, present, and future. Our theology points us to Christ as the source of hope. In this season we look for joy in Him and find it all around us.

My first experience inside the temple was sealed to my family at six years old. My father had been recently baptized, and my family was excited to be sealed in the temple. I remember feeling the Spirit and recognizing the importance of being inside the temple walls. It was a special day for my family, and the Spirit left an impression on my heart of a feeling of home and a desire to return. Throughout the rest of my childhood and my teenage years, I eagerly look forward to the day that I would go back to the temple to partake of ordinances myself. I had the opportunity to go to the temple before serving my mission. After my mission, I have had the opportunity to be an ordinance worker for several years. This has allowed me to become comfortable with the temple and make it a space of my own, a place of mediation, and a place between heaven and earth. My 20s have proven to be filled with unexpected challenges, like is the experience of many people. When I was 23, I experienced a devastating heartbreak that really shook me to my core. I made it a point to regularly attend the temple outside of my temple shifts to seek comfort and guidance. Oftentimes I wouldn’t necessarily receive any answers or any grand epiphanies. But it helped me carry on during an immobilizing time. Usually, through symbolism and rituals, I felt like I was personally being hugged by our Savior. The temple didn’t give me clear answers to what to do with my life or where to go. Still, I was able to learn how to utilize the atonement through meditation within the temple walls.  Through my time as an ordinance worker, as a patron, and for serving my deceased family, I learned that I can create a safe space for me. The Temple ultimately provided a space where I could feel my emotions. It gave me a space to be my authentic self during my particular circumstances and to commune with our Heavenly Parents and our Savior, Jesus Christ. This has encouraged me to create a safe space at home, work, and church for marginalized communities, communities such as the LGBT+ community, BIPOC communities, and any other marginalized identity within our society today. I strive to create spaces for them to authentically be themselves and express their specific and individual concerns, circumstances, challenges, and emotions. I am grateful for the temple and the template that it provides for me to personally create a safe space for the broken-hearted, out-casted, and marginalized.

In 2014, I ventured into the world of family history and quickly became passionate about seeking out my ancestors and performing their temple ordinances. Attending the temple became increasingly meaningful as I spent time working on behalf of my own family, people I had come to know and love through the process of researching their lives and families.  I loved every part of the work, but I especially loved the moments when we could seal whole families together for eternity. During a few of these sealings, I had the distinct impression that someone was missing and that I needed to find another member of that family. In each instance, when I went back to search for another person, I found a young child or baby, or sometimes several, who were missing from the family records. It used to be common for families to lose babies or young children to illness, and I’ve found that often the little ones who are missed in a census record get lost in family history. I’ve since made it a mission of mine to seek out these missing little ones. I haven’t kept track of how many I’ve found, but it has been at least a few dozen.  In 2018 I had a miscarriage, and the pain of losing a baby who I hadn’t even yet met was excruciating. A few days after the miscarriage, my husband and I attended the temple for an endowment session, seeking peace and comfort for our grieving hearts. At one point in the session, I felt overwhelmed with sadness and could barely control my sobs.  In that moment of intense heartache, I had the distinct impression that all of the women for whom I had found lost babies and children were coming to encircle me in their arms. They understood completely how I was feeling, and it was as if they were saying, “We know. We know how hard it is. We’re here for you, and it’s going to be ok.” I felt loved, understood, and comforted by these women whom I hadn’t met but with whom I felt a deep connection, a connection that deepened that day and over the following months during my moments of grief.  I know that they without us cannot be made perfect, but even more so that “we without them cannot be made perfect.” I firmly believe that in the temple we can draw closer to our own family members who have gone before us, especially as we seek to serve them through performing ordinances on their behalf.

It was June of 2012, and scripture study hadn’t been a priority of mine for many, many months, sad to say.  An upcoming cruise industry conference in New York City, to be followed by visits to family and friends meant that I’d be away from my home and family in Nova Scotia for a little while. Pre-travel anxiety combined with some guilt moved me to try to feel the Spirit through one of favourite books, Jesus and the World of the New Testament by Huntsman, Holzapfel, and Wayment. For some reason, I was drawn to portions of the book that examined the impacts and possible identities of the many Marys portrayed in the New Testament. I was touched by the complexity, mystery and beauty of their stories, and by the name itself. I pondered the name’s many linguistic variations and combinations: Mary, Marie, Maria, Maryam, Miriam, Marianne, Anne-Marie, Maria Sofia, and the like. I even thought about how nice it would be to have another daughter, so I could gift her with one of those names!   Within a couple of days I was off to NYC and the cruise conference. The objective was to create awareness among cruise lines of some of Nova Scotia’s smaller ports. My marketing pitch, repeated ad nauseam, went something like this: “In 1604 French explorer Samuel de Champlain established the oldest continuous European settlement north of Florida, in today’s charming, historic Annapolis Royal. It even predates settlement in Jamestown! This excursion, including visits to two forts, craft shopping and chocolate tasting, is a must for history buffs, especially during fall foliage cruises!” Over and over and over again… Whew! After the conference, I met up with an old friend. Together we rode the bus to the Manhattan temple. I hadn’t attended this temple before. Being one of the few located in a high rise urban building, it fascinated. Distracted by my excitement over the unique design and décor, I honestly was not paying too much attention when I received the proxy name. So I was surprised when the name given me was one “Marie G______”. What a coincidence, given my earlier reading! Then when I was seated, I was beyond astonished to see her particulars: “born c. 1600, France.” Coincidence piled up upon coincidence; the temple worker who helped me at the veil was named “Joy”. As we continued at the veil, I hoped that Marie took some pleasure in hearing her name pronounced correctly (I speak some French). I was overwhelmed by the idea that I had unknowingly been prepared in different ways to do this work for her.   These “Godwinks,” the name given to such inconceivable coincidences, are blessings I sometimes experience. They confirm God’s interest in the minutiae of our lives, and the touching personal nature of his tender mercies. He knows us each as individuals, and reaches out to us in ways that we (and sometimes we alone) will understand.

Creation has turned into being one of the most important aspects of my life. Which, frankly, is interesting as it took quite a detour. I have always loved color, line, form. From the time I was young, I had painted and decorated my room multiple times. I LOVED creating space. When I was about ten, I designed my bedroom in a southwest style (and blocked it off from my younger sister’s rainbow side of the room). When I was twelve, I joined her in the love of color and we had a combined room with 1980s abstract blobs. Then, when I was in sixth grade a student teacher working in our classroom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Now, I have no idea how I already had this in my head, but I confidently said, “I want to be a designer.” She almost choked— “What? With your brain?!?” She quickly rallied, remembered some lesson she must have received somewhere on “never mock a child’s aspirations,” and backpedaled from her first reaction. But, the impact was done. It was clear to me that I should NOT be a designer. I went to college. I considered studying law— everyone said I would be good at it. I was a law professor’s TA; I didn’t enjoy the law more than a few hours a week of theoretical discussion. I got a master’s degree. I was planning on being a college professor but got a job at an NGO working in communications. That led to working and eventually owning a start-up business— a design and communications firm. But, I was on the BUSINESS side. We worked on social issues. (See, aren’t I serious? Aren’t I using my brain?) I remember one client meeting with a social justice law firm. The lawyers wanted a discount on our services as they had already “designed” their website— and they scooted a piece of paper across the table to me. I looked at it— it was a good start but lacked some basics that a good web designer would know. So I calmly told them that while I could write adjectives and nouns and verbs and put them in a sentence— that was not the same thing as a law brief. The designer in the room with me about fell off her chair. Another client told us they were going to have a high school art student do all the “designing” of the site since that was easy. I think I just kind of got used to that role— the “not quite serious” person in the room. On the upside, I could wear bold shirts and crazy colored suits because I was the “creative” in the meeting. But, thoughts on policy and business strategy and how design matters for communicating effectively— naw. I could have “serious” thoughts—but then I just put them in children’s books …clearly, not a serious medium. It is a funny role to be in when you are accustomed to other roles. Fast forward ten years. I got a phone call from my husband that he was on his way home. I quickly scrambled to stuff all the fabric I had laid out in front of me back in their tidy drawers so he wouldn’t know what I had been working on. WHAT THE?!? Why was I doing that? Why was I ashamed? Design is the intentional creation to make the world a better place through efficacious beauty. Design can mean the difference between people being friendly with their neighbors, or not. Design can be mean the difference of a message being internalized, or not. Design can mean the difference between beauty, or not. Design can be the difference between a medical study being effective, or not. Design — or intentional construction— is everywhere, or not. Architecture, engineering, medical studies, food, exercise, a novel— all can be well designed…or not. Then I had a life-changing experience…with youtube, no less. If you go to youtube, there is a video on Cecile , an LDS woman who was a fashion designer in Paris. She says in that video that some people create masterpieces with musical instruments or paint— she creates with fabric. When I saw this video, a few things hit me. HARD. 1- I am a creator, as are we all. 2- The medium doesn’t matter. 3- Do what brings you joy and forget the “legitimacy” of it. 4- The legitimacy is that creation = divinity. So I STOPPED. I was no longer going to be embarrassed of my love affair with color, line, form, creation in whatever medium. In fact, I stepped dramatically into that space. I called the art gallery that had hosted one of my book events and asked if they would host an art show of my work…and they agreed. That thrill (and pressure) made me step boldly into a space that I had pitter-patted around for decades. I was going to own that I am a creator. I spent eight months planning, drawing, gathering materials, working with a team (no easy feat considering my complete lack of language prowess in Hindi), designing, finalizing, fixing . . . CREATING . It was joyous, demanding, reinvigorating. I could literally spend hours in the flow of working with beads and fabric and color. It was bliss. And, while I absolutely enjoyed the night of the art show opening…and did a second show the next year…and have a show planned for next year…honestly, the shows are not the thing. The THING is the time spent creating. Creation= bringing something to life. And creation gives a deep sense of SATISFACTION (not just the social media meme kind) that comes with few other things. Why? Because creation is practicing our divinity. J. Kirk Richards, artist. Image from "The Girl’s Guide to Heavenly Mother" “The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before…That is your opportunity in this life and your destiny in the life to come.”[1] So why don’t we all intentionally create? What are the roadblocks? 1- Limited understanding of what creation means So, when I first think of creation, my reaction is “I am not an artist. I can’t draw worth a hoot.” But, I like this quote from Elder Uchtdorf: “Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before— colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter.”[2] What I realized is that while it might be more obvious now on Instagram (books and visual arts lend themselves to that)— I have ALWAYS been a creator…not just in color and form. (And the “just” is not derogatory but rather just a statement of non-exclusivity.) I have created business cultures through policies and practices. I have created marketing strategies I have created friendships. I have created communities. I have created mischief. I have created loving relationships. I have never created a garden or a good meal or a medical device. I know others who have. 2- Believe creation — whatever medium— has worth “In the ongoing process of creation—our creation and the creation of all that surrounds us—our heavenly parents are preparing a lovely tapestry with exquisite colors and patterns and hues. They are doing so lovingly and carefully and masterfully. And each of us is playing a part—our part—in the creation of that magnificent, eternal piece of art.”[3] You know what’s awesome? Our Heavenly Parents decided to create an earth for us and assigned our older brother, Jesus, to lead that creation team. We know it included “noble and great ones” and that it might have been “Christ and Mary, Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, and a host of mighty men and equally glorious women comprised that group of ‘the noble and great ones,’ to whom the Lord Jesus said: ‘We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell.’”[4,5] I imagine that the creation team required a wide range of necessary talents. I, for one, have spatial thinking limitations and so would not be assigned to the engineering team. But, put me in charge of coming up with the precise shade of tangerine that the Sahara desert is or the sinuous curve that each of the dunes makes— I am ON IT. The point is, whatever way we choose to create has inherent value. I think it is the actual act of creation that matters, not the medium. 3- Fear of failure or ridiculousness or just being plain out bad “What you create doesn’t have to be perfect . . . Don’t let fear of failure discourage you.”[6] This is a tough one. I read a great quote about a person who decides to get into the visual arts does so because it has a certain appeal to their senses. But their ability to perceive beauty is higher than their ability to create beauty— and so they stall out. I think this is true for many of us in many ways. I can SEE what it means to be a perfectly patient parent…to create harmony in my home…but when my kid does that thing ONE MORE TIME that I have said a gazillion times to not do, well, my ability to perform is not as high as my ability to understand. It’s a problem…maybe. Because, really, the only other alternative is to not try at all. To do nothing. And how many of us actually think that sounds like a good idea? It doesn’t even sound fun. One thing I have loved about India is that everyone thinks they are an artist. (This has also sometimes painted my soul.) It seems everyone sings and/or dances. Almost everyone has access to a tailor…so they can create their own clothes. So many things are handmade that there is a wide scope…which, to me, is ultimately very freeing. And meant there was no bar of “good”—just the enjoyment of creating. 4- Lack of time Yes, we all have limited time. We have to choose to invest what we have well. But choosing to see our efforts as small acts of creations— whether that effort is to create “harmonious homes” with practicing more patience or painting a masterpiece— every day can be an act of creation. We are, literally, creating our lives and ourselves. Everyday. 5- What else? What are the other things that get in the way of us owning our divine identity as creators? We are born as children of God, born to grow up to be like Them…and that means, ultimately, CREATORS. Our Heavenly Parents are Creators on the grandest scale, with our world, with the Plan of Happiness, with Their children’s lives. Now, I have found that when I take the time to create—ideally every day in some way—that I feel peace in my life from exercising my divinity. I am practicing being like Them. And THAT matters— in whatever medium we each choose. [1] Dieter F. Uchtdorf “ Happiness, Your Heritage ” October 2008 General Conference [2] Dieter F. Uchtdorf “Happiness, Your Heritage” October 2008 General Conference [3] Sister Patricia T. Holland and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, On Earth As It Is in Heaven (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989), 4 [4] Abraham 3:22-24 [5] McConkie, Bruce R. “Eve and the Fall,” in Spencer W. Kimball et al, Woman (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1979), p. 59. [6] Dieter F. Uchtdorf “Happiness, Your Heritage” October 2008 General Conference

Last year when we were contemplating uprooting our family from Texas and moving back to Utah, I was seeking an answer from the Lord. Our lives were good in Houston. My husband and I had excellent jobs, a home and neighborhood we loved, and many friends who had become like family. All three of our kids had all been born in Texas, and that was all they had ever known. The thought of leaving such familiarity and goodness was unnerving and scary, but we had always had the hope of living closer to family, finding a job with better work/life balance, and letting our kids grow up near the mountains. But there was so much unknown. Would we find a good home in a soaring housing market? Would our neighborhood be a good place to raise our kids? Would we find friends who would be there through thick and thin? Would our jobs be secure? Would I hate winter weather as much as I remember? As I was seeking an answer about whether or not to move, I felt a lot of inner turmoil. As a bit of a background, there had been multiple occasions in my life where my prayers about important, life-altering decisions had seemed to go unanswered. Despite my best efforts—endless prayers, searching the scriptures, attending the temple, talking with trusted family and friends— I hadn’t felt a confirmation one way or the other. From those experiences, I have learned some important lessons about agency and God’s trust in me, but it is truly terrifying to sometimes be required to step forward into the darkness without the reassurance that the decision you’ve made is a good one.  As I searched for an answer about this opportunity to move to Utah, I kept remembering the times I hadn’t received an answer. I worried that I would once again be left to make a life-changing decision on my own. But I tried to trust. I tried to have faith that an answer could and would come. I tried to do all the things I knew would bring the Spirit. I felt strongly that we needed to go to the temple as a couple. Our Houston temple had flooded during Hurricane Harvey and had been undergoing repairs for several months. I longed to be able to go, but the next-closest temple was a few hours away. Right at the time we needed to make a final decision about accepting a job and moving, our temple was reopened and my husband and I were able to attend one of the first endowment sessions together.  That day in the celestial room of the Houston temple, our prayers were answered in the most remarkable way, like the fitting together of two puzzle pieces. After so many non-answers, this was an answer and a reassurance from my Father in Heaven that I will cherish for the rest of my life. And the inner peace that came with it held our family together as we navigated the stress of selling a house, leaving all that was familiar, driving halfway across the country, living out of suitcases for nine months while awaiting a more permanent situation, switching our kids’ schools twice, starting three new jobs between the two us, receiving the news that the job my husband had taken could potentially lay him off just a few months after he started, and just having life be overwhelming in general. The answer we had received in the temple was a hopeful and stabilizing force during a hectic and uncertain time. I knew my Father in Heaven knew me and was keenly aware of our situation and needs.

I had been pondering about joy for a couple of weeks when it greeted me unexpectedly in a crowded hallway one morning. It quickened me with wonder, a sense of flying on the wings of grace while people hurried past. In the hours that followed, I found myself rising to the vibration of the joyful energy within me, ready to shed unhelpful habits and embrace a higher way. The joy from that moment still occasionally flickers within me in bright flashes that illuminate my soul for an instant, while other times it softly hums the Song of Redeeming Love in the background. The song soothes me when I start feeling overwhelmed and lean into it to breathe in a bit more light to get through the day. While the joy I feel can catch me by surprise, other times I seek it and it seems to elude me like a radio station I cannot quite tune into. There are periods of my life like the weeks following joy’s unexpected hallway visit when I sense joy settling more deeply into an abiding presence in my life. Helga Meyer This little rebirth of joy helps me better understand the theme of joy in Helga Meyer’s memoir, Under a Leafless Tree: The Story of a Mormon Girl From East Prussia , coauthored by my mother, Lark Evans Galli. Since she passed away less than three years ago, I miss Helga’s ready laugh and the beauty of her “German tongue” as she affectionately spoke to those around her.[1] I remember how she often encouraged the people sitting next to her in church on fast Sundays to bear their testimonies, and how her deep love for everyone in our ward could cause her heartache when any among us were struggling physically or spiritually. Helga was my mother’s visiting teacher, and upon hearing stories of her coming of age in World War II Germany such as an aerial attack on Hitler’s birthday, hiding from drunken soldiers, and being near starvation, my mother eventually began recording Helga’s memories and writing her story. As one reader of the resulting book Under a Leafless Tree noted, what is remarkable about the Helga’s story is that “she does not dwell on the negative or morose elements of her story.”[2] Instead, the unbridled joy that was evident in Helga’s way of living is a theme running through her narrative. In rereading it I sought to understand the essence of joy: what it is, how it can remain with a person during the darkest times, and what it reveals about godliness. Although it is the reason for our mortal existence (men and women are that we might have joy), joy can be challenging to conceptualize. I believe that joy like peace “passeth all understanding.” Comprehending joy can be particularly difficult for those who struggle with depression or any other condition that leaves them feeling estranged from joy for a season. While we may not understand all the reasons God allows this to happen, we know that joy is our birthright, and as we “live after the manner of happiness” our tears will give way to joy. When Jesus was preparing His apostles for his impending death, he gently suggested that in a little while they would not see him, and they would experience weeping, lamentation, and sorrow as a woman experiences in labor. However, they would see Him again and no man would be able to take away their joy (John 16:19-22). We can take comfort in His promise when we are enduring the labor pains of our life’s work, knowing that the joy is “set before [us]” as it was for Him. Although a measure of “joy cometh in the morning,” one thing so evident in Helga’s story and her demeanor itself is that joy is offered to the faithful even in and through tribulation. While a common dictionary definition of joy is “a feeling of great pleasure or happiness,” the word that I feel best accompanies joy is “enduring.” It has the power to abide with a person and continually enlighten her through difficulty. Helga said of her experience getting baptized in a river at the age of ten on a cool and stormy day: “That happiness has never left me. This is what makes me strong. I didn’t realize that being baptized would bring me so much joy. The joy just wanted to come out, and instead of walking along nicely to church that Sunday, I was hopping along because I was full of joy and happiness. I am so grateful for that. I was so happy that I was a member of the church. I am as happy today as I was that day.” [3] Rather than being simply a fleeting emotion, joy exists all around us wherever the Song of Redeeming Love is sung. All things testify of Christ, and they witness of His love aloud for anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand His ways. I believe that many who do not yet know of Christ find themselves humming along or even singing the song brilliantly as it leads them to Him. While Helga may not have spent the rest of her life hopping along in response to the heights of exhilaration she felt following her baptism, she describes feeling an enduring joy that remained apparent to all around her throughout her life. She reminded me of the sister Elder Bednar described who affirmed in a testimony meeting, “I have great joy because of the Father’s plan of salvation.”[4] She knew her joy came from the Song of Redeeming Love, and as she continued singing it, it was visible as light to those around her. Elder Bednar recounted, “The light that shone in her eyes, the spiritually dignified tone of her voice, her bright and peaceful countenance—everything about her affirmed the truthfulness of what she was saying. She was filled with joy. She radiated joy. Indeed, she was becoming more like the Savior and receiving His image in her countenance (see Alma 5:14), a part of which was becoming joyful.” I wondered how Helga could cultivate such joy in her countenance when she also knew how it was “when the bombs are falling, when something is burning, and somebody dies.”[5] While her hardships were extreme, she recognized that she is not unique in experiencing challenges and that “Life is really a struggle for anybody at any time.”[6] At the end of her book, Helga offers some insight into how her practice of gratitude, singing the Song of Redeeming Love aloud in the mornings, opened the way for joy: “Even when I was married, but especially now since I am alone, when I wake up, I say out loud, ‘I thank thee, my Father in Heaven, for being alive, for having the gospel in my life.’ Other people might think, Maybe she is a little crazy , but I do need that. When I am alone and reading the scriptures, my heart is full of thankfulness. I have many tender tears of joy. Every time I read the Book of Mormon, it gets more precious. Every scripture, the light is shining on it. You can be alone, but you don’t need to feel lonely if you have a strong testimony of the gospel.”[7] While Helga found this joy particularly during times of solitude, she also recognized that it can be continually rekindled through strong connections with family and community. Under a Leafless Tree is full of memories of how she deeply enjoyed the company of others. It occurs to me that the word joy is an essential element of “en-joy-ment” which stems from Old French enjoir, “to give joy, rejoice, take delight.” In his BYU address on October 22, 2019, David Brooks thoughtfully describes the joy that community connections can bring: “That is what happens in a community. The behaviors, the norms, and the gifts get replicated and spread around by people who are deeply engaged and deeply seeing one another. To me, the end result of all this is a sort of joyfulness.”[8] I think David Brooks really captures why one can feel such joy in the company of others in this statement: “Happiness is the expansion of self, but joy is the merger of self. It’s the kind of thing that happens when you forget where you end and something else begins, when you really are seeing deeply into each other.”[9] Helga was one who looked into people’s eyes, smiled, and spoke as if she were seeing them deeply. The common greeting in India “namaste” is often interpreted to mean, “I see the divine within you.” I believe that when we see one another deeply enough, the divine within us recognizes the divine in the other person and we find ourselves resonating together with the Song of Redeeming Love. David Brooks expressed that a person may feel happy alone (through accomplishments), but joy was something more. It is a curious question whether it is possible to feel joy in complete isolation, and I agree with him that it is not. Understanding the communal nature of joy helps explain why Helga found such joy by herself in the mornings. In her times of greatest solitude (of which she had many, such as being parted from her family during the war, and living as a widow, a single mother, and a divorcee) she felt joy because she was never alone. She constantly knocked on the door of her Savior and her Heavenly Parents, and kept knocking through the darkest times I can imagine, and they answered. Clearly, Helga’s Heavenly Parents were continually orchestrating her life and knocking at the door of her heart as well, sending her dreams and guidance even many times when she chose not to listen. The other day I told my mother that Helga’s story was truly a love story, full of her love for God, God’s love for her, and her desire to share that love with all who knew her. I still wonder why I felt sudden joy in the hallway one morning, but I accept it as a gift. At a time when I had been trying to comprehend joy in preparation to write this essay, the Lord extended His love to me in a moment as if to say, “ This is joy.” I believe joy is always about connection. When we feel deeply our connection to nature, to each other, or to God, this is when we hear the Song of Redeeming love running through all things, and feel the joy of being One that the Savior promises all His children. [1] Helga Meyer and Lark Galli  Under a Leafless Tree: The Story of a Mormon Girl from East Prussia, 2015 (page xii) [2] Reader review, Goodreads August 28, 2013 [3]Meyer and Galli, page 38 [4] Elder David A. Bednar, “ Jesus Christ: The Source of Enduring Joy .” [5] Meyer and Galli, page 199 [6] ibid [7] ibid, page 102 [8] David Brooks “ Finding the Road to Character, ” BYU Speeches, October 22, 2019[9] ibid

When I was twenty-one, the day before I entered the MTC, I drove out to Manti, Utah with my parents. I had wanted to attend the temple again with them before I left, and we all decided that the Manti temple would make for a memorable trip, not the least because it was the place where my parents had been sealed twenty-five years earlier. And while there are many reasons that trip to Manti remains at the forefront of my memories even today, another twenty-one years now passed, what I remember most is a small, very human moment that occurred in the hallway. As my mother and I turned to head toward the changing rooms following the endowment ceremony, I caught a glimpse of my father going the other way, skipping. The sight of a grown man skipping down a temple hallway is not, I believe, typical. He bobbed side to side, clearly motivated by an excess of emotion—joy—and unable to contain himself. “Brother—” a kind, low voice interrupted, “We do not skip in the House of the Lord.” My mother flushed red as we reached the doorway. Personally, I was feeling a bit more like my father at that moment: utterly thrilled to be in the temple with my parents—just us—and filled with warmth following the beauty of the endowment and the loveliness of the Manti temple itself, with its rich murals and ornate interiors. Knowing my dad, I could see why he couldn’t help but skip a bit after all that beauty. In a lot of ways, I feel very lucky when it comes to my relationship with the temple. It started with beauty for me. I just happened to be the kind of nerdy reader who found religious ritual fascinating, and who preferred libraries to parties. As such, by the time I received my own endowment I wasn’t thrown off by the intensity of the high ritual with its sacred clothing and formulaic speech—they all appeared to me as familiar aesthetic tropes utilized in various ways by multiple human societies throughout history. The fact that I had stumbled into a set of narratives and contexts that allowed me to at least partially understand and appreciate what I found in the temple has always seemed a bit unfair to me. Unfair in the sense that it was just a combination of personal preference for narrative texts combined with an inclination toward comparative religious history that happened to prove effective in preparing me for the highly ritualized language, gestures, and narrative structures found in the temple. Why should I have the luck to appreciate the story and structure of contemporary temple worship? While I know plenty of people for whom the temple is a space of refuge, I know plenty of others for whom the temple is a source of pain, confusion, and even despair. The thing is, as much as I love the temple, I can see why for others different aspects are damaging, and I’m trying to think about how something so sacred and central to my religious tradition can be both things: both beauty and pain. I’m not interested in debating the validity of others’ experiences with the temple—we’re all individuals, and we’re all going to interact with and react to religious elements individually, on our own terms. And that’s ok—that’s the plan, really. So if you’re reading this, and you’re thinking The temple is wonderful and anyone who doesn’t like it doesn’t understand it or The temple is harmful and anyone who loves it is naïve , just bear with me a bit, because what I’m thinking is the Temple is like any good story: beauty and pain together . *** I love a good book. I’m not that picky about genres—I’ll read fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, scripture, mysteries, science fiction, literary fiction, biographies, memoirs, graphic novels, young adult, romance, popular science, history, philosophy, cultural studies, poetry, cookbooks, blogs, classics, plays—etc. etc. There’s something connective about the way having something written down in front of you to read tells you that you’re not alone, that other people exist and are living and thinking and sharing their vision and perspective. Having these kinds of connections is, for me, one of the ways I can understand my existence as something structured by networks that exceed my personal narrative and knit me into the human family. In August of 1842, Joseph Smith was experiencing the isolation that comes from hiding. He’d been accused of being an accessory to a crime—the attempted murder of the former governor of Missouri, Lilburn Boggs—and spent several months avoiding arrest. As part of this experience, he apparently took the time to think about others in isolation, and as a result, wrote two letters—D&C 127 and D&C 128—dealing with the topic of baptisms for the dead. I’ve always been struck by the way that Joseph approaches the topic of baptism for the dead here not in terms of outlining the ordinance itself, but rather in terms of writing things down. “Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning your dead: When any of you are baptized for your dead, let there be a recorder, and let him be eye-witness of your baptisms; let him hear with his ears, that he may testify of a truth, saith the Lord; That in all your recordings it may be recorded in heaven…And again, let all the records be had in order, that they may be put in the archives of my holy temple, to be held in remembrance from generation to generation saith the Lord of Hosts” (D&C 127:6–7, 9). Apart from the body of the Saints, Joseph can’t stop thinking about bringing people together—the subject “press[es] itself upon [his] feelings” (D&C 128:1) with a weight and urgency that demands he work out with precision how to witness, keep records, make copies, and establish an authenticated, textual order that aligns heaven and earth. It seems to me that Joseph also understood the written word in terms of its power to witness the connective tissue binding generations together along strands of time and on through eternity. A point, from all this, is that words matter. Records matter. Books matter. Narratives matter. There’s something fundamental about writing things down that pierces veils and breaks down walls; if the written word can align heaven and earth, then it can certainly bring us together with others as well, dead or alive. *** So, back to the temple. I really mean it when I say the temple is like any good story: beauty and pain together. To me, the best stories practice a kind of narrative alchemy, bringing the forgotten, the misunderstood, the hopeless, and even the monstrous into the golden light of understanding and remembrance. And the temple does just that—it gives us a story that lets us re-read our own lives acknowledging both our pain and our beauty. In the ritual light of the temple, we can see ourselves as simultaneously created and beloved as well as cast out and wandering. We’re like Joseph, apart and alone, yet pressed to see in his isolation truths about the work of the human family as a participant body in a familial redemption. What I’m trying to say is that in some ways, the point of the temple is to help us to see ourselves as participants in an ongoing narrative. The point here isn’t whether that narrative is truth or fiction, but rather that it is at its heart, a set of words purposefully placed and carefully constructed—in this sense, it is textual. A textual temple teaches us that the factuality or literalness of the narrative is not necessarily as important as we might first think. Did things play out in real life exactly as they are depicted in the temple narrative? Maybe, maybe not—the past is always beyond our lived understanding, and we are continually reconstructing it piece by piece. Words help in that process, but they only ever grant a partial view. In order for the past to become real, someone somewhere has to put forth their own interpretation. The temple ceremonies teach us to look at the narrative they present and recognize the importance of its form as narrative, and therefore as something that is open to interpretation, nuance, flexibility, and re-reading. In a textual temple, we approach God interpretively, and rigid form is opened through individual ritual experience. What is important is not the fact; rather it is the story we tell in response to our narrative encounter. In this sense, the temple, with its emphasis on ordered record-keeping, aligns with scripture. Scripture, too, is a text that points toward truth literarily in order to leave open the interpretive possibilities necessary for individual salvation. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that the temple can’t teach truth. But what I am saying is that the form of the temple ceremonies, and especially the endowment, is important precisely because it is deliberately presented as a narrative, and therefore as an invitation for individual interpretation. Truth can be found in the narrative, but locking it there is dangerous, because the content has changed and can continue to change over time. So it’s important to remember the invitation found in form of the story itself. This invitation for interpretation is fundamental to the whole project of the Restoration, because what it is at heart is an open acknowledgment that revelation is real. Temples, with their texts, their rituals, their witnessing, their ordinances—with all these things and more, temples are a sacred space in which we practice believing that heaven and earth can align and that such alignment can occur on an individual level. God can speak, and I can hear, and that is revelatory to us both. *** That’s all part of the joy, the joy that allows room for both beauty and pain. My memory of my father skipping down the hall of the Manti temple, ceremonial robes floating gently out around his joyous physical motion, bathed in the warm pink light—this is a memory of beauty, and of pain. Beauty at his joy, and the pain of perspective, as he has since passed away. Joseph reaches for this joy, overwhelmed at his own words on the redemption of the dead in section 128. “Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy. […] Let the mountains shout for joy, and all ye valleys cry aloud; and all ye seas and dry lands tell the wonders of your Eternal King! And ye rivers, and brooks, and rills, flow down with gladness. Let the woods and all the trees of the field praise the Lord; and ye solid rocks weep for joy! And let the sun, moon, and the morning stars sing togethers, and let all the sons of God shout for joy!” (19, 23). Joseph’s joy here is ebullient and overflowing. It is a joy that exceeds the boundaries of human experience and instead spills over into the surrounding earth itself. It is also a joy that culminates in the promise of ongoing revelation as creation witnesses God and God speaks back to creation: “And let the eternal creations declare his name forever and ever! And again I say, how glorious is the voice we hear from heaven, proclaiming in our ears, glory, and salvation, and honor, and immortality, and eternal life; kingdoms, principalities, and powers!” (D&C 128:23). I think that Joseph understood the patterns that undergird revelation, and the way these patterns exist in the tension between seemingly opposing forces. Heaven and earth. Beauty and pain. Texts and temples. That is why, at the end of section 128, he turns from effusive joy to solemn sacrifice: “Behold, the great day of the Lord is at hand; and who can abide the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap; and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver…. Let us, therefore, as a church and a people, and as Latter-day Saints, offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness; and let us present in his holy temple, when it is finished, a book containing the records of our dead, which shall be worthy of all acceptation” (v. 24). The apparent inability of the earth to withstand the coming day of the heavenly Lord, the linking of the beauty of silver to pain of the refining process, and the texts of the temple offered in sacrifice—these all witness the ways in which our own relationship with the temple will necessarily be individual, complex, nuanced, and sacred, no matter where we are in that relationship right now. Personally, I find that reassurance a beautiful thing.

The film crew finished arranging the cameras on my husband who was sitting on a barstool in the middle of our front room. I watched as their filtered lights cast a halo around his head. I had already finished my interview with the director earlier that day. We were part of a documentary about people like me who suffered from a terrible syndrome caused by prescribed tranquilizers. You see, five years before that film crew came to our house, I had been prescribed a sleeping pill for insomnia. It came on suddenly after nursing my two-month-old baby girl in the hospital for several weeks while she battled meningitis. After bringing her home, we found ourselves rushing my three-year-old son to the ER next. Later that night, once my toddler and husband were safely tucked into their beds, I finally gave myself permission to go to sleep. But my body rebelled against me. I needed all the energy required to care for both a toddler and a newborn, and that meant a good night’s sleep. Eventually, I made an appointment to see the doctor who told me it would be safe to take a sleeping pill while nursing my baby, as it didn’t get into the breast milk. But I could tell that my daughter who, even when she had meningitis was vibrant and alert, had become unnaturally sleepy and disengaged after I started taking the tranquilizer. I didn’t want to risk any harm to her and so, after five or six days of glorious sleep, I quit cold turkey. That’s when our lives changed forever. Once a model of fitness and health, now I couldn’t even walk around the block because I was in so much pain. I began to lose weight rapidly and I couldn’t focus my eyes on the TV or even read a book. I didn’t know it at the time, but my short exposure to the sleeping pill had severely injured my brain and body. My husband and I went to every kind of doctor and had every test imaginable done. We spent four months looking for answers that never came. Finally, I reluctantly accepted a diagnosis of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder. I was prescribed an antidepressant and, yes, another tranquilizer, only it was much more potent than the sleeping pill I had taken. And guess what? I felt better! I had no idea my syndrome had been created by my sleeping pill, much less that I would temporarily stabilize at higher doses of the same kind of drug. I figured I’d had some sort of mental breakdown from all the stress and that the medications were treating my nervous disorder. I spent the next three and a half years unwittingly injuring my body even more until my husband and I decided to have another baby. We knew I had to get off the medication if we wanted to get pregnant, so I started what I thought was a slow taper, cutting back by an eighth of a pill each week. And that’s when I was consumed by my ocean of pain. Everything I had experienced when I cold turkeyed three and a half years earlier was now multiplied by infinity. My brain and body were on fire. It hurt to take a shower, talk on the phone, lie on the floor. I couldn’t eat, sleep or even distract myself by watching TV. And the mental pain, oh the mental pain…I would have gladly endured any physical symptoms to escape my mental agony! I literally couldn’t feel any of those feelings we associate with the Holy Ghost. Love, peace and joy were replaced by terror, fear, and rage. My mind became its own personal torture chamber. If God was love, then where was he? Maybe he had never been more than a feeling created by a combination of the right chemicals. Maybe he was never real to begin with. I felt abandoned, left to rot all alone in what can only be described as the depths of hell. But after doing some research my husband discovered I wasn’t alone. In fact, there were tens of thousands of other people like me from all over the world in support forums on the internet, all of them experiencing the same symptoms, all from the same medications. These people educated me about my syndrome and showed me how to do a proper taper. They told me I would get better, that it was possible to heal but it would take much longer than expected. And it was through this support network that I learned about windows and waves. Windows are the sunlight breaking through the storm clouds to illuminate the surface of a turbulent sea. Bringing hope and perspective through brief glimpses of healing, my central nervous system would stop misfiring for an hour or two during a window and I experienced some slight relief from my symptoms. The waves were when I found myself buried so deep under dark roiling waters of agony that I thought I would never make it out alive. But I always did. Just like my online friends assured me they would, the waves eventually abated and I would surface from the depths of hell to tread more shallow waters, even if they were still in the middle of a lake of fire and brimstone. Throughout my painfully slow taper off the medication, I eventually became one of the many online voices reassuring others they could and would heal. I used YouTube to share my story and educate others. This was especially difficult for me, not only because of my cognitive and physical limitations but also due to my rapidly changing appearance. Over the course of 15 months, I experienced a Kafkaesque metamorphosis. My hair started falling out. Painful boils erupted all over my face and body that were so monstrously large, I actually feared going out in public, thinking I might frighten little children. Muscle wasted away and my once fit thirty-something figure melted into the body of an octogenarian. Previously I had been an accomplished musician, but now just sitting at the piano to sing and play a hymn was beyond my ability. I couldn’t even feel affection for the people I wanted to, like my children and my husband. All the things I thought made me valuable as a human being, that made me, Me, simply vanished. Who could love someone like that? I certainly didn’t. I cried and pleaded with God for healing and a profound spiritual awakening from my perpetual darkness. But how could I have an experience like those I’d had before when I couldn’t perform any of the actions I knew led to them like deep scripture study, temple attendance, and fasting? It was in bearing my testimony to others that God had revealed himself to me when I was younger, his spirit consuming my body like white fire, and later when the light of that fire burned deep within my bosom. But where was that light now? The question burned a hole in my heart as I closed my sensitive eyes to the bright lights that embraced my husband who was describing his wife’s ongoing struggle to recover from this devastating syndrome. He told the director he could tell I had begun to improve in little ways after completing a grueling year and a half taper off the medication. He said it made him hopeful. She asked him how he held onto the hope that I would get better when I was at my worst. His answer completely knocked the wind out of me: “I didn’t. I didn’t know if she would ever get better.” “How could he say that!?” I shouted in my mind. In spite of all the testimonials of survivors in online support groups, despite all the words of hope I had shared with others on social media, how could he have so little faith in my healing? My mood grew dark. My husband continued, “I made plans and financial arrangements to take care of Jocelyn in case she was like this the rest of her life…” A flash of brilliant illumination suddenly washed over me as I realized, my husband was planning on caring for me the way I was, not just for the rest of my life, but possibly for the rest of his. “Why would he do that?!” I silently exclaimed. I mean, I knew I was miserable to be around. I didn’t even want to be around myself. Why would he choose a life sentence with me? Then the answer distilled on my soul as the dews from heaven. Because he loves me. Even though I wasn’t pretty or smart or funny, even though I couldn’t sing and dance or read our children a bedtime story anymore, he loved me anyway. He loved me when I couldn’t love him back, boils and all. For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to earn love in some way. Even with God, something in me always believed I had to earn his love through things like obedience and service. Because of this, and because of my husband’s failure to be perfect in our marriage, I had always held a part of myself back from my spouse. I never really trusted his love. But here he was, my imperfectly wonderful husband, loving me simply because I was me. Because I existed. Through his eyes, I saw God’s light and knew love once again. That was the day my ocean of pain quietly, almost imperceptibly transformed into an ocean of joy. The waters were no less terrifying and tumultuous, but this time I jumped in feet first with all my heart and found a new baptism of fire and water. Little by little I learned to accept my scars as symbols of the battles I had bravely fought and won. Relationships scarred by years of misunderstanding and pain now, through what seemed like no effort of my own, miraculously healed and expanded in ways I never knew were possible. And so have I. Like you, I’ve endured many hardships in my life, the kinds of things that break people. Before my drug-induced injury, I was like a vase, lovely, but only able to hold so much water. Not that I didn’t have spiritual depth. Whenever life chipped away at my clay I relied on God’s strength and he would reform me. Glued together by sturdier stuff, I thought I had changed. But I was still a vase. Then I was pulverized, crushed to dust, and swept out to sea by the wind and waves until there was nothing left of me to recognize. Crying out to God in the midst of tempestuous waters, I begged him to help me escape my ocean of pain, until one day I realized, I am the ocean. Like Adam, God had formed me from the dust into something so vast and so deep I could hold great oceans of both pain and joy, love and sorrow. It was Alma, who proclaimed, “Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.”[1] I know what that means. It means I will have moments that feel overwhelming. It means I may have times when I think back on the experiences that have led to the expansion of my soul and feel a profound sense of sadness. It means I can feel all that and still know perfection and gratitude as I peacefully accept both the heights and depths of my ocean of eternal progression. In other words, I feel joy. I don’t know where you’re at on your journey. Some vases are deeper than others and some break more easily. But whenever you feel broken or like you’re drowning in deep waters, when you feel like you will never be the same again, remember, that’s not necessarily a bad thing! As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:17 “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Isn’t it wonderful to know that however infinite your pain maybe you are promised an equal measure of greatness and glory? The Creator of worlds without end will form you from the dust into something so vast and so great that one day, like your Heavenly Parents, you will fill the expanse of eternity. So when the waves seem like they are too much, when you feel like they might finally overpower you, remember, tell yourself, “I am the ocean.” [1]  Alma 36:21 This essay is adapted from Joceyln Padersen’s book Seeds of Hope: A Journey Through Medication and Madness Toward Meaning!

There are times when I consider moving along this journey in private, working it out quietly in my own head and keeping it all to myself and then trying to move on and leave the past in the past. But when I consider this option, I see your face. You stare me down with your sadness, your confusion, and your sense of isolation. You need answers. I can’t shake the feeling that leaving the past in the past means abandoning you. And I know there are other girls like you out there. I am writing to you like this is an intimate conversation between the two of us, but I know you will never get this letter in reality. Author Mary Ann Shaffer says, “Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”[1] Books will love, guide, and support you when the people around you do not. Maybe this letter can do the same for someone else. You are sixteen now, eager to leave home and start a new life as soon as possible. Things will get better once you are no longer living with Mom and Dad, but I must warn you: While you can leave a bad situation, the bad situation does not always leave you. Your exodus from home will begin when you go to college, but it will continue for years afterward. I offer insight now in hopes that this might help you start your journey a little sooner and perhaps move along it with less angst, self-blame, and confusion. First, and this will be hard to hear, you cannot save Dad. I know you want to help him change, but he is not a lost soul in need of love and compassion; he is an abusive man in need of correction and consequences from someone in a position of power and authority. I think a part of you already knows this. Now that I have confirmed it, you can begin to accept it. As a child, you lack the power to offer the kind of correction he needs. You cannot simply pray abuse away. Your prayers, tears, and attempts to save him will not work. You cannot save Mom either. She has already made her choice and found the necessary justification for it. She essentially points her finger up to heaven and cites God as the inspiration for her choice to stay with Dad and, as she says, “do nothing.” Unfortunately, you believe her. And beliefs are stubborn things, like stains. They are hard to remove once they make their way into your mind. They don’t always go away simply because you think they should. The head can understand things long before the heart. Dad has just started coming back to church, and you feel terribly conflicted because you don’t want him there, and you think this means there is something wrong with you. Mom has told you, “Your dad is trying to change. We just need to forgive him.” But abusers rarely change, and forgiveness is an inappropriate response to abuse. Many church members think that forgiveness is the answer to every problem, the panacea for every hurt. It is not. While forgiveness is a virtue in many contexts, the misuse of forgiveness is no virtue. Mom misuses forgiveness as a way to avoid confronting something she doesn’t want to confront. Dad misuses forgiveness by treating it like it is a privilege he is entitled to, something he can simply demand from you. One day he will say to you, “What you need to do is forgive and move on. If you can’t do that, then that part of the sin is with you, not me.” What no one is telling you right now is that abuse is really about selfishness, which means that forgiving Dad won’t heal anyone. Granting him unearned forgiveness simply feeds into his selfishness. Forgiveness should be an act of empowerment, a gift of grace voluntarily offered by a completely free agent, especially because abuse is always about an imbalance of power and an attempt to control the victim’s choices. But when an abuser misuses forgiveness, they take that empowerment away. Forgiveness becomes just one more thing the abuser thinks he can take by force. Rather than being a gift and a choice and an act of personal empowerment, forgiveness becomes further victimization. Forgiveness can never be healing or empowering to you under your current circumstances. I tell you this to free you from unnecessary shame and pressure—the self-inflicted kind and the kind imposed on you by other people. I know you are hearing a lot of forgiveness messages at church. Father forgive them for they know not what they do. Forgive seventy times seven. Of you it is required to forgive all men. He that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. In the lessons and talks you hear at church, forgiveness doesn’t seem to require accountability from the offender, so you believe you are supposed to forgive Dad no matter what he does. Forgiveness is presented to you as a requirement to be in God’s favor. You hear people at church say that if a person can’t forgive, it means they are prideful. You also hear them say that unforgiving people are essentially rejecting Christ’s atonement. You have come to believe that you must be under greater condemnation than Dad in God’s eyes, that your feelings don’t matter as much as your ability to forgive. You imagine that God will be angry and disappointed in you until you forgive. You believe that trying harder will work, that if you are simply more righteous, you can will yourself into forgiveness. You hear people say that forgiveness means never feeling hurt or angry again, which leads you to believe that if you feel hurt or angry, you must be doing it wrong. In this context, forgiveness doesn’t sound like a long, complex process; it sounds like a passive, one-time, spectacular event in which Christ simply waves a magic wand of healing over you, and you are forever afterward redeemed. In nearly every story you hear, the truest sign of forgiveness is reconciliation—a perfectly repaired relationship. These lessons teach that forgiveness brings peace and healing, but the more you try to forgive Dad, the more ashamed, inadequate, and confused you feel. And in your mind, shame is a sign from God that you have sinned, that you are wrong. Scriptural stories of God’s anger frighten you and lead you to believe that God will be quick to punish you. Church lessons teach that God is kind and loving, but to you, each forgiveness lesson feels like a hot, sharp slap on the wrist from heaven, a divine frown of disapproval. Forgiveness is not what you think it is. And it is not your fault that you have misunderstood. When you are older, you will see that these church lessons, talks, books, and discussions often pull forgiveness scriptures out of context. The well-discussed verses on forgiveness that cause you pain are actually surrounded by scriptures on how to judge righteously, how to hold offenders accountable, how to seek justice through the Church, how to look for signs of sincere repentance, and when to cut people out of your life. But you have to really look because we usually skip over those parts. People define forgiveness in different ways. To some, forgiveness is simply moving past anger. To others, it’s personal healing. To some, it’s reconciliation with the offender. If we really believe God will hold us accountable in the next life for our ability to forgive, then it seems to me that the only definition of forgiveness that really matters is the one offered by Christ himself. Christ says, “Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.”[2] At first, it sounds like Christ is saying, “I condemn you more, and you have to forgive everybody no matter what.” In church lessons and discussions, people often stop reading after this verse. But if you keep going, the next verse says, “And ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds. And him that repenteth not of his sins, and confesseth them not, ye shall bring before the church, and do with him as the scripture saith unto you, either by commandment or by revelation. And this ye shall do that God may be glorified—not because ye forgive not, having not compassion, but that ye may be justified in the eyes of the law, that ye may not offend him who is your lawgiver.”[3] Christ’s standard of measurement here seems to be the ability to say in your heart, “Let God judge between me and thee.” He doesn’t say we must feel a lot of love in our hearts for the offender or never feel anger or pain again. In this instance, he does not say we must be patient and turn the other cheek or pray for those who despitefully use us and persecute us. He does not say we have to repair the relationship or save the offender with our unconditional love. He simply says we have to trust that God’s judgment will be just in the end. That’s it. To understand this idea better, it helps to read in the Book of Mormon where Christ says, “Whosoever transgresseth against me, him shall ye judge according to the sins which he has committed; and if he confess his sins before thee and me, and repenteth in the sincerity of his heart, him shall ye forgive…And ye shall also forgive one another your trespasses; for verily I say unto you, he that forgiveth not his neighbor’s trespasses when he says that he repents, the same hath brought himself under condemnation.”[4] The Lord doesn’t say, “Don’t judge others.” It’s the opposite. He commands us to make righteous judgments. And he makes it clear that forgiveness follows sincere repentance. He says we are only under greater condemnation (meaning our progress and growth are more impaired), if the offender sincerely repents and we never forgive (i.e. let God be the ultimate judge). The condemnation here does not come from God; people impede their own progress. Here is another example to consider. Christ’s instruction to Peter to forgive “seventy times seven” is prefaced by Christ’s instruction on how to handle offenders. He says that if our hands, feet, or eyes offend us, we should “cut them off” and “cast them far from thee.” In Joseph Smith’s translation of this Bible verse, he says that “a man’s eye are they of his own household,” which I interpret to mean family members. Christ then tells Peter that we should bring offenders to the church, and if these offenders neglect to hear the church, he says, “Let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican.”[5] Christ also tells Peter that those who offend little children would be better off having a millstone hung about their neck and drowned in the depths of the sea. All of this comes immediately before his instruction to forgive “seventy times seven.” I can’t imagine that Christ would recant everything he just said about justice and accountability to tell Peter he should overlook offenses “seventy times seven.” He would be contradicting himself. And Paul taught that God is not the author of confusion. Seventy times seven equals 490 offenses. Christ is not telling us to give offenders 490 chances to hurt us. In Doctrine & Covenants, Christ says, “As oft as thine enemy repenteth … thou shalt forgive him until seventy times seven.”[6] But if he is not repenting, Christ says, he gets only three chances: “If he trespass against thee the fourth time thou shalt not forgive him.”[7] Whether you take these numbers literally (four strikes and you’re out) or more symbolically as just a rough guide, there is scriptural precedent for not forgiving. Dad probably reached four unrepentant acts of abuse within the first few months of his marriage to Mom, and almost certainly within the first few years. I interpret these verses to mean that if you have given someone a fair chance to repent, but they keep hurting you, you are justified in withholding forgiveness. Christ says, “Thine enemy is in thine hands; if thou rewardest him according to his works thou art justified.”[8] This wasn’t merely instruction for Joseph Smith either. Christ says, “This is the law I gave unto my servant Nephi and thy fathers Joseph and Jacob and Isaac and Abraham and all mine ancient prophets and apostles … This is an ensample unto all people, saith the Lord your God, for justification before me.”[9] You often hear people at church say that judging others is wrong, that we shouldn’t judge people, that we should avoid being “judgmental,” but Christ didn’t teach us to not judge others; he taught us to judge righteously . If our decision to forgive or not depends on whether or not the offender’s repentance is sincere, then it would seem we must learn to become excellent judges of other people. There are scripture verses on forgiveness that you never hear in church, like this one: “And the mean man boweth not down, and the great man humbleth himself not, therefore, forgive him not.”[11] It should be clear that forgiveness is not the right response to abuse; justice is. Unfortunately, you often hear people at church talk about justice like it is a bad thing, like it is the opposite of forgiveness, like it isn’t something righteous people pursue. Seeking justice and seeking revenge can sometimes sound like the same thing. People at church often use the phrases interchangeably. They often lump justice into a trio of shameful things to avoid: anger, vengeance, and justice. They say things like, “Instead of anger, vengeance, and justice, we should choose forgiveness.” They set up justice and forgiveness like they are diametrically opposed. Sometimes they talk about justice like it’s harsh punishment, like it’s something “nice” people don’t do. The underlying message becomes, righteous people seek forgiveness; less righteous people seek justice. But justice is not revenge. Justice creates conditions that make repentance more likely. In the scriptures, peace doesn’t follow unearned forgiveness. Long-lasting peace follows justice. Nephi, for example, “frankly forgave” his abusive brothers, but there was no long-lasting peace until he did as the Lord commanded him and physically separated himself from his brothers, who wanted to kill him. Every scriptural reference to justice is a positive one. Here are just a few examples: Touching the Almighty . . . he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice. Do ye suppose that mercy can rob justice? I say unto you, Nay; not one whit. If so, God would cease to be God. Glory, and honor, and power, and might be ascribed to our God; for he is full of mercy, justice, grace, truth, and peace. My soul delighteth in his grace, and in his justice, and power. O the greatness and the justice of our God. The plan of restoration is requisite with the justice of God. Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice. To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Every man is to speak according to equity and justice. The justice of God did also divide the wicked from the righteous. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.”[12] What you need to heal is not forgiveness; it’s justice. What you need from your church and from God is not revenge; it’s love. In the scriptures, Christ teaches that there are limits to forgiveness, that there are times to forgive and times not to forgive. He teaches justice and forgiveness together, side by side, as equally righteous, equally important principles. Our Sunday lessons and discussions do not. Church curriculum and church culture are light on justice, heavy on forgiveness. And this imbalance is one of the primary reasons you feel so confused. If you really want to understand forgiveness as Christ taught it and as the scriptures teach it, then you have to look at it in the context of making righteous judgments, looking for signs of sincere repentance, and appropriately seeking justice. We run into problems when we divorce forgiveness from these other principles and treat it as an isolated commandment, when really, it is intricately connected to these other principles. I know that you feel incredibly angry, and I know that you don’t know what to do with this anger. You hear people at church say that anger is a sin, that the Holy Ghost will leave you if you feel angry, that anger is not the Lord’s way. So you push your anger down and try to ignore it for fear of spiritual abandonment. But anger has a story to tell if you can push shame aside long enough to hear it. Anger is simply an emotion, one that can be used as a destructive weapon or as a catalyst for change. You get to choose. Your anger and Dad’s anger do not come from the same place. His anger comes from a belief that he is entitled to control you. When you resist, he gets angry. Your anger comes from the belief that you, Mom, and your siblings deserve love and respect. When he mistreats any of you, you get angry. His anger and yours are not equivalent and do not belong in the same category. Don’t let anyone convince you that your anger is just as bad as his anger or that your anger is cruel, harsh, and destructive like his. It is not. Anger is not a sin. Even God feels anger at times. It’s what we do with our anger that matters. There are 841 scriptural references to God’s anger and wrath, which means anger can actually be the Lord’s way after all. In the Church, I think we sometimes put Christ into a box. We erase the vast complexities of who he was in order to make him fit into the narrative we have created. We simplify him down to only a few traits and thereby limit our view of him. When we say we should be “Christ-like,” we often mean we should love our enemies, forgive, be kind, and be obedient, which, of course, is true. But there is more to the story of Christ. Christ taught us to love our enemies, but we learn what that looks like by examining the way Christ responded to his enemies: He fled from Herod for his own safety; he rebuked the hypocrisy of the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees; he angrily drove moneychangers out of his father’s house with a whip; he called Judas out on his betrayal; he told Satan “Get thee behind me”; and he testified to Pontius Pilate that he was “a witness for the truth.” Being Christ-like, then, must mean more than being “nice” in the traditional sense. Being Christ-like must also include being strong, holding people accountable, setting boundaries, rebuking hypocrisy, judging others righteously, expressing anger in appropriate ways, and speaking the truth even when it is not comfortable and even when it might not be well received on the other end. Woman Writing by August Macke (1910) One day, a therapist will tell you, “When it comes to abuse, forgiveness is about getting stronger, so strong that the abuser loses all power over you, all ability to negatively influence you.” This definition of forgiveness is the only one that has ever brought me any peace, the only definition that has ever felt right to me, and the only version of forgiveness that I have ever actually wanted. So I am sharing it with you now. The first step on the road to healing is not forgiveness; it’s acknowledging the truth—first to yourself, then to other people. As your therapist will say, just put forgiveness up on a shelf for a while and forget about it. You have a lot of other things to work on first. And for the times when this does not quite work to console you, and you fear that God will condemn you for your unforgiving heart anyway, remember that you would not want to spend eternity with a God that cruel anyway. Over the years, friends will tell you to go to God for healing, but they don’t realize what they are asking. It is too far of a leap for you right now to go from where you are into God’s arms. When you are eighteen, a friend’s aunt will express concern about your low self-esteem. She will say, “Just repeat after me: I am a daughter of Heavenly Father who loves me.” You will immediately recognize this as a reference to the first line in the young women’s theme, words the teenage girls at church stand to recite each Sunday. You will fumble with your fingers, stare at the ground, and try to change the subject. “What’s wrong with you?” she will interrogate, confused and frustrated by your lack of cooperation with her “good” advice. “Why can’t you say those words?” she will ask. She will make you feel like something is wrong with you if a rote recitation of a theme can’t cure you. One day, soon after you are married, your husband will begin saying you should “give it to God.” He will recommend some sort of reconciliation with Dad—healing and forgiveness “for your own sake,” he will say, thinking that he is helping you. You will feel betrayed and alone without fully understanding why. When you are 33 years old, you will visit a stake president. After you say, “My father was abusive. I am thinking about ending all contact with my parents,” he will lecture you on forgiveness for an hour and say, “I wouldn’t be too quick to write off your parents.” Sometimes, members of the Church will offer advice or counsel that makes things worse, that adds to your burdens. They will say insensitive things. They will assume they have all the answers. They will fail to offer what you really need. Their stories, messages, and advice will feel totally out of touch with your lived experience. Remember that they mean well. They have good intentions and most of the time, they sincerely want to help you. They are merely sharing lessons that work in their own lives, lessons based on healthy relationships, not toxic ones. What you must understand is that all the rules change in abuse. What works in healthy relationships does not work in abusive ones; it backfires. They speak from ignorance (and perhaps a little arrogance at times) but not malicious intent. You can be kind but also clear. The things they say add to your pain and confusion. They do not mean to hurt you, but they do, which means that their ignorance is not really harmless and it is not really acceptable. The next thing you must understand, and I hope this is more clear to you now, is that anyone can be wrong about anything at any time—no matter their position of power or authority over you. This includes parents, teachers, bishops, stake presidents, and even prophets and apostles. The gospel is true, but that doesn’t mean everything you hear at church is true. There is a difference between the perfect gospel of Jesus Christ and the imperfect church that houses it. The Church, like any institution, is a house filled with imperfect, fallible human beings prone to bias and misconceptions. Be careful with accepting other people’s advice. Trust your own feelings and experiences more. Because on the flip side of understanding that anyone can be wrong is the revelation that anyone—no matter their lack of power or authority—can be right. This includes you. When you finally begin to speak, you will feel incredibly alone, as if your words evaporate into the air like puffs of smoke moments after leaving your mouth, but don’t give up. Maya Angelou says, “One person standing on the word of God is the majority.”[13] Someday you will go to the scriptures with new eyes and find what you need to defend yourself. You’ll realize that perhaps you are not as alone as you think. Your faith is not simple or easy. The seeds of complexity are planted and already growing. You feel this, though you fear it and do not yet understand its source. I am not here to destroy your faith. Because of Dad, you know what it feels like to have someone try to do this to you and it is a terrible thing to do to anyone, but it is an especially terrible thing to do to a child. I waited a long time to write to you because I wanted to be able to write about this in a way that did not break anyone’s faith, especially yours. But I have learned that real healing begins with truth, even if that truth is uncomfortable and even when it challenges and stretches faith. Some people might call this “the ugly truth,” but I don’t think the truth is ugly; it’s people’s actions that are ugly. The truth is liberating. Mom and Dad cannot provide real answers because there is no honesty in abuse; there is only deception. Some parents provide building blocks for their children while others create stumbling blocks. Mom and Dad will ask for forgiveness to make themselves feel better, not to make you feel better—because what would make you feel better is full accountability from them. They ask for forgiveness while simultaneously denying that they really did anything wrong in the first place. It is an act of selfishness to ask for forgiveness without offering any accountability. You will eventually find that you no longer need to salvage anything with them. You will have more to say to them, of course, but they will not have ears to hear it. They are more interested in hiding than in healing. Over the next few years, you will spend a lot of energy trying to prove that your version of the story is right, that Dad was, in fact, abusive, despite his elaborate denials and many excuses. But it’s not really about whose version is right or wrong. The best version of any story is the one that heals you, the one that lets you move forward. Their version cannot heal you. In Mom’s version of the story, she is innocent and God is responsible. In Dad’s version of the story, he is innocent and you are cold, cruel, confused, angry, mentally unstable, ungrateful, and unforgiving. Ultimately, you must learn how to take control of the story yourself. I want to give you a happy ending, but the story is not over yet. Healing is an ongoing process. Perhaps I will just leave you with the message I hope to hear from my future self: There is nothing wrong with you. You are not crazy. God was always on your side. [1] Shaffer, Mary Ann and Annie Barrows. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society . 2008. [2] D&C 64:9[3] D&C 64:11-13 [4] Mosiah 26:29-31 [5] Matthew 18 [6] D&C 98:40 [7] D&C 98:44 [8] D&C 98:31 [9] D&C 98:32,38 [10] JST Matt. 7:1–2 [11] 2 Nephi 12:9 [12] Martin Luther King, Jr., “ MIA Mass Meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church ,” Stanford Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. [13] Luscombe, Belinda. “The 13 Most Moving Things Said at the Celebration of Maya Angelou’s Life.” Time Magazine, 14 September, 2014.

Take Ezekiel, for example. He had the high and holy calling of prophesying Jerusalem’s destruction. He didn’t get to make the standard cry of repentance, however. Instead, God asked him to perform a series of unpleasant symbolic gestures to illustrate the Israelites’ impending fate. One of these tasks inspired the health-food staple, “Ezekiel bread.” As recorded in the Old Testament, here is the recipe, straight from the mouth of God on His throne: “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; . . . use them to make bread for yourself. . . . [B]ake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.”[1] Ezekiel was a faithful and dedicated servant of God, but when he heard that last part, he balked. Eating a puzzling conglomerate of grains for 390 days straight, he could handle. But, baking it over human dung? “Not so, Sovereign Lord!” he replies. He asserts his strict adherence to the law of Moses and all its purity to defend his position. “Very well,” the Lord says, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”[2] Here’s the thing: the Lord had thought this symbol through. He had a message for Jerusalem, and this detail was an intentional part of the message. The use of human dung instead of cow dung was supposed to reinforce the point that Jerusalem was headed for very bad times – so bad, there wouldn’t even be cows available to produce cow dung to light fires with. And yet, he was willing to concede the detail. Why? Because that’s what Ezekiel asked for. ~~~ Since ancient times, spiritual people around the world have embraced surrender to the Most High as a paramount truth. Proverbs teaches to “trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding.”[3] The Yoga Sutras declare that surrender to God is the most effective way to achieve enlightenment.[4] Taoism invites individuals to harmonize their wills with the Universe. Jesus Christ canonized “Thy will be done” in the Lord’s Prayer, and sealed that commitment with the great act of Atonement.[5] In modern times, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints offer all that they have and are to God, including their choices, in binding temple covenants. As Christians, we clearly embrace willful surrender as a divinely required path to exaltation, and as the mysterious means to achieving the highest joy possible. So then, what to make of Ezekiel’s exception? There is an account in the Book of Mormon of an ancient prophet who exhibited the proverbial faith to move a mountain in literal fashion. As the record states: “[T]he brother of Jared said unto the mountain Zerin, Remove—and it was removed. And if he had not had faith it would not have moved.”[6] Reading this, we might ask: which was the Lord’s will, that the mountain move, or that it stay put? Because by the sound of it, He would have been okay with arranging either outcome. The deciding factor was not so much God’s specific intentions, but rather the brother of Jared’s faith and action. It would seem, given these two stories, that God’s will has a bit of wiggle room. Not only that, but He is constantly telling us to ask Him for guidance and blessings, and promising that we will receive. Here is a selection of such promises from just one section of the Doctrine and Covenants:[7] Therefore, if you will ask of me you shall receive; if you will knock it shall be opened unto you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, even as you desire of me so it shall be unto you. And if thou wilt inquire , thou shalt know mysteries which are great and marvelous. Thou hast inquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit. I have spoken unto thee because of thy desires . I grant unto you a gift, if you desire of me . Similar messages are woven liberally throughout the scriptural canon. Women of New Testament times especially internalized this promise, and to astonishing effect. Martha and Mary, sisters, disciples of Christ, lost their brother Lazarus – and this, despite their faith. When Jesus arrives on the scene, Martha affirms this faith and says to Jesus, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died!” She doesn’t stop there, however. Even in the face of death, she is aware that changes can happen, as long as someone is willing to ask for them. She reverently, if boldly, invites Christ to ask on her behalf, declaring, “I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.” In return, Christ promises, “Your brother will rise to life.”[8] And so he did. But as everyone who has ever thought about it knows, these promises are not always so straightforward. To borrow some of President Uchtdorf’s phrasing, if all you have to do is ask and ye shall receive, “why can’t I receive an answer to a heartfelt prayer? I don’t need a sea to part or a mountain to move. I just need my illness to go away or my parents to forgive each other or an eternal companion to appear on my doorstep with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and an engagement ring in the other. Why can’t my faith accomplish that ?”[9] But seriously, those are important questions, aren’t they? We are told by God to ask so we can receive, and then we do ask for a miracle healing, or the fulfillment of a righteous desire, and it doesn’t happen. And that causes a little bit (or a lot) of spiritual dissonance. I know this is not really a new point of thought for most people reading this. We’ve read the invitation to ask in the scriptures; we’ve experienced the disappointment of undelivered blessings; we’ve examined the dichotomy and come to peace with the notion that God knows best; so we trust His will and His timing. And that is a good thing. It is good – no, vital – to exercise faith in God through times of uncertainty and disappointment. Nevertheless, I believe that there is a lot more power in this invitation than we might be making use of currently. What follows is a real, actually happened interaction that I had with Heavenly Father. The tale unfolds amidst the trials of singlehood in the Church. (Side note to myself and to anyone else tempted to label dating as a trivial subject: it is not. It is a profoundly complex and transformative process, a refiner’s fire of micro/macro decisions and micro/macro humiliations replete with life-altering possibilities.) When I got home from my mission years ago, I felt ready to jump back into dating life – but that’s not really how things turned out. I asked out a couple of guys in my singles ward, I had a blind date, and then after that – nothing. For six months, as a recently returned missionary who attended a singles ward and regular institute classes, I went on exactly zero dates. Despite my initial enthusiasms, I didn’t mind the dearth. I had come home to a new and enthralling field of study. I was focused on school and richly satisfied by the work. I didn’t feel the absence of dating, and I didn’t desire things to be any other way. That all changed, as any number of Ensign articles could predict, with a weekend of General Conference. Through my YSA lens, the unofficial theme seemed to be (any guesses?) marriage and family. In that context, I felt some direct lines from the Spirit letting me know that I needed to make this a higher priority. It wasn’t just the Conference messages, of course. I knew I wanted to marry the righteous young man foreseen by my stake patriarch, and I knew I had gotten complacent in my quest to find him. So, I knelt before my heavenly king, affirmed my desire, and asked Him to help me make whatever adjustments necessary in order to start meeting and dating the kind of guys I would like to marry. Somehow, through some miraculous means that I truly can’t explain, that prayer initiated a dating deluge. My date count suddenly jumped from a flat zero to a lively two, sometimes three, per week. The pattern had proven so successful, I decided to keep up the “ask and receive” process for each individual date. Before each outing, I would kneel and ask the Lord to help me see and meet the needs of whoever I was going out with. Often, God would give me a little heads-up on what those needs might be – to feel respected, share some laughs, have a meaningful conversation – small and simple things like that. And then I would witness the delivery of those blessings unfold over the course of the date. It was great. Sacred, actually. With the support of the Holy Spirit, I got to know a lot of really admirable, likeable men. After twelve weeks of casually getting to know people, however, I started to feel like I was ready for a committed, one-on-one relationship. I made my desire clear to the Lord, and once again, He helped make the arrangements. Within a couple of weeks of that prayer, a tall and enthusiastic medical student I had been dating asked me (bless him) to be his girlfriend. I said yes. It turns out, he wasn’t the one. The man I had set off to find didn’t really enter the scene until three relationships later. In that sense, I suppose, it took some time for the root of my desire to be realized. Along the way, though, it was clear that God was hearing and answering my prayers – but in a much different fashion than having an eternal companion show up on my doorstep with a bouquet of flowers and an engagement ring. The key difference? Agency. True to His number one guiding principle, God honored my agency and let me determine the steps to take, how many of them, at what pace, and in which direction. And since I asked Him to, He was always there to open doors, make introductions, and offer suggestions. As a result, I look back on those dating experiences with a sense of deep empowerment. Even with all the unpredictability that dating entails, I felt like I was in charge of my life, the maker of my own map – and I have God to thank for that. What then, of submitting to God’s will? I don’t have all the answers, but I know this much: God’s will, first and foremost, is to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life. I believe the relentless invitation to ask, in order that we might receive, is central to the divine purpose of raising up souls with the independent ability to identify and desire all that is good, for all of God’s children – ourselves included. As a final testament to this idea, consider one more faithful heroine: the woman with the issue of blood. Healing of a Bleeding Woman, Rome, Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter This woman had bled and bled for years and years and decided enough was enough. She wanted to be healed. Having clarified her desire after endless suffering and interminable expense, she privately proposed a method through which her mortal efforts could mingle with divine power: touch the clothes of the Son of God. It worked! She acted, and she was healed. Understandably, and perhaps appropriately, the woman felt a little afraid to acknowledge her boldness before God. When Christ searched for the person in the crowd who touched him, “The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.”[10] But He wasn’t displeased with her for taking matters into her own hands; to the contrary, He validated her initiative and encouraged her to move forward from her suffering in peace, assuring her that her will for her own happiness aligned with his divine motives. This woman exemplified the agency-based process of “ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find.” She knew what she wanted, she took action, and was profoundly blessed. The whole beautiful, merciful exchange happened because of her personal will in full force. The Great Healer was certainly willing to heal her, but the miracle came of her volition, not His. According to the available records, He didn’t even know about the healing until after it had already occurred. Maybe, after all, our will matters as much to God as He wants His will to matter to us. Christ teaches us plainly, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you . . . ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”[11] Alma teaches, “I know that [God] granteth unto men according to their desire…yea, I know that he … decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills.”[12] The question to answer then, is, do you will joy for yourself, and for others? Because if you do, God will work alongside you, hand in hand, to achieve that joy. He has promised to do so. He gave His Beloved Son in order to do so. Even as you desire of God, so it shall be unto you.[13] Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Seek, and you shall find. Ask, and you shall receive. [1] Ezekiel 4:9,12 (NIV) [2] Ezekiel 4:14-15 (NIV) [3] Proverbs 3:5 (KJV) [4] Yoga Sutra 1:23 [5] Matthew 6:10 [6] Ether 12:30 [7] Doctrine & Covenants 6 [8] John 11:22-23 (GNT) [9] Uchtdorf, “Fourth Floor, Last Door,” October 2016 [10] Mark 5:33 (NIV) [11] John 16:23-24 KJV [12] Alma 29:4 [13] Doctrine & Covenants 6:8