The faith to be NOT healed...

The scriptures talk about the several gifts of the Spirit. In particular in Moroni 10 and in the Doctrine and Covenants Section 46, many of these are outlined. The gift of tongues, the gift of exceedingly great faith, the gift of discernment and many others. Mentioned in both of these books of scripture are gifts surrounding healing, both the gift to heal, and the gift of faith to be healed.

As I sat in our Fast and Testimony meeting a few weeks ago, however, another came to mind. Several of our members have been going through various kinds of trials as of late, many of them largely physical in nature. One brother had a stroke, one an intestinal blockage, one sister had been shot and paralyzed from the waist down by a bullet she took which was intended for her son, one had a family member (for whom she was the primary caretaker) pass on. Several of these good people have at different times expressed some degree of frustration that they felt as thought they should be progressing faster or better than they are in their specific circumstances and trials. On this particular Sunday, though, each of these individuals in turn stood to bear testimony and to offer words of thanks and gratitude to ward members who had been helpful to them during these times. It was a powerful meeting.

It occurred to me, as I sat and listened, that a gift of the Spirit that sometimes must be exercised is the faith to be NOT healed. Sometimes we'll need the faith to accept our circumstance as it is and allow it to humble us to the dust and to rely more wholly upon Him who is our great lifter. We'll need the faith to live each day with an affliction or circumstance that may be beyond our direct control, that may cause us great discomfort or anguish, and yet to press forward with a "steadfastness in Christ", to endure all things well... to the end.

So while, yes, the faith to be healed is a marvelous gift of the Spirit... the faith to be NOT healed is something else entirely...

An experience with Spiritual Direction...

I think that some of this blog is going to seem a bit random until I sort of "get caught up" with some of the experiences that I am trying to get down in print. You'll just have to bear with me...

So, I want to share an experience that I had with a lady in our church who hadn't been attending for quite some time. I'll call her Mary (for lack of a better fake name to use). This good sister had an experience that had kept her from church for a long time. Many years (probably close to ten or so now) ago her son was shot and killed in a fairly random act of violence that was intended for another boy that he was with at the time. It was a "wrong place at the wrong time" kind of a thing. Now, I don't honestly know how she could possibly have felt, or even exactly how she could still feel about something like that. But in my interaction with her over the years, I think that it had left her somewhat ambivalent. No feeling toward much of anything at all.

I had visited this sister a few times over several years, though I was never her Home Teacher officially until a few months ago. The other counselor in our Bishopric and I were given that assignment and so we did our best to fulfill it. We visited her for a few months in a row, and we had basically the same experience every time. We exchanged pleasantries, we encouraged her to come to church, and we tried to understand why she felt the way she did about things. This is a wonderful woman, understand, and she is incredibly straight-forward with her feelings. She would tell us that she was fairly unemotional about her life and had been for some time, that she knew she should be in church, but that she just didn't care at the moment.

One month we decided to teach a lesson about sacrifice, and how it would be required for her to make any progress. We asked her if she liked where she was at in her life, and if she wanted to have more. The other counselor alluded to the fact that he may ask her to speak in sacrament meeting, and she laughed and said maybe one day. As the conversation continued, I had a strong impression to issue a calling to her to be the Ward Librarian. We had tried to call several individuals to that calling already and were having a terrible time filling it. It came to me all at once but I thought that if we were having trouble filling it with fairly active members of the ward, there was no way that this woman who hadn't been active in church in 15+ years was going to accept a calling that would require her attendance very faithfully at church EVERY Sunday.

I am trying to learn not to put off promptings, so I said to her, "I am going to lean over and whisper something to [the other counselor], and he's going to laugh, and then I'm going to ask you something." So I did. I told [the other counselor] what I was feeling and he agreed. I then said, "Sister, we feel impressed that the Lord would like you to make a sacrifice like we have been talking about. We feel that He would like you to serve as the Ward Librarian in our ward." After only a moment of incredulous gawking, she asked, "Does this mean I have to go to church EVERY Sunday?" I told her it did. She thought for a moment, and then accepted the call. Since then she hasn't missed a single Sunday. She fulfills the calling and I believe magnifies it. I also see, in subsequent visits to her home, that a little more of her rough edge is being knocked off. She just seems a little softer in her countenance.

I am thankful that I was able to have this experience. It always catches me off guard (because I should know better) when what seems like an odd thought is really the Lord's will but it can't come to pass without willingness on all sides. Willingness to act on His prompting my part, and willingness to accept His will on the part of others.

Oh, and incidentally, the other counselor did get her to speak in Sacrament Meeting... and it was awesome... :)

First Post...

Rather than trouble myself with what would be the perfect first post for a blog that very few (if any) people may read, I have decided to just tell a couple of brief things about myself for the sake of historical context (for my kids if they read this later) and for some background.

I am a husband to a beautiful and wonderful wife and I'm a father of two equally beautiful and wonderful girls. I am an entrepreneur, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a generally happy person. I was raised as a member of this church, although my parents have only ever been semi-active in their faith (my Mom was much more active than my Father). We attended other churches growing up, and I did not really become active in my faith until my junior year of college. The long story of all of that is probably a good subject for another post...

I currently am doing my best to be a faithful Latter-day Saint, to serve others and to follow Christ. I serve as a counselor in the Bishopric of my ward, and I am learning a lot about being a better man from the men that I am privileged to work beside in that capacity.

I wanted to start blogging because of a couple of talks that were given by leaders of our church. One was from M. Russell Ballard and the other was from Henry B. Eyring. Who these men are and what their significance is to me is, again, probably a good subject for another post... At any rate, the one talk encouraged members of our Church to use new media (like this) to put more (and more accurate) information out into the public arena about our Church. The other talk was about keeping a journal and how that journal wasn't necessarily just for our personal use, but could bless the lives of others by the recording of our experiences. So... I want to do this for my wife and my kids, my siblings, in-laws, their families and anyone else who benefit from my thoughts, feeling, or experiences.

That said... I guess here we go...