We mortals are so immersed in time that we rarely glimpse timelessness—or eternity. We see fantastic movies where people hopscotch from place to place in time but, in our “real” lives we plod along our time-bound path with no sense that it is possible to do otherwise.

In 1892 my great-grandfather, Ben Goddard, left for a mission to New Zealand. He left behind his wife, son, and occupation. In his journal he said of his parting “Twas a hard struggle and only a sense of sacred duty would have reconciled us all to make the sacrifice.” For more than three years he traveled New Zealand, struggled with the language, taught the Maoris the Good News, conducted meetings, and sang hymns of praise. He even taught language, literature, and math in night school. He came to love the good people of that country far from his home in Millard County, Utah, or his first home in Huddersfield, England.

Lately I have been reading Ben’s journal, yearning to know his soul. His entry for April 2 had a real impact on me: “I received a letter from Mother but no letters from my dear family & on this account I was very sad & uneasy.” I pictured my beloved forebear far from home feeling anxious and lonely. I desired to send him a letter. My heart proclaimed: “I will write him!” even as my mind wondered how to send a message to the past.

If I went back to 1892 to write him a letter, I undoubtedly should not disclose that he would lead an important church work for 27 years after his mission. (We mortals are kept focused on today and faith by being shielded from a view of the future.) I hardly need tell him how much reason his only child, his beloved son, my grandfather, would give him to be proud. (He already adored his boy!) He would hardly have believed the number of descendants he would have only 70 years after his death. (I cannot count all the people!)

Maybe I could just tell him that I love him and that his devotion and testimony have blessed my life. Maybe I could tell him how his expressions of faith and life of service have blessed all his descendants. Maybe I could tell him that a file filled with his letters and journals are among my most cherished possessions.

But how does one predate a letter almost 110 years? I do not know the answer to that question but I felt that, if I made the effort, my message for my great-grandfather would not be wasted. I might—even now—write him a letter and both of us would be blessed by the effort. Time is no barrier for the work of God.

Elder Maxwell (1980) wrote about time: “Even now, time is clearly not our natural dimension. Thus it is that we are never really at home in time. Alternately, we find ourselves impatiently wishing to hasten the passage of time or to hold back the dawn. We can do neither, of course. Whereas the bird is at home in the air, we are clearly not at home in time—because we belong to eternity. Time, as much as any one thing, whispers to us that we are strangers here” (p. 220).

As Alma observed, “time only is measured unto men” (Alma 40:8). God lives outside of time. While we impose our clockwork chronology on life, somehow God surveys all creation and employs the goodness in one corner to the blessing of all. “It is the constitutional disposition of mankind to set up stakes and set bounds to the works and ways of the Almighty” (Smith, 1938, p. 320). God seemingly can make our actions retroactive, sending goodness rippling through all of eternity.

We have a friend who has gotten the help of a therapist to work through her bad feelings for her parents. Her therapist suggested she mentally bring back her deceased father and unload on him; let him know how hurt, betrayed, and neglected she felt. Tell him off. After doing just that she sought my feedback. I did not want to interfere with her work with her therapist but I suggested that sometime she may want to try a different exercise. I suggested that some day she might again use her imagination to bring her father back from the grave. I suggested that she kneel at his feet and invite him to describe what he would have done for her had his health and knowledge been different. How might he have supported, encouraged, and loved her? What great times together would they have had if he had not been bedridden? In that interview, they could create a new relationship, a new history. Even as I shared the suggestion with my friend, I felt invited to travel across time, making improvements on my marred life story.

The past may be more malleable than we think. The Lord has said that He can make what is crimson as white as wool (Isaiah 1:18). When He removes the stains from our past, He does not leave a void, a vacuum, a gaping hole in our fabric of our lives. He, with our cooperation, creates a past filled with purposeful living and specific goodness. As we become a new creature in Christ, we get a new history filled with all those things we would have done if we had had the convictions we now have. We indeed are changed.

Even now our choices to understand, obey, love, and bless can ripple both forward and backwards through time. Our choices can change eternity. They can bind the hearts of children to their fathers and the mothers to their scarcely known ancestors.

With the tunnel vision of mortality, we do not glimpse the ripples of our choices. We march along mortality gritting our teeth, grieving yesterday’s losses, and dreading tomorrow’s ambushes—unless we have that transcendent faith that lifts us above the worries of mortality. With that faith we know that a perfect Father will backfill the sinkholes of our life histories with love, purpose, growth, and joy. In eternity we will inherit the wisdom gleaned from our own experiences and the wisdom He has given as a divine gift. He can repair anything, even the past.

Brigham Young gives us a glimpse of total trust in the Lord in instructions he provided to missionaries:

When you pray for your families . . . you must feel—if they live, all right; if they die, all right; if I die, all right; if I live, all right; for we are the Lord’s, and we shall soon meet again ( sel. Widtsoe, 1954, p. 324).

For now the veil keeps me from seeing my beloved great-grandfather, but my heart knows that we are bound together eternally in a bond of love. I may not understand just how to capture his eye with my long-delayed letter, but I know that we are connected. I will write him a letter and date it April, 1892.

April 1, 1892

Dear Grandpa,

Oh! How I love you! Thank you for your letters, pictures, and journals that have provided me a view of your life and commitments. Thank you for dedicating your life to the Good News of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your sweet devotion to your family. Thank you for your example of using all your gifts to advance God’s work and bless His children. You will bless generations far beyond your mortal sojourn.

May peace and purpose fill all the days of your mortal ministry. May glory crown your immortality. Even as you receive this message, there are those who rejoice in your whole-hearted offering.

Love,

Your great-grandson

I hope that somehow Ben’s loneliness in that distant day and land may be healed by my message written 110 years later.
But wait, even now Ben sends a reply filled with love and encouragement for his descendent who is still stuck in time. I cannot discern all the words, but I feel its spirit. I bask in the warmth of his appreciation.

“Thank you, Grandpa. It is so good to hear from you.”

Reference

Maxwell, N. A. (1980). Patience. In Brigham Young University 1979 Devotional and Fireside Speeches. Provo, UT: University Publications.

John A. Widtsoe (1954). Discourses of Brigham Young. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book.

Smith, J. F. (Compiler). (1938). Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book.

We know instinctively from childhood that we must contend against our weaknesses. If we are wise and determined, we make some progress over the decades. If we draw on the power of the Redeemer we can make quantum leaps. After subduing many of our weaknesses, it is a surprise to find that there is a very different temptation awaiting us on the road of eternal progress: overcoming our strengths. As Elder Oaks (1994) has observed in his insightful message, “Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall”:

But weakness is not our only vulnerability. Satan can also attack us where we think we are strong—in the very areas where we are proud of our strengths. He will approach us through the greatest talents and spiritual gifts we possess. If we are not wary, Satan can cause our spiritual downfall by corrupting us through our strengths as well as by exploiting our weaknesses. (p.12)

We admire people—in fact we may marry them—for their compassion, cleverness, ambition, organizational ability, or charisma. But those strengths can be a curse, especially in close relationships. The compassionate may become consumed in serving neighbors or the homeless or a charitable cause while neglecting spouse or children. The intellectual may reduce people to a scrap heap of motives and distort the meaning of life to a hopeless quagmire. The ambitious may become so focused on climbing that they fail to be available to God when He has an errand for them. The orderly may reduce life to a planner. The charismatic may find the conquest of new territory to be an addiction that keeps them from tending the home fires.

My own experience agrees. Nancy claims to have been attracted to me because of my enthusiasm, positivity, and self-assurance. I have always loved her for her peacefulness, goodness, and practicality. But there are times in a close relationship when my enthusiasm can feel demanding, impatient, unreasonable, and self-serving. There are times when her practicality seems confining and negative. I can insist that “I gotta be me!” Or I can learn the great lesson of life: to love as Jesus loves. I am happy to report that almost-three-decades of marriage have made me much better at listening to Nancy’s sensible, wise ideas. And I am immeasurably better for it.

If we rely on our strengths, no matter how amazing, we will never make it. Using our strengths to resolve problems that were created by our strengths has a predictable result. Ultimately there is only one power that saves. It is not compassion or cleverness or charisma. It is the Lord. King Benjamin advises us to:

[become] as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. Mosiah 3:19

We must submit to the divine way. Whatever our strengths, it is still true that we are dependent upon Christ for everything of eternal value.

And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. 2 Nephi 31:21

The qualities He gives us—faith, hope, and love—have enduring value.

How do we keep our strengths from becoming a stumbling block? Elder Oaks emphasizes humility as the essential ingredient.

How, then, do we prevent our strengths from becoming our downfall? The quality we must cultivate is humility. Humility is the great protector (p.19).

When we gloat about our strengths we clearly have forgotten who the great Giver of gifts is. Thus the talented may have a distinct disadvantage in the eternal journey. They can seemingly carry off this mortal struggle on their own. Yet it is the weak and meek who inherit the earth. It is the lepers, lame, and blind who were healed physically and spiritually. In God’s plan the humble have the advantage. They know they cannot rely on their own strength. They know to what source they must look. They know they cannot progress without constant infusions of goodness from heaven.

In the close relationships of family life there may be another gospel resource in addition to humility that is vital for balancing our strengths. Consider these examples:

One man is tranquil and gentle while his wife is enthusiastic. He will feel plowed over and she will feel unsupported and lonely—unless they manage their strengths. Another woman is a devoted mother and her husband is a remarkable businessman. Often he feels neglected by her and she feels betrayed by his lack of devotion.

No matter what strengths a person has, they will be a source of chronic friction—unless they are softened by charity.

Charity is the essential lubricant in family relationships. As the wise marital therapist, Daniel Wile (1988) has observed:

There is value, when choosing a long-term partner, in realizing that you will inevitably be choosing a particular set of unresolvable problems that you’ll be grappling with for the next ten, twenty, or fifty years. . . . Each potential relationship has its own particular set of inescapable recurring problems (pp. 12–13).

There is nothing that makes us quite as contentious as the belief that we are right and need to correct others. The final and ultimate act of consecration is to put our knowledge, our ideas—all our strengths—on the altar for Him to do with as He will. In almost all cases He will be less interested in our being right than in our being good. We want to win arguments. He wants us to conquer divisions with love. There simply is no relationship remedy like charity. John Gottman (1994), a therapist and premier researcher on marriage, has said:

One of the great paradoxes in therapy is that people don’t change unless they feel accepted as they are (p.184).

With humility and charity we are prepared to be worthy family members. We can learn to give our partner the benefit of the doubt. We can listen better. We can work to understand our partner’s point of view. We can beseech heaven for the gifts of patience, gentleness, and meekness. We can seek the mighty change of heart that will make us more like our perfect exemplar, the Lord Jesus Christ. He can lift us above not only our weaknesses but also our strengths. He can make us divine.

References

Gottman, J. (1994). Why marriages succeed or fail and how you can make yours last. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Oaks, D. H. (1994, October). Our strengths can become our downfall. Ensign.

Wile, D. B. (1988). After the honeymoon: How conflict can improve your relationship. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

In the marketplace, we trade something we have for something we want. This system is built on the ancient premise that you can buy anything in this world with money—or gold or land or . . . . Those who succeed in this system are those who have (and control the distribution of) something that others deem valuable. Contrast this with the Lord’s management of His resources:

Come, my brethren, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come buy and eat; yea come buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Nephi 9:50 (also Isaiah 55:1)

It is obvious that a market system is vulnerable to distortion, corruption, and manipulation. Prosperous operators inflate the perceived value of goods or create high prices by limiting supply. It is intriguing to look at those who have been business heroes in our country. Many who were splashed on the cover of newsmagazines with titles of adulation are today facing lawsuits and humiliation.

Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy. 2 Nephi 9:51

In capitalist societies we suffer an interesting moral quandary: Are people who make the most money the ones we admire most because of their success at capitalism, or the ones we disdain because of the moral and personal compromises they made along the way? Our admiration for business leaders rests on the unsteady ground of selective perception.

The ungodly are described as those who “. . . preach up unto themselves their own wisdom and their own learning, that they may get gain and grind upon the face of the poor” 2 Nephi 26:20.

Capitalism thrives on the supposition that more is better. When grundles of stuff fail to satisfy, we set our sights on still more stuff. Or we distract ourselves with empty amusements—before we return to the mall. Materialism is the hunger that is never satisfied, the thirst that is never slaked.

One remedy is to control our wants. Should such lack of desire become popular, traditional capitalism would stall—unless we actually became a Zion society and began to produce for the sake of those who cannot buy. But, then, that isn’t capitalism. Some might call it Christianity.

And all that believed were together, and had all things common. And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. Acts 2:44–45

The most famous test of moral development is a story created by Lawrence Kohlberg called the Heinz dilemma. In the dilemma, a pharmacist has developed an effective medication for cancer. Heinz is a poor man whose wife has the disease. The pharmacist will not provide any medication without first exacting an exorbitant price which Heinz does not have and cannot borrow. Should Heinz allow his wife to die? Should he steal the medication? What should he do? Kohlberg examined a person’s reasoning in the dilemma to decide that person’s moral maturity.

It is probably no accident that moral dilemmas often pit our free-market rules against human well-being. The most common real-world form of the dilemma today may be in balancing work and family. “How can I make a good living (or progress in my career or pay for the new car or . . .) and still have time for my family?” It is harder to imagine a better test for whether our focus is mortal or eternal.

. . . and the wise, and the learned, and they that are rich who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches—yea, they are they whom he despiseth; . . . 2 Nephi 9:42

Socialism has claimed the moral high ground over capitalism because it professes to value people over money. Unfortunately, research has shown that socialism’s professions have not been effectively operationalized in socialist countries; the inequities there are as glaring as those in capitalist countries. Apparently power, greed, and self-interest are the natural inheritance of mortals. They define our fallenness.

Roy Baumeister, a psychologist with keen insights, has observed an even further decline in values in recent times: “Modern economic life is based on the individual, rational pursuit of self-interest, which gradually came to replace the older patterns that were based on the cooperative, moral pursuit or the collective welfare” (1991, p. 96). Has this Earth’s history gotten us to a better place as we increasingly cast all decisions in self-serving terms?

Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness. (2 Nephi 9:51)

God’s kingdom runs on different principles from those that govern capitalism. We are only prepared to enter the kingdom when we “are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light, [and] comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18: 8–9). In fact, any who hold back graciousness in the name of undeservingness are warned that they have “great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God” (Mosiah 4:17–18).

While a forgiveness approach may not work well in the accounts receivable office, it clearly is the guiding principle for the kingdom of God. Maybe the only ones who will qualify for God’s presence in the eternal worlds are those who can practice the law of abundance in a world focused on competition for scarce resources.

There is a keen irony in Satan’s “victories.” Every time he wins a mortal to his realms, he loses power (since every mortal who follows him will have a body and therefore will have power over him). Every time he wins in his foul purposes, he loses. The one who is obsessed with gaining power is perpetually losing it. That must be hell.

In contrast, every time God wins, all of His followers win. All of His disciples are enlarged by the blessing of adding more souls to the heavenly realm. We rejoice with those who rejoice.

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with that same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. Luke 6:38

It is noteworthy that this invitation to abundance is offered in the context of counseling us to have mercy and to forgive rather than to judge and condemn. Love is the stock in trade in heaven.

It is intriguing when good science confirms the Lord’s counsel. Martin Seligman, the prominent psychologist, has made a recent summary of research related to happiness. He concludes that the pleasant life is the result of “a life that successfully pursues the positive emotions about the present, past, and future.” It is filled with appreciation of beauty and pleasure all around us.

All things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart. D&C 59:18

Still better than the pleasant life, the good life derives from “using your signature strengths to obtain abundant gratification in the main realms of your life.” As we are counseled in sacred contexts,

Fill the measure of your creation and have joy therein. See D&C 88:19.

But, says Seligman, “a meaningful life adds one more component to the good life—the attachment of your signature strengths to something larger. The meaningful life [entails] using your signature strengths and virtues in the service of something much larger than you are” (Seligman, 2002, pp.262–63).

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. Matthew 16:25

When we live for ourselves, we will never enjoy the blessings available to those who dedicate themselves to God, His children, and His work. While the journey can be pleasant even for those who are not fully committed to service, fullness of joy is reserved for those who lose themselves in something larger than themselves.

This defies the laws of economics. But, it seems, everything of eternal value transcends those pedestrian laws. Turning again to Seligman’s observations about happiness:

The tedious law of homo economicus maintains that human beings are fundamentally selfish. Social life is seen as governed by the same bottom-line principles as the marketplace. So, just as in making a purchase or deciding on a stock, we supposedly ask ourselves of another human being, “What is their likely utility for us?” The more we expect to gain, the more we invest in the other person. Love, however is evolution’s most spectacular way of defying this law” (pp. 185–86).

We love in families. We love at church. We love in the community. Love is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It is not even a profitable business investment. It is evidence that we believe in something beyond the tangible. It is the living evidence of our understanding of God’s plan.

There is a well-established spiritual pattern in human affairs. When someone is flooded by the Spirit, his or her immediate concern is the welfare of brothers and sisters (2 Nephi 6:3, Enos 1:9, Mosiah 25:11). That is the influence of heaven. In contrast, priestcraft is scripturally defined as seeking gain and praise instead of the welfare of Zion (2 Nephi 26:29). Ah, ZION! The place where we can be

. . . of one heart and one mind, and [dwell] in righteousness and there [will be] no poor among [us]. Moses 7:18

The communal spirit defines heaven just as self-service defines fallenness. The true believer yearns for the well-being of all God’s children.

In mortality, we all make a choice between the two ways. We may follow Satan’s system in which we greedily grab for more—and every gain is a loss. Or we may follow God’s plan in which we are enriched by giving away. Of course the perfect example is Jesus Himself. He laid down everything and now rules in eternity.

. . . he descended below all things . . . that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth. D&C 88:6

In everything that really matters, charity trumps capitalism, discipleship transcends profit, goodness overcomes fairness. We must never let the philosophies of humans keep us from the blessings of Zion. Many of those who are preeminent in this world will be obscure in the next, while those who reign with Him will have quietly dedicated themselves to succoring the weak, lifting up hands which hang down, and strengthening the feeble knees (See D&C 81:5).

. . . save they shall cast [learning and riches] away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them. 2 Nephi 9:42

Jesus made a very unbusinesslike proposition to the young rich man. It underscores the process by which any of us find our eternal home.

If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. Matthew 19:21

Those whom Jesus holds up as moral models are children, the poor, the heartbroken and humble. Undoubtedly there is a lesson for us in that: Money is useless where He dwells. Love is the currency of the realm.

References

Baumeister, R. F. (1991). Meanings of life. New York: Guilford Press.

Kohlberg,

Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic happiness. New York: Free Press.

In a rural Utah town some years ago, a young man with a burden of life challenges added one more: a premarital pregnancy. As if it were not enough to be poor, bashful, poorly educated, and have a speech defect. The neighborhood response was to avert attention; the situation was embarrassing but might be less painful for all if it were ignored. The young couple planned to marry quietly and set up housekeeping with his parents.

The young man’s bishop had another plan. He invited the young man and his girlfriend to meet him at the chapel for an interview. Unknown to the young couple, the bishop had arranged for ward leaders and friends of the family to be in the cultural hall with gifts to help the couple launch their new life together. More important, they were to be there to offer love and support to an almost hopeless couple.

The informal reception went well. The couple felt loved and supported. But within days there were rumblings in the ward. “The ward doesn’t put on a reception for our children.” “Why should we reward their immorality?” “How will they learn to repent if they don’t suffer?” Somehow it seemed reminiscent of an older brother who protested the outpouring on his prodigal brother:

Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends:

But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf (Luke 15:29–30).

I feel a real discomfort when we begrudge the “undeserving” any blessings that may befall them. A very wise king has reminded us that we are all beggars, that we all depend upon our Heavenly King for all we have and are. There is an ungracious presumption in begrudging others their blessings from heaven. The Lord put it in clear relief when he taught about an unforgiving debtor who refused to forgive his debtors their $15 debts after having been forgiven his billion-dollar debt.

It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found (Luke 15:32).

Perhaps we show immense ingratitude when we judge others harshly while we ourselves are dependent upon His merits, mercy, and grace. The proper attitude toward those who are shown grace is, “Thank God for His boundless mercy!”

And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life belongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done (Mosiah 4:22).

Just as God gladly grants pardon, so, if we are to be on the heavenly path, we must be prepared to give to any who have need. If we are to retain a remission of sins, we “should impart of [our] substance to the poor” (Mosiah 4:26).

Satan bedevils us: “If you are gracious to the sinner you will be rewarding evil!” God counsels us to be busy at loving and to leave judgment and retribution with Him.

Behold what the scripture says—man shall not smite, neither shall he judge; for judgment is mine, saith the Lord, and vengeance is mine also, and I will repay (Mormon 8:20).

Leave judgment alone with me, for it is mine and I will repay. Peace be with you; my blessings continue with you (D&C 82:23).

And ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds (D&C 64:11).

The great, new commandment is to love as He loves. Even (or especially) in the family arena, love supersedes judgment. We have a friend who failed a high school math class. She had often had trouble with math. Her mother was frustrated and was tempted to preach: “How many times are you going to fail math? When are you going to take it seriously? What will it take to get you past your laziness?” Her mother knew better. She showed compassion and a respect for the daughter’s agency.

“That must be a horrible feeling.”

“Yeah. I’m disappointed.”

“And maybe you’re worried. Have you decided what to do? Do you have a plan?”

“I think I’ll take the class this summer when I have more time to study.”

Perhaps the most painful offence against heaven in all of this world’s history is the mountain of judgment, recrimination, and accusation that family members heap on each other. Modern research is clear that the most satisfying family relationships come from seeing each other in positive ways, giving each other the benefit of any doubt, and allowing family members to speak for themselves and to use their agency to make choices.

“How delightful is the company of generous people, who overlook trifles and keep their minds instinctively fixed on whatever is good and positive in the world about them. People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding. But magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what is more, they find it everywhere” (Brooks, 1948).

What could please God more than family members who are talent scouts, who are on alert for every goodness, and are gracious and appreciative. Anyone who has ever had such an advocate knows what a lasting impact that person has. Our only hope in eternity is that we all have just such a heavenly Advocate.

Lift up your hearts and be glad, for I am in your midst, and am your advocate with the Father; and it is his good will to give you the kingdom (D&C 29:5).

In all human relationships there is a great power in graciousness and generosity. Just now we are reminded of this truth by a generous semi-retired businessman in our community. He asked me to help him load a lovely piece of furniture into his truck so he could deliver it to another businessperson in town. I asked him how much he got for it. His stammering confirmed my suspicions: he was getting nothing for it; he was providing it to that person simply because that person could make joyful use of it. The same graciousness has characterized that man all the time we have known him. It is one reason we love to be with him.

We tend to filter our happiness for other’s accomplishments through our own provincial sense of their deserving. Wouldn’t it be better if we rejoiced anytime we witness wholesome happiness? A memorable line from an inspiring Homefront spot observes: “Whenever someone somewhere serves someone else, there is truly cause to celebrate.”

Even when it comes to dealing with sin and error, the remedy is not confrontation and accusation but advocacy.

“Nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand and watch over them with tenderness. When people manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what power it has over my mind, while the opposite course has a tendency to harrow up all the harsh feelings and depress the human mind” (TPJS, p. 240).

Mortality is a training ground for compassion. Those who enlarge and practice their compassion and mercy are preparing to join Father in His Heavenly Work of advocacy. “And blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (3 Nephi 12:7).
Reference

Brooks, V. W. (1948). A Chilmark miscellany. New York: Dutton.

“I can’t tell her about my trouble. Even if I begged her not to tell, I know she would tell everyone she talked to. And the story she told would be an awful distortion.” A saintly friend spoke of a family member she had learned not to trust. “I wish I could trust her. Should I confront her about her gossiping?”

That is the beauty of family life. We are regularly pressed against people whose faults we have come to know only too well. We try to be patient but only so many assaults against fundamental values can be tolerated. We chafe.

Generally there is at least one family member who is matchlessly irritating to us. That person efficiently does just the things that hurt, offend, and annoy us.

It would seem that we have just two options: We can allow ourselves to be misused or we can confront the offender. The first option does not help the offender and leaves us injured and resentful. It just doesn’t seem right.

The second option has historically been very popular. In this option we study the offender’s offenses and weave them into a pattern. Almost immediately the character implications become clear. We put a label on the diagnosis. We prepare our speech. We lie in wait. At the next provocation, our considered analysis gushes out. Of course it is all done with the intent of helping our loved one grow.

But there is a problem in this popular approach: “Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger” (Franklin P. Jones). Humans are pained and dispirited by criticism. It commonly makes people feel hurt, lonely, confused, and hopeless. And it does not help them grow.

Returning to the woman who has learned to mistrust the family member, she could lovingly confront the gossipy relative hoping for a ready reformation. Yet I am confident that the offender would be deeply hurt and numbingly confused. I think she would respond: “I thought we were friends. I have always loved you and wanted to help you. You are one of my favorite people. Why are you so angry with me?” No amount of fair and reasonable dialogue could clarify the corrective message. It would simply feel like an attack, a counter-betrayal.

For every offense and every offender there is a sterile, brittle interpretation and there is a sympathetic interpretation. The woman who has a problem with telling stories can be seen as a gossip who barters secrets for attention. She can also be seen as a person who has been bashful from childhood and never had anyone in her life who helped her understand others and who talks about bad situations as part of her effort to understand them.

Of course, there is probably some truth to both versions. Thus we get to choose. We can choose to dwell on the light or the dark. We can choose to focus on the annoyance or to focus on good intentions. Whatever we choose to focus on grows. Thereby we increase the light or increase the darkness.

When we study people’s offenses with even a glimmer of compassion, we make a startling discovery: the root of the offender’s behavior is humanness. We all offend and we all do it because we are human. We all grieve heaven with our narrowness, meanness, and lack of wisdom. We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:7). My mortal, human imperfection is something I share with all fellow offenders. In the poetic expression of Edward Sill (1906), “These clumsy feet, still in the mire, / Go crushing blossoms without end.” I can enlarge the world’s supply of pain by responding to humanness with my own provincial humanness. Or I can move us toward the divine by responding with the divine. I can respond with charity.

Charity is a choice—a choice with eternal consequences. “If you don’t like someone, the way he holds his spoon will make you furious; if you do like him, he can turn his plate over into your lap and you won’t mind” (Becker, year). We are commanded to pray with all the energy of heart for the blessed gift of charity (Moroni 7:47–48) so that we can swallow offenses without getting indigestion.

The bitter irony in correction is that most attempts at correction make troublesome problems worse. They add fuel to the angry fires. The woman confronted with her “gossiping” will go running to find someone to help her make sense of the painful attack. In the effort to overcome her gossiping, she will extend it. That is why Paul warns of one of the chief dangers of being human: “O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things” (Romans 2:1). When we judge, we become worthy of condemnation. When we fail to forgive offenses, small or large, we are guilty of a greater sin (D&C 64:8–11).

Judgment is such a delicate matter that it is to be handled only by those who know everything and love perfectly. That disqualifies most of us. “Behold what the scripture says—man shall not smite, neither shall he judge; for judgment is mine, saith the Lord, and vengeance is mine also, and I will repay” (Mormon 8:20). “Ye ought to say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee” (D&C 64:11).

Jesus has begged us to stay out of the judging business since we are so poorly suited for it. His metaphor of motes and beams provides physical hyperbole but spiritual understatement: Humans can never see each other clearly. Nowhere do we see through glass more darkly than in our assessment of those who have annoyed us for years. We do not see that even annoying family members come “trailing clouds of glory, from God, who is our home.”

So Jesus directs us away from judging and toward charity, toward seeing as He sees. Wedged between His washing of the disciples’ feet and His giving His life for them, Jesus delivers the breathtaking new commandment: We are to love as He loves. He does not command us to repent one another or to fix one another. He commands us to love just exactly the way He loves: with perfect redemption. Such a commandment stretches us beyond human capacity. We simply cannot love as we should love unless we are filled with Jesus. Under His influence, we can view each other with compassion. We can make the good parts of our relationships more central, memorable, and common. We can carefully guide each other around our weaknesses. We can pray for each other. But we can only do it when we are filled with Him.

There is no simple answer about how much the woman should tell her talkative relative. That is the province of wisdom. She might provide a simple story of events. Or she may choose to avoid sensitive subjects with her gossipy relative. Irrespective of what she chooses to disclose, it is clear that she should strive to love and support her relative. Since that “offending” person has a knack for organizing, she can invite her to help organize her family history. She can make appointments for fun time together. She can cherish positive memories. God knows that love liberates goodness. If we all loved each other, the paradisiacal state would flood in on us.

Years ago it became clear to me that I do not have the right to correct anyone I do not love. There have been times when I have looked with compassion on a brother or sister and Father has entrusted me with a message for that person. Of course, at such times my “correction” felt more like celebration and encouragement than judgment, reproof, or scolding.

Researcher and therapist John Gottman (1999) reminds us that we cannot change people until we love them as they are. Of course once we love them as they are, the compulsion to correct is replaced with the desire to bless. “The nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their sins behind our backs. . . . if you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on one another” (Smith, 1938, p. 241)

So how should we react when we are pained by the thoughtless and selfish acts of another? We should pray that God will heal our wounds and then fill us with Him so that we can “love [our] enemies, bless them that curse [us], do good to them that hate [us], and pray for them which despitefully use [us], and persecute [us]” (Matthew 5:44).

His message is love.

References

Becker, I. in Reader’s Digest (1975). Pocket treasury of great quotations. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest.

Gottman, J. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York: Crown.

Sill, E. R. (1906). Fool’s prayer. Poetical works of Edward Rowland Sill. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Smith, J. F. (Compiler). (1938). Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light,and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!—Isaiah 5:20

Satan is the master of inversion. Where God offers light, Satan provides darkness. God confers joy, peace, and love. Satan dispenses lies, misery, and bitterness. Satan’s latter-day lies stand in contrast not only to heavenly revelation but even to good research on families and human development.

Being Married

The world suggests that being married is just one rather old-fashioned and unprogressive way of living. Rates of cohabitation are exploding. Divorce is epidemic. Both cohabitation and divorce are offensive to God. “Marriage is ordained of God unto man” (D&C 49:15). The wisdom of God’s commandment is supported by decades of research. Cohabiters who later marry are more likely to divorce (and be violent in the relationship) than those who do not cohabit. Cohabitation is not an effective testing ground for an enduring relationship. The multitude of benefits of marriage for both men and women is sustained by Waite and Gallagher’s (2000) book, The Case for Marriage.

Married people live longer, have better health, earn more money and accumulate more wealth, feel more fulfilled in their lives, enjoy more satisfying sexual relationships, and have happier and more successful children than those who remain single, cohabit, or get divorced.

Meanwhile, the long-term damage of divorce to children is underscored by Wallerstein’s (2000) longitudinal work reported in her most recent book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. Both Wallerstein’s book and the Waite and Gallagher book are enormously unpopular with some progressives in today’s world but both are based on good science. More important, they agree with the timeless truth given by God.

Success in Marriage

Satan has promoted a medical model of marriage: Notice anything that is wrong with your partner, think about it, talk about it, and invite your partner to fix it. It seems so reasonable. Many marriage programs have been based on skillful communication of discontents. But God recommends a different approach to building relationships: personal repentance and love for our partner. When we cover our own sins, gratify our pride, or exercise control over our partner by shifting attention away from our need to repent and to our partner’s faults, the heavens withdraw themselves (see D&C 121: 37).
No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of [spousehood], only by persuasion, by long suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—D&C 121:41–42.

The best new research in marriage makes the same point. John Gottman’s (e.g., 1999) remarkable program of research on marriage recommends editing (some things don’t need to be said), more positives (kindness), and self-soothing (gentleness). In successful marriages, partners value the relationship over being right (“repair attempts”). Gottman has found the pattern of marital conflict to be remarkably predictable. (Satan is not creative.) But happy couples are wonderfully unpredictable. They make the creative use of differences, work to build their relationship, and actively invest in their love.

I cannot find any place in scripture where the Lord commands us to carefully catalogue our partner’s follies. Nor can I find any place where he directs us to fix our partner. He does command charity, that pure love of Christ that transcends any ordinary definition of love. It is not surprising that research is coming to recommend kindness as the essential ingredient of healthy family relationships. The Lord and His servants have always recommended kindness, patience, and love. Joseph F. Smith (1998) counseled:

We all have our weaknesses and failings. Sometimes the husband sees a failing in his wife, and he upbraids her with it. Sometimes the wife feels that her husband has not done just the right thing, and she upbraids him. What good does it do? Is not forgiveness better? Is not charity better? Is not love better? Isn’t it better not to speak of faults, not to magnify weaknesses by iterating and reiterating them? Isn’t that better? . . . Is it not better to drop [faults] and say nothing about them—bury them and speak only of the good that you know and feel, one for another, and thus bury each other’s faults and not magnify them; isn’t that better? (pp.180–81)

Chastity and Fidelity

Satan has portrayed chastity and fidelity as provincial, boring, and even lowbrow. But the Lord delights in chastity. (See Jacob 2:28.) He commands it even in today’s sexualized world. What does excellent research find?

Those having the most sex and enjoying it most are the married people. The young single people who flit from partner to partner and seem to be having a sex life that is satisfying beyond most people’s dreams are, it seems, mostly a media creation. In real life, the unheralded, seldom-discussed world of married sex is actually the one that satisfies people the most (Michael, Gagnon, Laumann, & Kolata, 1994).

Hollywood is wrong. The joys of married life have always been superior to the excitement of a swinging lifestyle.

Raising Children

Satan has parents looking for some magical combination of rules, consequences, timeout, and rewards that will teach their children to be good citizens. Heavenly Father provides a simple directive: “I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth” (D&C 93:40).

“Light and truth” suggest to the mind love, compassion, heavenly inspiration, and the teaching of gospel principles. Decades of research on parenting confirm that nothing matters more than love. Urie Bronfenbrenner (1977, May) said it eloquently:

“Every child should spend a substantial amount of time with somebody who’s crazy about him or her . . . There has to be at least one person who has an irrational involvement with that child, someone who thinks that kid is more important than other people’s kids, someone who’s in love with him or her, and whom he or she loves in return.”

Love also sets the context for moral development. Hoffman (1983) suggests that children develop in their commitment to goodness and concern for others as we love them, set good examples, reason with them, and help them understand how their behavior affects others. That is bringing them up in light and truth.

Relationship With Self

Satan’s greatest coup may be in the area of our relationship with self. Old Scratch insists quite reasonably that “you cannot love anyone until you love yourself.” But the Lord has always recommended the opposite course: “And whosoever will lose his life in this world, for my sake, shall find it in the world to come” (JST Matthew 16:28). Self- discovery comes through forgetting self.

Even scholars have been concerned about the modern western emphasis on self. Baumeister (1991) has observed a revolution in the way people find meaning in life. “Love and work are regarded by modern Americans as means of cultivating, exploring, and glorifying the self, and if they fail in this they lose their legitimacy. A relationship that stifles the self ought to be broken off; a job that fails to foster self-expression or growth should be changed” (pp. 104–5, emphasis in original).

The new emphasis on self has caused a redefinition of morality. “For centuries . . . each individual made his or her major life choices between the conflicting demands of self-interest and morality. . . . Virtue meant conquering the various forms of self-interest, including greed, lust, laziness, and cowardice. . . . Vice, in contrast meant putting the impulses and desires of the self first and acting on them even when such actions ran counter to the community’s needs, wants, and values. The hero exerted and suffered for others, and in the process the hero helped the community. The villain indulged his or her own selfish appetites at the expense of others. . . . [But] in the 20th century . . . morality has become allied with self-interest. It is not simply that people have the right to do what is best for them; rather, it has become an almost sacred obligation to do so. The modern message is that what is right and good and valuable to do in life is to focus on yourself, . . . Once it was a virtue to place the best interests of others ahead of your own. Now, instead, there is an increasingly moral imperative to do the opposite” (p. 113).

Krauthammer (1993, June 28) has observed that “the reigning cliché of the day is that in order to love others one must first learn to love oneself. This formulation . . . is a license for unremitting self-indulgence, because the quest for self-love is endless.” (p.76). Satan must laugh as Americans obsess on self-love and never quite get to loving God or neighbor.
When meeting our own needs becomes the moral standard in all our decisions, marriage suffers, children suffer, communities suffer, eternity suffers. What trend could better fulfill the promised latter day doom: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy” (2 Timothy 3:1–2).

God does not provide commandments as an arbitrary test of our willpower. They simply define the path to happiness. That God who created us and gave us life knows how to bless us. God enjoins marriage, love, service, and unselfishness. Such commandments look like restrictions to the natural man but the spiritual person recognizes them as guides to love, joy, and peace. Truly we can choose misery or we can choose joy.

When we choose to obey Satan he pays us in the currency of his realm: misery. “The devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell” (Alma 30:60). When we obey God, we receive “good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom” (Luke 6:38).

God’s way is always better.

References

Baumeister, R. F. (1991). Meanings of life. New York: Guilford Press.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977, May). Nobody home: The erosion of the American family. Psychology Today.

Gottman, J. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York: Crown.

Hoffman, M. L. (1983). Affective and cognitive processes in moral internalization. In E. T. Higgins, D. N. Ruble, & W. W.

Hartup (Eds.). Social cognition and social development: A sociocultural perspective (pp. 236–275). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Krauthammer, C. (1993, June 28). Beware the study of turtles. Time.

Michael, R. T., Gagnon, J. H., Laumann, E. O. & Kolata, G. (1994). Sex in America: A definitive survey. Boston: Little, Brown.

Smith, J. F. (1998). Teachings of the presidents of the Church: Joseph F. Smith. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Waite, L., and Gallagher, M. (2000). The case for marriage. New York: Doubleday.

Wallerstein, J., Lewis, J. M., & Blakeslee, S. (2000). The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. New York: Hyperion.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).

There are a handful of doctrines that undergird the Atonement of Jesus Christ: Mercy. Love. Covenants. Compassion.
“But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth” (Psalms 86:15).

While the doctrine of the Atonement defines truth from the heavenly perspective, the reality of the Atonement builds the bridge that brings us from estrangement to at-one-ment with God. Unlike pagan sacrifice, in which innocent humans are killed in order to mollify an irritable, peevish god, in Christianity, Jesus Christ died in order to win our hearts.

We’re not trying to reach God and touch his heart with our sacrifices, rather God is trying to reach us and touch our hearts with His infinite sacrifice (Robinson, 2002).

In order to fully inform His compassion, Jesus not only looked on our mortal challenges with compassion, He took upon Himself every pain, every sin, every heartache, every disappointment, and every injury we will ever suffer.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4–5).

All of this we know. It resides on the shelves of our minds with other volumes of theology. Occasionally some experience pulls the idea off the shelf, blows off some dust, and renews it for us. But it does not inform our daily decisions. It does not reach into our family life. Yet Elder Packer suggests that doctrine can change us.

True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior. Preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior. That is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel” (Packer, 1986, October).

On one occasion a young, earnest, intelligent, LDS mother sought me out for advice. “My husband is a good man but I no longer find him attractive. I am thinking about leaving him. But I am not sure if it is right.” I really wanted to help this good woman find answers to her dilemma. I prayed for guidance. And I found myself talking inexplicably about the Atonement of Christ. All my training in family life protested: “What does that have to do with her dilemma?” By my spirit would not be deterred. An hour of testifying of that inestimable goodness, mercy, and love spilled out. Phrases from the great Atonement chapters in the Book of Mormon came to life. The cup of testimony was brim with joy. After it all spilled out, I paused, wondering how to apply the doctrine of the Atonement to her dilemma. But her face told me that nothing needed to be said. The Atonement of Jesus Christ was the answer. Because of His goodness, we are reconciled to each other and to God. He makes us One. Filled with charity—that sweet and divine gift of heavenly love—she felt a renewed bond with her husband. She would stay with him. Gladly.

The doctrine of the Atonement is the answer to our family challenges.

I desire that ye should remember these things . . . . That ye contend no more against the Holy Ghost, but that ye receive it, and take upon you the name of Christ; that ye humble yourselves even to the dust, and worship God, in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you (Alma 34:37–8).

A sincere young man asked my advice for dealing with his mother. He and she had been battling for years. She seemed entirely unable to accept him or to respect his choices whether he was running around foolishly or trying diligently to serve God. He had tried everything he could think of to show her his heart. Yet the harder he tried to show her, the angrier became their divide.

I gave him the counsel that is stock among psychologists: active listening. See things from your mother’s perspective. Steve Covey describes it as “seek first to understand—then to be understood.” I illustrated the principle by standing side-by-side with this good man and asked him to imagine that he was seeing through his mother’s eyes. See her struggle, her pain, her desires, her disappointments. He softened. “I can see how hurt she must be. She has felt betrayed by her husband, by her mother, and now by me.” Accusation was replaced with understanding.

But both of us were to receive a new revelation. Standing by his side with my arm around him, I asked myself, “Is this pop psychology or true doctrine?” Tears came to my eyes. Suddenly I realized that Jesus, the perfect example, has done exactly that for each of us. He has stood at our sides and experienced our pain. But then He has done what no one else could do: He has made it His own. He has “borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” Mine. Yours. Every single human who ever lived on this earth.

“He knows more about pain, grief, loneliness, contradiction, shame, rejection, betrayal, anguish, depression, and guilt than all of us combined. For in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the hill of Calvary, Jesus took upon himself the sins and the pains of all the world” (Robinson, p.116).

He does not merely empathize with us. He takes our pains into Himself. As a result, He, only He, is able to say when we groan under the pains of mortality, “I know how you feel.”

With anyone else we can rightly protest, “You can’t know how I feel.” With Him we must acknowledge, “Thou hast descended below all things.” And He adds, “That I might lift you above all things.”

Once again, the doctrine of the Atonement was the answer to family pain. When we stop defending our puny territory and stand side-by-side with family members, and look with compassion on their lives, we become lord-like in our compassion. We find a common cause. We become one. The beam of self-interest falls away and we see clearly. “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

Contention, selfishness, accusation, unkindness, unfaithfulness—every brand of human failing—falls away when we are flooded with the doctrine of the Atonement. He is the answer to every family dilemma.

Having ascended into heaven, having the bowels of mercy; being filled with compassion towards the children of men; standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice (Mosiah 15:9).

References

Packer, B. K. (Nov. 1986). “Little Children,” Ensign, p. 16.

Robinson, S. (2002). Believing Christ. Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft. 111–112.

I had the blessing of growing up with three remarkable grandparents. But one grandparent died when I was a baby. I yearned to know her.

A Blessed Heritage

I was named after Grandpa Wallace. He was a prominent man in the community. Wherever we went, people knew him and respected him. But what mattered to a little boy was that he took me, Alan, and Beth out for “malts.” Going out for a malt with Grandpa meant a major shopping expedition. As I entered my teen years, he taught me to care for his yard. He took inordinate pride in a job well done.

Grandma Wallace was gentle and gracious. She and Grandpa would invite me for sleepovers at their house. Clean white sheets. An uncrowded house. Breakfasts to remember. It was heaven! I never heard Grandma say an unkind thing. In some ways Grandma is a real and continuing presence in my life; my dear wife, Nancy, exemplifies so many of the same qualities of gentleness, graciousness, and thoughtfulness that characterized Grandma Wallace.

Grandpa Goddard invested his life in church service; he was either a bishop or a stake president for 26 years. I was blessed to hear him recite clever poems and to go home teaching with him. I have inherited some of his books and many of his interests. People expected good things of me because I was his grandson.

Empty Places

But I never knew Grandma Verna Lisle Wright Goddard. She died when I was a baby, only 16 months old. As I grew up I knew her primarily by the 8” by 10” photo of her that never moved from the mantel of the family home.

Grandpa Goddard would live almost 17 years without his beloved companion. How he must have missed the woman with whom he shared his life and for whom he wrote loving verse!

I would live more than 50 years before I came to know Grandma Verna.

We all have empty places that yearn to be filled. One day when I was sorting through my dad’s papers with Mom, I asked about Grandma Goddard. “Oh! How she loved you,” Mom said—as if it were a casual observation that I should already know. I was speechless. No one had ever said anything about how Grandma Goddard felt about me. I did not know that I even showed up on the radar screen of her life. I was pleased to know that I mattered to her.

Still I hungered to have her be an active part of my life. I wanted to know my Grandma. I wanted to hear her voice and have her tousle my hair.

Treasures Disguised as Junk

I asked Aunt Ruth about Grandma. She gave me a box of Grandma’s papers. Newspaper clippings. Old photo negatives. It was, on the whole, a disorderly mess of dusty, unrelated fragments. But there was a scrapbook. The dedication penned in that scrapbook taught me much about Grandmother’s commitments and devotion:

To my children, I lovingly dedicate my book.
They make my life worth living.
They fill my cup of joy to overflowing.
They are my jewels, loaned to me by a loving Father.
For them I would be strong and brave and true.

The book was filled with pictures of her family and her testimony of the gospel. It was a treasure trove to me.
Some of life’s greatest treasures are often disguised as ordinary fragments of mortal business. The box of scraps yielded cherished love notes from Grandpa to her: “To the Dearest Wife and Mother in the world.” “To Verna, More and more I love you, Percy.” “The darlingest in the whole world—my Verna.”

In the box there were also pictures of family outings with my father as a boy. And a pile of carbon copies of letters Grandma wrote to her boys while they were away in World War II. They beckoned me to enter her world.

The letters tell of ordinary events. Church meetings. Weather. Holidays. Scrubbing coal-dust-besotted walls. And they express love, hope, and testimony. As I studied them, I felt that I was a part of their lives. I may not intrude on their doings but I may quietly be there with them. I take an easy chair in the corner of their lives and live every letter. Unlike Grandma I hated for the war to end. Sure, I would be glad for my Father and uncle to come home from the war—but I did not want the letters to end.

Coming Home

But the war did end. The boys came home. They married. In time I was born—a first grandson. I was hardly a year old when Grandma began her battle with cancer. I suppose that our encounter was much like that described by Elder Maxwell: “Then we brush against the veil, as goodbyes and greetings are said almost within earshot of each other.” She was leaving the world just as I arrived.

As I read of her love for her children I came to know Grandma Verna Goddard. I hear her voice speak to my soul. I hear her whisper in my ear as she snuggles me on her shoulder: “Oh, little one, I love you! May God be with you, my beloved grandson.” I will never forget that new memory.

Grandma was a counselor in the General Young Women presidency and a popular speaker. I read her notes for talks. I studied the articles she wrote. I yearned to hear her voice. So I asked if I might follow her on a speaking assignment. The Spirit whispered that I might follow—if I was very still.

So, in my mind, I followed her. I sat in the foyer outside the chapel. I heard her voice as she testified to a group of Young Women in Logan. “I know God. He is good! Love Him. Follow Him. Obey Him.” Her testimony blessed the young women in the gathering and it warmed my soul. The Young Women in the room sat enthralled. I sat in the hall and wept with joy.

I got to hear and know my Grandma Goddard.

I am thankful for a heritage that now includes lessons and love from all four grandparents. I am comforted to know that—despite passing through the veil—their ministering is not finished; rather, it has been refined. They now bless their descendants from the other side of the veil with their enlarged wisdom and greater love. It is a blessing to have them be a part of our lives. Just as Elisha opened the eyes of his panicked and youthful assistant so that he could see that “the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17), so a box of scraps has opened my eyes to the convoy of loved ones who guard our voyage through mortality.

I offer heartfelt thanks to my Grandparents. I love you, Grandpa Wallace, Grandma Wallace, Grandpa Goddard, and, finally, Grandma Verna Lisle Wright Goddard.

“Why do you talk so much these days about the problems you and Dad used to have?” queried the teen daughter.

Mom sighed. “Because it hurts so much to think about the good times we had that are now gone.”

Dad had left the family (and the Church), leaving behind a scrap heap of sadness, confusion, and anger. Mom dealt with the pain by rewriting the history of the relationship with unhappiness as the theme.

At the same time that Mom was editing the joy out of her marriage story, estranged Dad was using a parallel process in describing his relationship with his daughter. Even though he and she had been the best of friends for years, he told her that over the years he had spent so much time at work because he was tired of his family.

His statement broke her heart. She had always thought that he spent time at work because he loved his work—but that he really wanted to be with his family. In contrast to her dad’s revised version of their life together, she had a lifetime of evidence that he had often enjoyed his family.

Her dad had often taken his daughter with him when he traveled on high council assignments. Along the way he shared with her the glorious things he had learned at BYU and in a lifetime of Church service. Sometimes Dad sat behind his daughter while they watched TV and brushed her hair. He teased her about the rats’ nests.

What’s a daughter to do with all the pain when the father she has loved and admired leaves the family and the Church? The answer is a surprise.

The Roots of Despair

I used to wonder whether Moroni was being harsh and unsympathetic when he suggested that despair comes because of iniquity (see Moroni 10:22). Is he heaping blame on the heads of the depressed and burdened?

No. I think he is saying that troubles should activate faith. When we feel burdened, we should “cry unto him for mercy; for he is mighty to save” (Alma 34:18). The failure to let Him help us is indeed iniquity. Or, as the Lord says, “they who are not chosen have sinned a very grievous sin, in that they are walking in darkness at noon-day” (D&C 95:6). His help is abundantly available but we prefer to tough it out on our own. We end up in despair.

Turning It Over to God

How does all this apply to a young woman who has lost her best-friend dad? The natural man is inclined to scold, berate, and chastise the errant dad. Not only does that not help, but it is also presumptuous of us. When did God give us the right to abuse each other? When did God invite us to repent others rather than ourselves?
The Lord has a better way. Note His challenge and invitation:

Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I came unto mine own, and mine own received me not.

I am the light which shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not (D&C 10:57–58).

The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not; nevertheless, the day shall come when you shall comprehend even God, being quickened in him and by him.

Then shall ye know that ye have seen me, that I am, and that I am the true light that is in you, and that you are in me; otherwise ye could not abound (D&C 88:49–50).

The Lord’s way is not just a little better than the natural man’s way. It is as different as noon sunlight from midnight darkness.

Going toward the Light

The first thing that faith invites us to embrace is the reality of goodness. Since this life is like being dropped into the foulest part of the barnyard, we should recognize that the foul odors and awful muck are not a true measure of the person covered with them. In fact, the best we have ever seen a person—when the muck is washed away—is probably the truest measure of the man.

So the dad who is ignoring covenants and shutting out his family is not the real dad. The real dad is the one who combed his daughter’s hair and shared his testimony in little branches all over the stake. The real man is the one who testified on rural highways of God’s goodness and inestimable redemption.

A vision of each others’ best moments is exactly what we should cherish, remember, and celebrate. We should not allow the moments when we slip into the muck to eclipse the eternal vision of what we really are.

I think Alma taught us something similar. I think he teaches us in the great parable of the seed that those views that swell our souls, enlighten our understandings, and cause our minds to expand, are those that are most real (see Alma 32:35–36).

Modestly embedded in a simple parable is the answer Alma found to philosophy’s imponderable question: “What is real?” He teaches us that what is light is real. The lightest, brightest, best views we have of each other are the truest. They should be honored with our remembrance. Dad can be remembered for his finest moments, sweetest goodness, and truest love.

But What is to be Done?

The exercise of faith begins our healing by replacing our tired views of each other with holier measures of character. The best is the truest.

But, what is to be done? How do we save those who have strayed? God’s timeless message shows the path:

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you (Matthew 5:44).

God asks us to represent Him as messengers of hope and harbingers of redemption. Isn’t it wonderfully ironic and appropriate when those who have blessed our lives have need of our service? We are invited to return the favor.

We sustain the parents who sustained us. We encourage the friends who once encouraged us. We honor the spouse who at one time honored us. Even when they resent and resist us, we love them, bless them, and pray for them.

I Have Dreamed a Dream

Lehi introduced his vision of the tree of life by saying that “I have dreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have seen a vision” (1 Nephi 8:2). The vision of God’s purposes can be a hopeful one. I have imagined that those people we have loved who have strayed from the path may be ministered to in both mortality and the spirit world by throngs of well-wishers.
I have no right to declare doctrine, but in my heart I see a vision of ancestors reaching out to that wayward dad with words of invitation: “Come back and be refreshed by love and truth.”

I also imagine every priesthood bearer in the long history of this world joining the throng inviting the wayward back: “We are under covenant with you. Please come back. We want you with us. You are a part of us. Come back.”

I enjoy the vision entrusted to us in the book of Moses (chapter 7) in which we see God weeping for those wicked children who are suffering for their wickedness. He wants us safely back with Him under the protection of honored covenants. We are, after all, written on the palms of His hands (Isaiah 49:16). We are His children.
Let’s see if we can amend a scripture to open our minds to God’s purposes:

And again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ,

[Trust Him with your worries, concerns, and burdens] and lay hold upon every good gift, [from the comfort that I offer in trying times to the charity I grant for strugglers] and touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing [and set aside the evil interpretations of life and people that Satan offers constantly] (Moroni 10:30).

Instead of asking the question of those who are wandering in the wilderness— “Why are you not the person I wished you would be?”—substitute questions that lead to healing and hope: “How can I honor the good memories and connections I shared with this person?” “How can I turn to God to find peace in my soul?” “How can I offer light in this situation and share the vision of God’s purposes?”

Perhaps this vision of God’s relentless redemptiveness and ruthless loving kindness feels unreal and unbalanced to you. For me, it feels like a vision of the heart of heaven. It destroys despair and it sends me to my knees in awestruck gratitude. It fills me with light. And I believe that light is the measure of truth.

I think we should never tire of holding out love and hope to those who appear lost. Heaven wants them and we can join in heaven’s cause.

At a time when I was at a spiritual and professional crossroads, I desperately wanted counsel from my wise and compassionate dad. But he had died a year previous. I missed him terribly.

Fortunately I got even more desperate as I struggled for an answer and found none. One day I got desperate enough to leave meetings and find solitude in a restroom where I locked the door and begged Dad for his counsel. When I paused to listen, I felt warm, reassuring, and wise counsel come to mind. I knew it was from Dad. I wrote it down. As I acted on his counsel, our lives have gotten better and better. I believe that my dad is just as interested and even more able to counsel me now than when he lived in mortality.

Following Grandma

I did not want to presume on heaven’s goodness. But I felt there was still more.

My paternal grandmother was a counselor in the general presidency of the Young Women beginning in 1937. I read her articles in Church magazines. I read her correspondence. I also read her expressions of love to her children in her scrapbook and letters.

Unfortunately, Grandma died when I was just barely 16 months of age. So I can’t remember her holding me and cooing to me, her first grandson. I can’t remember her voice or words. But everyone who knew her told of her powerful testimony and great passion for the gospel. When I read a letter inviting her to speak to a group of Young Women in Logan, I longed to be there.

I exerted myself. I studied her notes. I found a quiet place and imagined her sitting on the stand in a chapel of that era. I found that the Spirit would not let me sit in the audience, but He would allow me to stand in the foyer and hear Grandma speak. I could almost hear the words and themes in my mind. I certainly felt the warmth as she testified of God’s great gifts and invited the Young Women to be true to their covenants.

What a blessing to hear Grandma speak after these many years of silence!

Family Gatherings

Recently our family gathered in the temple for a sealing. I felt sure that our ancestors wanted to attend. And we wanted them to attend. So I sent an invitation—by way of prayer. I asked that Father allow them to visit and be a part of this cherished family experience.

When we arrived in the sealing room, I mentally placed our cherished visitors in specific seats. I imagined them sitting there. I mentally expressed my love and appreciation to them. I was flooded with joy even before the sealing began.

Moments in History

Some years ago I started to make a list of the great moments in the history of this world that I wish I had witnessed. The list did not include the expected moments: Elijah on Mount Carmel, Moses parting the Red Sea, or Jesus feeding the 5,000. The moments in history I wanted to see were more personal.

I would like to see Grandpa Ben as he traveled Utah selling Bibles. He was a reluctant immigrant, an English preacher following his girlfriend. I would like to see his face as it was illuminated by the preaching of Bishop Price in Goshen, Utah—and this Methodist preacher from England decided to be baptized.

I wanted to see Grandpa Ben’s retirement party at the Bureau of Information on Temple Square after he had led the work for 27 years. I wanted to see my young dad serving at the gathering.

I wanted to see Grandpa Wallace—after whom I have the blessing of being named―on the morning he got news that he had not been re-elected to an eighth term as Salt Lake County Attorney. I wanted to see him clear out his desk and return home to his dear companion and hear her say, “Welcome home, Lover-dear.”

I would like to see my Goddard ancestors gathered on a summer’s eve in the cabin up Emigration Canyon. I would love to peer through the screen door and hear my Grandpa Goddard lead the family in prayer.

I would love to see my dear companion’s childhood. She is the kindest and finest person I have ever known. I know that I would enjoy seeing her play with Acel, Susan, Alan, and Lori.

There are other moments in the history of this world that seem especially sacred to me. I have already seen some of them.

I look forward to seeing more.

Ministering of Angels

Are there other ways that immortals can bless us? Are the ways only limited by our imaginations? I have often invited my dear dad to accompany me on speaking assignments. I have asked heaven to allow immortals to help me when I undertake a new writing project. (I call them the book team.)

We might modify Elisha’s insight: “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than [we ever imagined]” (2 Kings 6:16).

Consider the words of President Faust at the April 2006 General Conference:

In ancient and modern times angels have appeared and given instruction, warnings, and direction, which benefited the people they visited. We do not consciously realize the extent to which ministering angels affect our lives. President Joseph F. Smith said, “In like manner our fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and friends who have passed away from this earth, having been faithful, and worthy to enjoy these rights and privileges, may have a mission given them to visit their relatives and friends upon the earth again, bringing from the divine Presence messages of love, of warning, or reproof and instruction, to those whom they had learned to love in the flesh.” Many of us feel that we have had this experience. Their ministry has been and is an important part of the gospel.

I would extend President Faust’s statement to say that the ministry of immortals can be, not only an important part of the gospel, but also an important and blessed part of our daily lives.

For the young woman who is missing her dad I say, “Invite him over for some daddy-daughter time. He will come gladly.

You will both be blessed by the time together.” I know from experience.

Reference

Faust, J. E. (2006, April). A Royal Priesthood. Ensign (May, 2006) page.