“All is Well! All is
Well!”
Emigration SA Ward
July 10th,
2016
Hello
brothers and sisters,
I
am Melinda Rich, and I am excited to be speaking to you all, especially since speaking
in my previous ward felt like addressing a congregation in Stake Conference, so
your nice faces are far less intimidating. Also, I think there is no better way
to introduce myself than by sharing the principles of the Gospel that have been
filling my mind and heart as of late.
So
as a way of introduction, I am going to tell you a little about myself in the
past year. Last year I had a job I loved, teaching college English classes and
working in a GED program to help people graduate high school. I had been
working there for 5 years, when in January the supervisor in charge of the program
started making rigid changes I felt were detrimental to my students’ educational
success. By the end of August, I was ready to find another job and planned to
leave by the end of the year.
But
this is where God comes in, because I had my plan. I was going to find another
job, use up all of my vacation hours on some super cool trips, finish out my
classes with my students, and then be on my way by Christmas. But that is the
problem with planning, isn’t it? Creating these expectations for how things
will move forward. Most of them time, God has a totally different set of plans,
and even though some of our details are similar, he has the perfectly drafted
master plan, while comparatively it seems my plan is only a few doodles on a
Wendy’s napkin.
And
so, a month later, I was told it was nothing personal, but they were
restructuring the program, and I found myself without a job, without insurance,
and back at my parent’s house. I’ll be honest. I was mad. Mad and hurt at how I
had been treated and mad that I didn’t go on more trips with the vacation hours
I had lost. I had never been “let go” before, had never been ‘non-essential’,
and so my pride was wounded, and I felt betrayed, lost, and uncertain of my
future. But around the holidays I was reminded that “…The
Lord shall comfort Zion, he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make
her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and
gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody”
(2 Nephi 8:3). I was not alone, and as this scripture reminds us, God has a
much brighter and abundant vision of our lives than we do. If I would be
patient, my wounded heart would be comforted and blossom in joy with new life
and new ideas.
In
the moment however, I didn’t exactly see how that was going to happen. I sensed
God’s hand, but doubted my ability to follow through, and I definitely have had
to learn to stop fighting with God over my expectations and the preconceived
design for my future. As it says in Mosiah 3:19, I needed to “yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and put off
the natural man (that part that was fighting against God), and become a saint
through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and 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.”
As I have been learning, I am pretty stubborn (and submission can be
hard for me), and this major life change has become a test of strength and faith,
and being willing to submit to those often simple enticings of the Spirit.
And
so from the financial safety of my parent’s house I was able to restructure,
and found myself going back to school, and eventually settling into one of my
greatest loves: Genealogical Research and my family’s history. Now I recognize
that look on your faces, some of you are worried I am going to spend the rest
of my time telling you how amazing family history is. I won’t, even though it
is true. What I want to describe in my remaining minutes is what it means to be
strong in faith and to transcend our current situation when the unexpected
happens and you find yourself submitting to the Lord’s plan, the Lord’s timing,
or to things that are out of your control.
As
I was going through the changes in my circumstances this past year, the first two
verses of “Come, Come, Ye Saints” (Hymn #30) would occasionally repeat through
my mind as a poem. As I thought through the words, it deepened my love and respect
for our ecclesiastical ancestors and gave me a broader perspective on the power
of their faith and experience and its example in our lives. It starts with the
first two words, “Come, come.” What does “Come, Come” mean? When we sing it,
those words seem to lose their meaning. “Come, Come” is like the phrases, “Oh
come on,” or “Come now.” It is a phrase meant to tell us to “buck up” because
things aren’t as bad as we think. The first verse reads:
Come, come, ye
Saints, no toil nor labor fear;
But with joy wend your
way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be
as your day.
'Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from
us to drive;
Do this, and joy your
hearts will swell--
All is well! All is well!
(Emphasis
added)
So this anthem of the pioneers was asking them to be strong, to see
beyond their current “toil and labor” experience as it “appeared” to them – the
aching bodies and miles of potential danger – and to see the joy and beauty of
God’s grace in their lives. In turn, this hymn asks us to rethink our
circumstances, drive out our “useless cares,” and to focus on the joy of
striving in the Gospel and being grateful for those small gifts we are given. It
is asking us to transcend or move beyond our current feelings for the hope of a
better situation. The second verse continues in this vein, where those pioneers and our
own hearts and minds and bodies are asked to “Gird up [our] loins, fresh
courage take,” and remember, “our God will never us forsake.”
As
I have studied these words, I realize this is not always easy to remember, and
in this world full of violence, pain, distractions, heartache, and an endless
loop of useless (though sometimes funny) Youtube videos and entire days spent
streaming fictional shows on Netflix, our weekly sacramental reminder “to
always remember Him” is more vital and potent than ever (D&C 20: 77,79). How
easy it is to get caught up in the things of this world – or as President
Eyring states, “covered by a pavilion of
motivations that draw us away from God and make Him seem distant and
inaccessible. Our own desires, rather than a feeling of “Thy will be done,”2 create the feeling
of a pavilion blocking God. God is not unable to see us or communicate with us,
but we may be unwilling to listen or submit to His will and His time” (“Where
is the Pavillion? – General Conference address, October 2012).
This
past year I have often felt uncertain, in fact, I still don’t have a clear plan
for the future, but when we lose faith and separate ourselves from God through
steeping anger, an unwillingness to listen to the promptings of the Spirit, or
even as the hymn suggests, staying in a negative headspace by “mourn[ing] and
think[ing] our lot is hard,” we construct that barrier between ourselves and
God, thus robbing ourselves of the joy to “wend our way” through life in faith
in the Gospel and ultimately understand the swelling joy of the Atonement in
our hearts.
As Elder F. Enzio Busche
states in his talk, “Unleashing the Dormant Spirit,” “Paul declared to the
Romans the indispensable need to live our lives by faith, as he says: “For
whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). The original word in the
Bible for the word sin is hamartia. The word hamartia means
“missing the mark,” deriving from the sport of archery. In modern English we
would probably call it “shooting an air ball.” When we do not do everything in
our life in faith or, in other words, under the influence of the Holy Spirit,
we are missing the mark. We are off target. When we are off target, we will not
feel the confidence and joy and power of the Holy Spirit, and, therefore, we
will have to learn to direct our desires toward repentance—we must change to
bring us back on target.”
Repentance
is then, essential in living a life of faith, especially when things are
challenging. Our pioneer ancestors could have been justified in anger and hate
towards those who pushed them from home to home, but instead their anthem
reminds them to stop thinking their lot is hard, “tis not so, all is right.”
Did they think they will sit down in heaven – “earn [their] great reward”, “if [they]
now shun the fight” by keeping their hearts hardened and full of hatred?
Therefore, to have strong faith in this world is a path of forgiveness and endurance
– to be firm, solid, and steadfast despite the adversity – again to go beyond
or transcend those base feelings.
As
we build our faith on the principles of the Gospel, we must choose to “always
remember” the great love of our Savior and His role in our lives because our
remembrance of Him brings joy – real and true and lasting happiness – which
comes only by and through faith – that steady daily action – in our Savior
Jesus Christ. His Atonement – that victory over death – is the good news, our
brightest vision, the most holy and transcendent act in the history of mankind.
He moved beyond the grave – to cross over from mortality to immortality, to
give mankind a different vision of the world – an “eye of faith” in an eternal
future made possible through the Atonement. As we repent, learn of the true
love and nature and character of God, as we push through doubt and uncertainty,
and learn through His teachings what the pure love of Christ exemplifies, then
we, like Him, transcend our current situations, grow in faith, and are able to open our hearts to the whisperings of the Spirit, which allows
us access to the love and power of God.
This
past year for me has been and continues to be a trek of endurance and faith
like I have never known, and I am sure I will hear those chiding words “Come,
come, Melinda. Things aren’t as bad as you think” go through my mind so many
more times because my experience, as frustrating as it has been at times, my
experience is not as challenging as some – debilitating diseases, daily abuse,
murderous loss of loved ones, etc. What I know for sure is that in my moments
of heartache and grief, my Savior and brother, “reaches my reaching.” He knows
me, and loves me, and through His Atonement, he knows all heights and depths,
persecutions, violence, pain, and uncertainty. If we seek to know and love our
Savior, reach for His outstretched hand, and “remember,
remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of
God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth
his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and
his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag
you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which
ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build
they cannot fall” (Helaman 5:12).
Our lives can feel uncertain, and it is our response to
challenge that will determine our outcome. With a foundation in Christ, in
repentance, and in love of our Father in Heaven, we can “fresh courage take,”
because “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what
we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for
we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
May we seek to learn from our challenges and grow in faith, not
doubt, so that in end, as
Elder Maxwell suggests “that cavity which suffering carves into our souls will
one day also be the receptacle of joy” (Maxwell - “But For A Small Moment”).
“All
is well,” brothers and sisters. “All is well!”
