"All is Well! All is Well!"

“All is Well! All is Well!”

Emigration SA Ward

July 10^th, 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!”