So, some really cool stuff happened this past week. During Fast and Testimony meeting last Sunday, a woman got up that I did not recognize and she told us all her woeful tale of having a baby and then losing it a few weeks after birth due to an operation to open the baby up, which discovered appendicitis that could not be repaired. They lost the baby. So sad. She and her husband had five young boys but the only girl they had been hoping for, had died on them. So sad.
While speaking, it was VERY obvious that a year after her loss, she was still in serious grieving mode. I turned to my wife after she got done and said we needed to find out who she was and go and minister to her family. On Tuesday, my wife and I decided to take a work break and walk the block over to the Distribution Center and pick up a BoM in Korean for my wife's boss at work who has not had a chance to read the book, even though living in Cardston for a few years. I am hoping his son will go to BYU to take advantage of cheap education (the Koreans are all about good education). I am all about efficiency, so we cut across the lawn and rounded the corner at the front door of the building. If my wife had chosen the route, we would have missed the opportunity because she follows "the rules" and would not walk across grass when a sidewalk is available....
So, anyhow - we come to the door and face to face with this same woman, but did not say anything. The randomness of when we left our house and the path we took determined the outcome of the day. Had she made it in 5 seconds before and all we saw was her back, we would likely not have recognized her. But we were staring directly into her eyes as we both came around the corner. Once inside, I was thinking to myself that this was the woman - but not knowing her, I have to say I was not about to walk up to her. Without us communicating with each other, my wife approached her and asked if she was the woman who bore her testimony in church. We both expressed our sympathies and then we were approached by the woman running the DC about wearing a mask. My wife left instead of complying with the useless thing and I put one on (and then pulled it down under my chin when the employee left) so I could relay our story of loss and hope. I knew it was not random that we both had decided to make a trip at that exact random moment, so that we could apply the balm to her wounded soul. I reiterated that God is in control and I pitched our favorite book, Life Everlasting. Someone had pitched it to us about six months prior to our Dallin dying of SIDS. It is the best book on death and dying. I told her we did not have any copies left (we always keep a copy or two around to pass along and I forgot that I had found two recently at the local bookstore in Cardston). She said she was leaving immediately to go pick up a copy. When I got home, my wife disappeared to our storage room and came back with two nearly pristine copies that I had forgotten I had bought.
I flipped through one and briefly looked at the stories since I had not read from it in 10 years. I remembered how amazing the stories were from those in Brigham's days up until the Manifesto when miracles largely began to disappear in the Church as people became more and more faithless as we collectively abandoned higher principles until we now have a greatly diminished portion of the word, including the endowment, etc.
I then saw this video from Kevin Kraut and remembered my own family's amazing 3 Nephite experience from the 1870's:
If the people were perverse in those days, none of the amazing miracles would have happened. It is quite simple. As it is, those today, who throw the members from those eras under the bus, are the ones largely devoid of miracles in their lives. So, the secret is to look at the fruits. People can masquerade quite successfully, but the proof is always in the pudding.
I have a daughter who is struggling mightily right now. She has left the path almost a decade ago based on several factors, but probably the greatest being that her seminary teacher basically told her she was to be barefoot and pregnant by 19 years old, if she were to be considered faithful and righteous. He was just slightly too Bensonian for her tastes (and mine) and she refused to return to seminary. In fact, when he came over to apologize for his gaffe, she slipped out a bedroom window and hid on the roof as we searched in vain to find her - she did not want to even see the guy (a former Bishop and I believe a counselor in a FL Stake Presidency) again. The slide never stopped for her. I warned her that she could never be truly successful in life if she let her spirituality languish in favor of intellectualism or whatever god she put in place of the vacuum that leaving the truth would create. And so, the fruits have manifested themselves in her life. It has been tragic and painful to watch.
I always say that we need to watch for the fruits. A person cannot persist forever in covering up the consequences of their actions. It is impossible. To that end, I once knew a man that rented our large family home from my parents when they down-sized to a smaller house on our old family farm. He had 8 kids. I returned from my mission and made a comment to him when I saw him in church, that he had a lovely family (his wife did a good job taking care of their kids and they presented a pretty picture of a family, other than his then-mysteriously sullen face). A few weeks later, the hellish dam burst on that man and I was able to gauge the possible source of his sullen or fallen countenance). His family experienced the nuclear event and it came out that he had been molesting all boys and girls and the older kids finally rebelled as teens and the truth came out. It was total wreckage. I do not think he was threatening them to keep quiet about the sexual abuse - it just bubbled over as it did with my wife and her step-dad. The fruits of the man were revealed. After I heard stories from my sister (who was their YW leader), I was glad he was put away for a very long time (and should have been castrated, at a minimum....).
Anyway, while I do not understand the idea of the Adam-God theory, and I do happen to support the idea of the Blood Atonement (voluntarily chopping off the nuts of a sex offender is a good start), the fruits of the people in Brigham's day were largely good fruits. Therefore, not understanding all things, I will pass on throwing Brigham under the bus and instead will go to bat in his defense - often straining my relationships with DoC folks, unless they can do one thing to get my attention. And that is: do a mightier work than Brigham Young did in leading the people as a modern Moses and setting up an amazing wilderness kingdom. The same applies to Joseph Smith. Do NOT criticize a person unless you are capable of, or have done a mightier life's work than them.
I apply the same logic to those who have been critical of my relationship with my wife who suffered from some extremely strong mental health issues after our fifth child was born. I have had those who have given me hell over my lack of patience and other things during some EXTREMELY stressful years (she is fine now, thanks to some good counseling from Spencer of VoG). So, it has been interesting to watch detractors deal with others with mental health issues and see them melt in the heat - where I was able to, quite frankly, come through with relative grace and patience. The old adage, "Do not judge someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes", really does come into play. Or, for a more contemporary saying that is a little too crass for me; "Karma is a beetch"....
Point being, please do not, within earshot of me (unless you would like an earful), throw Brother Brigham under the bus until you can show that you are more than an armchair history cowboy and actually do something amazing with your life on par with him or any other dispensation head or visionary.
Other than that, have a wonderful pagan Valentine's Day and Truck Frudeau!!
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