When I started my final year
of college I was four days overdue to give birth to our firstborn daughter, Darci. Darci’s home for the first year of her life
was the BYU Campus. Jim and I created
class schedules so we could pass Darci back and forth as we alternated
attending classes. We were living in a 100-year-old
home that had no heat and the refrigerator was outside the back door because
the house was too tiny to fit it inside.
There were times when Jim wouldn’t eat so I could. When Jim’s Dad came to visit he always showed
up with lots of big brown bags full of food.
We thought, back then, he was just being generous, but have since
thought he was also making sure that he would be able to eat! We had every tithing miracle imaginable happen
to our tiny family as we went along our “building our kingdom together”
journey. We finally graduated on the same day, and there was only one time our
alternating schedules didn’t work out – it was during finals. I had to perform a solo for my Opera Workshop
class. I asked my professor if I could
just set Darci in front of me in her car seat as I sang an Italian Aria for my
final exam. He happily agreed. So I sang my heart out to my little baby girl
to wind up our year together.
From there we continued to pull down from heaven
as many children as God would allow us to have and to wind it all up, we were
blessed to have our Jack when I was 46 years old. When we told our family Jack was on his way,
everyone jumped up and down, dancing, crying and hugging each other….and we
have been doing that ever since with him.
I share this because the ultimate
blessing of my life came from my decision, our decision, to go forward in faith,
to have faith. When we were beginning
our family, the counsel that we heard from inspired church leaders, on a
regular basis, was to start our families early in our marriage. When I look back, and think for even the most
millioneth of a millioneth of a second that one of my children could not have
been mine, I am struck with sacred horror to the point of not wanting to have
been born. You all know what I
mean. That feeling when you find out you
left 3-year-old Sammy at Goleta Beach after everyone assumed that he was
somewhere in the 10 cars that were heading home. Just so we can breathe, a lifeguard found a
smiling little blond boy walking happily down the beach. The lifeguard noticed
no one was following him, so he grabbed him and set him on his lap on the look
out post until we all came back in crazed terror to find him, thankfully, safe
and happy. That feeling!!! So I look at
the word Faith, and I take it into my heart and let it expand and what it does,
is show me the picture of my family that is, that might not have been. What if
we had waited and circumstances threw up all kind of barriers that made it so I
never knew, perhaps, our last three children; our God-gave-her-every-talent Annie
or undaunted Tommy or too-good-to-be true Jack. Unthinkable! There is no place
in my mind, in any parent’s mind, for that thought to be held in any way. We
just had 29 people in our home for Christmas, 11 of them grandchildren. Our
house is not that big. We gave up our
bedroom for two of our married couples and their babies. I had six port-a-cribs
that I put in closets and wherever.
There were babies and every kind of baby-making-happy contraption strewn
inside and outside everywhere. It was
the most colorful, happy and crazy picture of chaos, dancing, singing and
madness I have ever witnessed. One night
I slept in the entry way on a camping pad and Jim slept outside on a
couch. One daughter slept on a couch that
we moved to our balcony outside. She, basically set up house, even had her
sewing machine up there. So there’s my
Christmas picture. There is not one moment
or piece of chucked piece of gooey food I would change. It was a painting of joy for me. So, so crazy but so, so happy… and I think
of the words, “multiply and replenish the earth,” and “joy in your posterity.” When I sat in that chair at the back of a
college classroom, too large to fit at a desk, wondering what it would be like
to become a mother, to become anything, knowing nothing about what lay ahead, what
I did know was that deep in my heart was a faith built on so many teachings and
learnings of my youth. My faith to go forward,
to follow the counsel of parents and church leaders, and to follow the counsel
of the soft whisperings of the spirit that guided me as if it were a
never-ending song in my heart – and the lyrics combining through the years that
held the truths I knew—that God lives, God loves you, Jesus Christ lived and
died for you, repentance is the gift of Christ’s life, Joseph Smith really did
see the Father and the Son, The Book of Mormon is a true, second witness and
testament of Christ, the Gospel of Christ
has been restored in perfect purity in the latter days with power to create
eternal families, eternal lives, eternal everything. And My Mother’s words, “When it comes to
living the Gospel of Christ, we go to everything, we will miss nothing. We go
to every fireside, young men/ young women event, seminary, church, scouts, girl’s
camp, youth conference. Whatever is
part of the Gospel will be a part of our lives.” --and the words in my Mother’s
patriarchal blessing, “your work on the earth will be monumental among man” -and
her 39 radiant grandchildren standing firm in the gospel as that monument to
her for her unyielding devotion to all things having to do with the cause of
Christ.
Faith - it’s all faith. Every time we walk through the church doors
to honor God and his Son by being where he wants us to be, we are showing our
faith in Him and in his Great Plan of Happiness for us. We are making the statement as we cross the
threshold, I am a follower of Christ, I am a soldier for Christ, I am a child
of Christ, I am a son or daughter of God who remembers who they are. When Jack gets out of the car his Dad says, “Remember
who you are.” When he is with me, I say,
“Remember, it is not about you, it is about how you can make a difference, not
how you can be entertained, but how you can contribute and be a light.” I tell my family, I only wear high heels for Heavenly
Father. I usually run up bare foot all
the way to the chapel doors and then put them on. When you think about it, you do the same
thing. You could lay around in your
pajamas all day doing nothing, but you don’t.
To honor God, you get up, put on your very best clothes and walk through
the door to show God he is important enough to you to look your best and to be
where He wants you to be so you can be in the place where you can learn some
small truth, or feel the very quiet voice that teaches and binds us tighter to
Him. I always say seminary students are the best people in the whole
world. It is impossible that seminary
students exist, but there they are. I
see them walk through those doors at 6:30 a.m. and I am amazed every single time;
high school students that are busy beyond possible, and going through an age-appropriate
stage in their life that would not naturally incline them to want to get up
early to be at a religion class. When I
was attending seminary I had a friend who would walk in to class everyday with
her robe and pajamas on and hair in curlers and no makeup. She would set up a mirror on the table and
proceed to put on her makeup and fix her hair while she listened. Then she would change her clothes and head
off to school. But, she was there, every
single day and she has remained a devoted, faithful daughter of God all her
life. When I taught seminary I saw all kinds of crazy. One boy would bring a
pillow and pull his cap over his head and just go to sleep, but little by
little the cap came off and the pillow disappeared. One young man walked in 5 minutes before the
end of class. Everyone cheered and clapped for him and then we had him say the
closing prayer. Another tough guy football player was there because his parents
said he couldn’t play football if he didn’t go to seminary. He went from being the meanest boy in the
whole school to the kindest person in the entire school by the end of the year
- the beautiful power of the word of God, word by word changing his heart - and eventually into a heart that served a
brilliant mission for the God he has continued, all his life, to honor. But all I knew was they were there! -and I
will forever stand all
Jim and I have been up, down,
upside down and all over the place, as if we were on the Screamin’ roller
coaster ride at Disneyland, times one billion, as we have gone through our life.
I remember on one of the lower
revolutions of the ride, I went to a Relief Society Visiting Teaching event,
because my Mother taught me to go to everything, no matter what. I imagine, at that time, I was probably more
inclined to crawl under the covers and pull them way up over my head and stay
there all day. But I went, of course. I
walked in and there were Bee things everywhere. When Relief Society Women get
excited, what is created is a wonder to behold. Bees were hanging from the
ceiling, on plates, cups, candy, cakes, decorations, sort of popping out
everywhere. They even performed a
bee-themed rhyming skit about Visiting Teaching. It was, in all, amazing,
beautiful and fun. When I sat down, right next to my plate, was a place card,
folded in half, with a bee on it, and written on the card were these words by
President Thomas S. Monson, “Bee of good cheer, the future is as bright as your
faith.” When I went home, I raced to Jim
and showed him the card. We looked at
each other with this card in our eyes and these words of a Prophet in our
hearts and we knew we were going to be all right. We then placed the card where we could see
it all the time and whenever we would pass each other, we would say to each
other, “Be of good cheer, our future is as bright as our faith.” That Bee card sustained us through a year of
unfathomable upheaval. And, I think back
to the woman, who was called to be Visiting Teaching Coordinator, who loved God
enough to make her want to magnify her calling in a way that brought me my Bee place
card. She has no idea what her desire to honor God in that way did for our
family. And, what if I had not walked
through the door on that cold, wintry, snowy day into the kingdom of Bees. But she did, and I did, and a family was
sustained by a prophet’s proclamation of faith and cheer. Now I look at my family. They are all on the
roller coaster. We all are. We still are. I figure that is a part of life. We wouldn’t want our life to get boring or
stop getting chances to learn, so I suppose we get to keep feeling that first
jolt of the Screamin’ ride and just laugh and scream, and be terrified and
amazed all through the ride. Living out
of a car at college, wanting to have a child, raising a large family on limited
resources, not knowing what profession to go into, illness, hoping for a job, adjusting
to new parenthood, working to get an education, hoping for marriage and family
are some of the “livings” currently held safely within our family’s roller
coaster revolutions --- every day miracles keeping children alive, on various
levels of surviving or thriving. Mary
Gardiner Brainard said, “I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone
in the light.” That’s how they live. When
I go to bed at night I think, everyone of my children and grandchildren are
laying their head on a pillow tonight and everyone of them has God tightly
woven into the fabric of their hearts.
So, no matter what, the Screamin’ ride will never spin them out of
orbit. The ride will always bring them home, until the next ride, but then
again, it will always bring them back home, and ultimately home to God with
their eternal families tucked under their wings…. Reminding us of words our
Heavenly Father spoke, “How oft will I gather you as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings.”(D&C 10:65) President Spencer W. Kimball said, “Undaunted
faith can stop the mouths of lions, make ineffective the fiery flames, make dry
corridors through beds of rivers and seas. Unwavering faith can protect against
deluge, terminate droughts, heal the sick and bring heavenly
manifestations. Indomitable faith can
help us live the commandments and thereby bring blessings unnumbered with
peace, perfection and exaltation in the kingdom of God.” So, with faith, we
walk through the door with our high heels on, look to God and live, with “Bee
of Good cheer,” in our hearts. For it is a truth, “our future is as bright as
our faith.” And it is a truth, that
faith brings blessings unnumbered. I can
testify of this.
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