When I first met my husband, I didn’t really consider what being in an infantry unit of the army meant, I just thought he was so cool (and mighty good looking in his BDU’s!).

After the first two weeks of our marriage, however, I learned in a very real way what being married to a combat man meant. I also learned how the covenants we make can protect good men when it is not their time to go. 

Bryan and I were married on a Monday in November, and on that Friday Bryan was deployed for an “extended unspecified deployment.” Back in the days before cell phones, Bryan carried around a pager. I could always tell when the pager would go off because the blood would rush from his face and he would look at me as though trying to memorize my face. He’d kiss me goodbye and then… he would leave. There was always a packed bag in our trunk and in our closet that came with the knowledge that I was not allowed to know where he went or even when he would be coming back. Those days were hard days. 

On a Sunday two weeks after we had gotten married in the Salt Lake City Temple, I got a call around 2:00 in the morning from my husband’s commanding officer.

“Mrs. Beverley,” he said, “your husband has been hit by a grenade. I will call you when I get to the hospital and I know more about what condition he is in.” Then the crazy, insensitive man hung up! 

I remember falling to the floor and shaking uncontrollably. I was convinced that he was in pieces somewhere and whatever was left of my husband, if anything, was never going to be the same. I remember numbly calling my sister, whose husband was also a Ranger, and asked her to come sit with me while I waited. For what seemed like an eternity, my sister and I sat next to the phone while I cried uncontrollably, waiting for the dreaded phone call.  

When it finally came, I was told that I could come pick up my husband and that he was going to live. The drive to the hospital to see what shape my husband was in was one of the longest of my life, but when we arrived at the hospital, his fellow soldiers met me with an amazing story that they couldn’t explain. I, of course, knew what had happened: his priesthood and the sacred covenants he had made in the temple saved his life.  

My husband and his four-man team were clearing a bunker system at night when the accident happened. My husband was the team leader so he stood in the number one spot in the line of men. The number two guy was responsible for throwing the grenade. In most cases the soldier would pop the pin, cook the grenade (hold it for a few seconds before throwing it in order for the explosion to hit the intended target and detonate without giving any warning), and then throw it. This time, however, the soldier thankfully did not “cook” the grenade, but when he threw it, he aimed too high, causing the grenade to hit a beam just inside the room they were clearing — and it then bounced back out towards the soldiers. My husband says he remembers hearing the ping of the grenade off the beam and then glancing down with his surefire gun light and saw the grenade at his feet. He had just enough time to turn, grab his men and push them back before the grenade detonated and blew them all off their feet down the long corridor and into a cement wall.  

Bryan then said he heard an intense ringing in his ears and moaning from his men. His body was covered in blood and it took a minute before he realized that most of the blood wasn’t his. His men were, in most cases, more hurt than he was even though he took on most of the blast from the grenade. They were all in bad shape, some barely missing death as the shrapnel that blasted through their bodies barely missed vital organs. The miracle for Bryan was that he had shrapnel only in his legs and only below his knees.  

When my sister and I got to the hospital, Bryan’s commanding officer couldn’t believe that he was going home with only shrapnel in his legs.  He held up Bryan’s uniform that had been cut off of him. It was completely riddled with holes from top to bottom. Not one of them could explain why none of the pieces of shrapnel pierced through his garments and into his body. We of course knew his life was saved because of the promises Bryan had made in the temple and the covenants to serve the Lord no matter what circumstance he may be in. Covenants have power. 

In the days and weeks of recovery that followed rehabilitating Bryan’s legs, the beautiful gift the Lord’s protection had provided us was breathtaking. We thanked God on a daily basis that he saw fit to bless us with His protection. I am aware that not all stories like this one have a happy ending — that not every soldier lives and not every prayer is answered — but I do believe that the Lord in all of His endless mercy knows the beginning from the end and is aware of our needs at all times. I also believe that covenants cause protection.  

A covenant is described this way in Come, Follow Me manual for young women: “A covenant is a sacred agreement between God and His children. God sets specific conditions, and He promises to bless us as we obey these conditions. Making and keeping covenants qualifies us to receive the blessings God has promised.

In a beautiful talk by Sister Carole Stephens at a BYU women’s conference session, we learn more about covenants and the protection they offer us during times of danger and uncertainty. She said, “Our pathway back to our heavenly home is . . . well marked by covenants. These covenants and ordinances will provide safety, direction, and protection on the path home and prepare us to enter into God’s presence when we reach the end of our journey.”

To read more of Janette’s articles, click here.

In one of our Come, Follow Me discussions earlier this year, we talked about the signs of the Savior’s birth and ultimately His death. In our family we talked about the importance of being prepared for the Second Coming of the Savior and of the remarkable events that are occurring and will occur before He comes again. Some of our children showed excitement and anticipation while others voiced concerns and fears. We reminded them that the scriptures tell us that “if ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:30).

Being prepared in the last days includes making and keeping sacred covenants. There is protection and power in the making and keeping of those covenants. It is in the keeping that we prove our worth to our Father in Heaven and our trust in His plan for our ultimate happiness. When we trust Him our capacity to do becomes greater. We don’t have to fear the future, but instead we can act in faith and hope, knowing that His protection, be it physical or spiritual, will always occur because we chose to obey and we chose to follow His Son.  

I am truly thankful for the gift of covenants. These two-way promises are eternal in nature and beautiful in reality. The reality is if we make and keep sacred covenants, the Lord is bound to bless and sanctify us. He promises to never leave us unaided or alone, to lift us up when we fall, and to protect us when we stand in need. God’s gifts are endless and eternal. When we do our part and do our best, He will fill in the holes the we miss, mend the cracks that we create, and help us complete our masterpiece with faith and not fear — one beautiful day at a time.

Janette Beverley

Janette Beverley is a lover of life, family, music, and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology with an emphasis in marriage and family therapy, and has five amazing children and one equally amazing husband.

Janette is excited to be writing for LDS Blogs and sharing her love and passion for finding the miraculous among the mundane, the awe-inspiring among the obvious, and the uplifting among the underestimated.

To read more of her work, you can visit Janette’s personal blog here.

“Unity among the human family is not natural. It’s a miracle and such great miracles require exceedingly great faith and works. It will only happen by God’s unique ways, which are higher than ours.” ~Ahmad S. Corbitt

This quote flashed to my view while scrolling my Facebook feed on Friday. Also on Friday, my husband and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary. While I know that Brother Corbitt referred to a broader context than unity in my marriage, his statement perfectly described our marital journey.

Meeting My Future

I met Anthony on a fluke. I graduated from Brigham Young University and had been working for a year. My cousin Evan told me about a work abroad program he planned to do and I signed up for it, too. I quit my job in Utah and headed to Texas to spend six weeks at home with my family before moving to Germany for a year to work as an au pair.

My uncle co-owned Putt Putt Golf and Games in Midland, Texas. Anthony had been in that business for eight years and had been recruited from Lubbock, Texas to work as an assistant manager at the new store in Midland. He basically knew my entire family and extended family living in Midland. He’d become good friends with my brother Daylen and had eaten dinner at my parents’ home several times.

I decided to work for a couple of weeks as a birthday party captain at Putt Putt before leaving for Germany. Why not?

One night after I’d finished a party in the hot West Texas summer heat and had my arms elbow-deep in hot dishwater, Daylen came up to chat with me. Suddenly, he called through a pass-through window by the sink to the golf counter, “Hey, Anthony, I want you to meet my sister.” Anthony’s upper torso popped through the window and he said hi and reached to shake my hand, which was dripping wet. When I protested, he said he didn’t mind wet hands, and so I shook his hand. His demeanor and personality impressed me.

But that wasn’t all. When I shook Anthony’s hand, I received direct revelation from the Lord that Anthony was my future. To be honest, I grumbled a little because I knew he was in a long-term relationship and he wasn’t a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Again, the impression came.

I laughed because I’d told the Lord He would have to zap me with a bolt of lightning for me to commit to marriage. I’d had opportunities to marry good, honorable men before, but I couldn’t do it. But suddenly, at 25 years old, about to head to a far distant land, and with difficult obstacles to overcome, I was zapped.

Throughout the night, we interacted as our paths crossed and I decided to trust the Lord. I did something I had never completely done. I opened my heart.

We were like two comets that unexpectedly collided on our trajectories. The crash shattered our shells and crammed particles of each of us in the other’s soul.

I’m not sure if we could have been more different, from such different worlds, with such different approaches and ideas, but in that collision, all of the identities receded and we recognized each other’s soul.

But would that be enough to keep us in synchronous orbit?

Dad’s Advice

Before we married, my dad asked me if I’d had confirmation of the Holy Ghost to marry Anthony. Dad said he felt like I would need to have had a confirmation and have recognized it because I would need to remember that revelation throughout our marriage.

Dad also counseled me to communicate. He was glad we loved each other, but could we communicate? He said communication would save our marriage during hard times.

We both brought baggage to the relationship, but I brought a lot of gaping trauma, some that I wasn’t aware of until that ring was placed on my finger. I’d been sexually harassed and assaulted and I resented and distrusted men generally. My relationships had been erratic. I’d experienced “light switch moments” where I went from on to off. I just suddenly, instantly was done—the feeling was gone, chemistry evaporated, relationship over.

And I had just committed to someone for eternity when my longest relationship had been a matter of months.

Building Unity in Marriage

What a ride it’s been as we’ve undertaken to created unity in marriage! We traversed my issues. We hung on when something unequivocally important to me became unimportant to him. We clung to each other while tossed by despair, grief, and external heartache.

And when we hit the walls, we communicated. We reassured each other we weren’t trying to be jerks. We try to avoid pushing buttons and doing pet peeves. During one decade, we had to touch each other in some way (like toe to foot sometimes) because we found that physical touch diffused anger and misunderstanding faster. In one phase of us, we’d go across the street and sit on a huge stone, “our thinking rock,” and talk things out in that neutral location.

Even when shaking mad, we don’t call each other names. We learned to avoid saying words like “I always” and “you never” while expressing our grievances. We try to talk out our issues right away. We used to let them fester a little and it’s miserable for both of us. So we just bite the bullet and work through it as soon as possible. We apologize and ask for forgiveness. And we forgive and forget.

We realized how we think differently and acknowledge those differences as we communicate. We’ve learned to identify the real issue, and if we don’t know what the real issue is at the outset, we’ve learned to be patient while it is uncovered and articulated.

We are so different! To keep feeling connected and create memories with both of us in them, we identified things we both like to do, and can do, together and then we do them. We also honor time spent apart doing other things we like to do. But the majority of our off-work time is spent together. We love spending time together even if we’re not doing anything memorable.

We read verses of scripture and pray together before bed. Even when traveling, we do this consistently via phone or face-to-face call. I’ve spent personal prayer trying to figure out how to overcome my weaknesses and issues. After prayer, we tell each other at least one thing we appreciate about the other that day—something we noticed, something we loved. Happily, even after 20 years, he can still find at least one thing to say every day.

My dad’s prophecy about remembering the revelation to marry Anthony has been fulfilled a thousand times. And when I have shut down, Anthony’s commitment to communication is the thing that opens my heart again.

The only constant in our marriage is that we love each other. And even that has changed. We are totally different people today than 24 years ago when we met. We’ve found ways to keep falling in love with each other and to give unconditional love.

You Must Battle for Unity in Marriage Every Day

“The men and women, who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom, will find that they must battle every day.” ~Brigham Young

Eternal life is the seat I desire to obtain with my husband. We have experienced the war the adversary wages to divide us against each other. We’ve felt heartbroken and misunderstood and frustrated.

To read more of Delisa’s articles, click here.

I’m grateful for a husband who is willing to battle for us. One night during an especially difficult “battle,” Anthony looked at me and said, “Delisa, this is worth it. Our marriage is worth it. Let’s figure this out.”

I certainly couldn’t figure it out without him and knowing that he wants to work it out as much as I do makes all the difference.

So when I read Ahmad S. Corbitt’s words—

Unity among the human family is not natural. It’s a miracle and such great miracles require exceedingly great faith and works. It will only happen by God’s unique ways, which are higher than ours—

I knew our unity was a miracle that required great faith and works. Because of both faith and works, the beauty of this marriage far surpasses the darkness of the battle scars. Every day we add to our unity which, through the grace of Jesus Christ’s atonement, becomes our personal Zion and heaven on Earth.

Delisa Hargrove

I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have moved 64 times and have not tired of experiencing this beautiful earth! I love the people, languages, histories/anthropologies, & especially religious cultures of the world. My life long passion is the study & searching out of religious symbolism, specifically related to ancient & modern temples. My husband Anthony and I love our bulldog Stig, adventures, traveling, movies, motorcycling, and time with friends and family.

I was particularly impressed with this analogy:

“Assuming both the husband and the wife are still invested in “winning the prize” — which in our context is the miracle of the marriage being healed or raised from the dead into a happy and healthy marriage — it is vital [that] both the husband and wife are diligent but wise when it comes to giving to the relationship. Each, as part of their daily personal connection time with God, must do an assessment on their “resources.”

 

Think of yourself as the steward over the supplies in your personal wagon. In your personal connection time with God, do a careful assessment of what you have to offer in the different areas of intimacy. Take an inventory of how much verbal intimacy resources you have. Then look at [these elements:] cognitive (plans for the future you are ready to share), emotional (things from the past you have feelings about), psychological (exchanges of ideas and feelings toward solving a problem), spiritual (sharing inspiration together) and physical (any level of touch and bodily connection).” [This excerpt includes edits made for clarification.]

I would like to expand on this concept of realizing that “I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.” I believe it aptly applies to any human interaction, whether it be family, friends, or acquaintences.

In my interaction with students/clients, etc., as they are unhappy about a relationship, I invite them to consider what they would do if they needed to buy new tires for their car. Would they go to a grocery store to find them? And, upon seeing that the store doesn’t have any tires on the shelves, would you run screaming up and down the aisles, pulling things off the shelves and have a temper tantrum because they don’t have tires? Or would you consider going to a tire store?

How many times in relationships do we “need” or “want” someone to give us something they simply don’t have?

Case in point: I am a communicator and I enjoy having deep conversations about emotional healing and relationships.  My  husband is a master storyteller, but when it comes to the type of communication that rings my bell, his eyes glaze over. By the same token, when he talks about his work (he is a master craftsman who works with steel and measurements that are right down to within a 64th of an inch in accuracy), my eyes glaze over. 

Whenever he gets me a birthday, anniversary, or Valentine’s Day card, the sentiments bring tears to my eyes. When he finds the right card, he knows it. He knows what will speak to my heart, but he simply doesn’t have those words in his own “internal resources.”  If he had them, he would give them to me, but they simply aren’t there.

Sometimes you just have to “shop in the store” that stocks the resources you need. It is wishful thinking that one person can possibly supply all the needs of another person. That’s why it is so important to identify what your needs are and understand which needs are met and which are not — and then to understand whether it is reasonable to expect the other person to stock those resources in their store.

The article goes on to say:

“If I understand you correctly, I hear that you are asking me to provide you with (fill in the blank). I care about you, so it is important to me that you have (fill in the blank). Unfortunately, after careful assessment with God, I am sad to tell you that I am not able to provide you with (fill in the blank) at this time. I am relieved that we both have access to God and His Son and His Atonement at this time so that your needs will not go unattended to. I do not know how God will take care of you. I am so grateful that [H]e will. I am so grateful that the scriptures tell us “Come unto me” and “I am the well of living life” and “do not rely upon the arm of flesh.” This brings me the comfort of knowing you need not go without even though I cannot currently provide what would take care of you.”

 

Observe and take note that this paragraph could really come across as bitter or sarcastic. Before you say or write something like this to your spouse, be sure to practice it until you can do so with full sincerity.”

What a huge blessing — that we know our Heavenly Father can and will provide us with our most basic needs. That is another dimension of how the Atonement heals and edifies.

How sad is it when someone says or thinks, “I’m not going to give of my resources because they brought this upon themselves.”  Allowing my judgment of another person to give me “permission” to withhold my substance from them is a precarious stance. What about when I’m the one that brings condemnation upon myself? I don’t know about you, but when I review my own list of behaviors leading me to repentance, I don’t want justice — I want mercy.  

Being in a mortal condition, each of us has limitations to the level of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual resources available to us. There will be many times we will fall short of someone else’s needs — as well as our own.

Another important quote from the article: 

“[I]t never occurred to me that my mental investment, my emotional investment, my creative problem solving skills, my compassion and empathy, my ability to get revelation, my skills with fine-tuned discernment and refined communication, etc., are all on the list of “substance” as described in this verse. I must always remember that in the same way water and vegetables come from God for a hard-working farmer, my gifts and talents come from God as well, notwithstanding how hard I work.”

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

Being a lifelong learner is one of my most precious gifts. I cherish seeking for further light and knowledge. To paraphrase Life Changing Services’ article, I pray that none of us will intentionally withhold our resources from anyone on this planet in order to “teach them a lesson.” Those with abundant resources have a responsibility to make those resources available when they can be received and valued. Assuming we can do this to “teach a lesson” to someone who is in need of that resource is a form of pride. When you have been blessed with resources of compassion and long-suffering, I beg of you, please do not withhold resources you have been blessed with from anyone in order to “teach them a lesson.” You do not want to experience the same outcome in the final judgment of God.

I am so grateful to be learning more about the healing and enabling power of the Atonement in life’s day by day. Not only does it compensate for our mistakes and failures, it also heals us from the mistakes and failures of others. Most importantly, it heals those that we may have harmed intentionally and unknowingly. In so many ways, I echo these words: “I give not because I have not . . . if I had, I would give.”

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

For the last few days (i.e., the first few days of our marriage), yes, there has been the typical twitterpated expressions of “I love you. I love you more! I love you most!” with the “Get a room, you two!”-frequency of kissing and cuddling. But having been married twice now, with Lorraine’s passing in October last year, and having now been married to two empaths (myself being one as well), I believe there is something much deeper and more wonderful that has come much more quickly in both relationships than many couples experience. God has blessed us in our courtship and marriage with something that I wonder if most couples only dream of.

This whole time, since we met on leap day up to now, after our sealing in the Payson Temple, Collette and I have prayed for and been enabled by God to have an amazing depth of safe, vulnerable, transparent communication, both verbal and empathic. This has allowed us to establish a spiritual and emotional bond unlike any I’ve ever heard of anywhere in or out of the Church, except my first marriage with Lorraine. (With her, the process was the same in principle, but different because of her unique different spiritual energy or “signature,” if you will.) Either way, I reverently witness of the tender mercies of the Lord in leading me to another woman who has empathic and spiritual senses that I believe are like no one else on this side of the veil.

I know Collette and I have been recipients of the blessing described in one of the final scenes in The Wedding Singer. In it, Rosie has some good advice for Robbie. She says,”Robbie, you’ll know when you meet the right girl, because it’s not how you feel about her — it’s how she makes you feel about yourself.” While both of those things are important, there are so many reasons why Collette and I fill both of those roles — how we feel about each other and how we make the other feel about themselves — wonderfully, beautifully, and emphatically.

One that comes to mind is a sweet, tender memory of one of the nights near the time when she first told me she loved me. We were having a deep conversation about spiritual connection and what makes us tick. At one point she began to search my eyes, appearing as if to find some part of me that mortals words cannot describe, and with wide eyes told me that for a brief moment she could see me as God sees me. She said, “Oh, Paul! You are such a beautiful man!” I could feel the charity and energy coming straight from her heart and felt her words and her heart much more deeply than I heard what she said. In that moment, I could feel the same thing about her. I knew and understood, without the slightest shadow of hesitation, the deep, exquisite, abiding power and beauty of the God-made woman she is. Since then, there have been many moments where I have been able to say, with the same intent as Julie Lee’s I See You podcast and James Cameron’s Avatar, “I see you.” It makes the marriage covenant so much easier to nurture and enjoy.

I understand twice as well now why the eternal marriage covenant is the crowning ordinance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The true importance of eternal covenants with God, especially the marriage covenant (the only one of our eternal covenants involving three people!), is something that cannot be overstated. As the scripture on the inside of our wedding rings reads (Alma 26:16):

“Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.”

And anyone who has felt the grace of mercy of Jesus Christ as Collette and I have will never be able to say the smallest part which we feel, because His peace “passeth all understanding” (Phil 4:7). As the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, “Crazy Beautiful” by Andy Grammar, says, “Isn’t she crazy beautiful? Isn’t she strange, strange and wonderful? I think I love her more than I even understand.”

To read more of Paul’s articles, click here.

The bond we experienced on our honeymoon at Zermatt in Midway brought that even further. It’s a really good thing we are both empaths because if we weren’t, I think it would be quite frustrating having to use just words to communicate how we feel. It is with immense gratitude to God that I consider the blessing we have of empathic communication from heart to heart.

 

I’m grateful that my wife puts Jesus Christ and her covenants with Him first, even ahead of me, because when you make Christ and your eternal covenants with Him the center of your life, He enhances every righteous endeavor you make and turns it into something far better than it could ever be without Him. He has strengthened our courtship more powerfully and quickly than I imagined possible because of our vice-grip on the iron rod and our commitment to make our connection go three ways: between each of us and our Savior and Redeemer. The importance of such a covenant cannot be overstated.

Paul Pulsipher

Paul Pulsipher grew up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Western Colorado as the second of five children and has been blessed with a rich heritage.

He has been playing piano for 30 years and has numerous compositions and arrangements. He also plays guitar, loves to sing and runs his own music production business. He is also an Eagle Scout. He spent ten years caring for his late wife Lorraine who was very ill the whole time and she passed away two months before Christmas in 2019. He remarried after some time back in the States and he and Collette now live in south Utah where he is finishing up the education he never got the chance to while in Canada. You can see his musical work here: www.pulsipherproductions.com

plpulsipher.blogspot.com

When I first married my now ex-husband, we struggled to make ends meet. He worked graveyards and wanted to be the sole provider for our household. While I appreciated his effort and the work that he put in, I knew that we were struggling to pay the bills. After bills and rent were paid, we had approximately $40 a paycheck, twice a month for groceries. And although this was twenty years ago, an $80 grocery budget wasn’t much and definitely didn’t leave room for any extras. At the time, we were working to go through the temple, which meant that we needed to pay 10% of our income in tithing to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Paying our tithing was definitely a time of trial for us. On top of it, we wanted to start a family but knew that our finances didn’t allow room for one. Our health insurance wasn’t the greatest and we didn’t qualify for government assistance. The money that we paid in tithing, we could have easily used to provide for a baby. But we still paid our tithing, placing our complete trust in God that things would work out and prayers would be answered if we ever were blessed with a child despite months of trying to become pregnant. At church and in our temple classes, we had been taught that when we pay a full tithe, we’ll be abundantly blessed. Malachi 3:10 reads:

“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

We held onto this hope that if we simply paid our tithing, everything would fall into place and blessings would be poured out from heaven. At first we didn’t see the blessings, nor did we realize just how abundantly we would be blessed. Shortly after being sealed together in the temple, I felt the need to get a job, but I was limited on where I could work because we only had one somewhat reliable car. And living in a small town, my options were even more limited, especially considering that I might have to walk to work. Since I had limited choices, I decided to walk up to the local grocery store and apply for a job. About a week later, I was hired as a cashier. 

A couple of weeks after working as a cashier, I received a knock on our apartment door. To my surprise, when I answered the door there was a man from the electric company standing on my doorstep. He was there to repair my electric meter. He had noticed that it had quit working and needed some parts replaced. The entire year that we had lived in the apartment, we had never paid over $15 a month for electricity, oftentimes paying as little as $5. Ironically, as soon as I had received my first paycheck, that’s when the power company realized that there was a problem and that the meter needed to be repaired. And because the electric company had no way to accurately measure just how much electricity we had actually used, they wrote it off as a loss to the company even though we offered to pay any difference in the billing. The broken meter was a blessing before I had a job. Had the meter not been broken or worn out, our $80 a month grocery budget would have gone to pay our electric bill instead of for food and other necessities.

The blessings didn’t stop there. We continued to pay our tithing. About a month after finding employment at the grocery store, we were offered a job as apartment managers for the apartment building that we lived in. We had never applied for the job or even inquired about it. It was just simply offered to us by the couple who owned the apartment building. This new job was also something that could easily be done while maintaining employment at the local grocery store and while my ex-husband worked graveyards. In addition to becoming the apartment managers, we were able to move into a larger apartment in the building and our rent was cut in half.

via acruity.com

A couple of weeks after finding employment at the grocery store and about two weeks after taking the management position, I found out that I was pregnant after nearly a year of trying to have a baby. I had been pregnant the year before, but had lost the baby. Even though this was my second pregnancy, it would be the first baby that I’d get to bring home from the hospital — and we had very little for a baby. All of the money that I earned at the grocery store went to our unborn child. I bought all of the necessities that a baby needs while still paying my tithing. I had over a two year supply of diapers in various sizes stored away in the closet of our nursery. The diapers would not only last through our first child, but some packages carried over when our second child was born. I knew that once my baby was born, I wouldn’t be returning to work at the grocery store and that I needed to buy the essentials with my paycheck while I was able to work.

Even after we had everything that we needed and even after the birth of our daughter, we were still abundantly blessed. When it came time to pay the final portion of the doctor and hospital bills that the insurance didn’t cover, we had unexpectedly received some money that we were able to use to pay the bills. The money was enough to cover either the whole doctor bill and a portion of the hospital bill, or all of the hospital and none of the doctor’s bill. We debated whether or not we should pay tithing out of the money that we had received as it would cut the money back even further and make it harder to pay my medical bills and we debated which bill to pay first. Ultimately we decided that the first thing that needed to come out of the money was tithing. So we held off on paying the medical bills until the following Monday, after we had paid tithing on Sunday.

When Monday came around, I thought I would go to the doctor’s office and pay that bill first, then pay the remainder of the money to the hospital and set up a payment plan for whatever else was owed. That was my plan — only it didn’t work out that way. When I arrived at the doctor’s office, their office was closed. It wasn’t a holiday and there wasn’t a note on the door… They were just for some reason closed. So I headed over to the hospital to see what I could do there. After talking to a lady in billing, she told me that they had a discount program where if I paid my bill in full that day, I’d qualify for a discount and get a percentage taken off of my bill. So that’s exactly what I did, and the percentage that was taken off was just what I needed to pay my doctor.

To read more of Marie’s articles, click here.

Suppose for a moment that we hadn’t paid our tithing. I would have gone to the doctor’s office the week before instead of waiting until Monday, the office most likely would have been open. I would have paid the doctor, then I would have gone to pay the hospital bill only not to have had enough to pay in full, and I would have had to set up a payment plan. These kinds of blessings aren’t things that just ironically happen, nor are they merely coincidences. Instead, they’re blessings poured out in abundance from our Father in Heaven. 

One thing that I have learned over the years of paying tithing is that regardless of how much or little money I have, when I pay my tithing, I am abundantly blessed beyond measure and I never go without. Regardless of how difficult things are financially, my needs are always met and my family is always taken care of. The funny thing about money is that regardless of if you have it or not, it’s always a trial. When we’re trying our hardest to make ends meet, our Heavenly Father will make up the difference where we fall short. By paying our tithing, we show our obedience and gratitude toward God and our love for the Lord. Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said:

“Tithing is a token of gratitude, obedience, and thanksgiving — a token of our willingness and dedication. Paying tithing, willingly, develops an honest and pure heart. Paying tithing increases our love for the Lord.”

Until I had actually paid my tithing and had to place my complete trust in God during my most difficult times financially, I didn’t understand the purpose of tithing, nor had I seen the blessings that are poured down from the Lord simply by paying a full tithe. I came to realize that any money that I make already belongs to the Lord. By giving Him 10%, I’m not paying Him anything, but rather discharging a debt that I owe to the Lord. Elder Jeffery R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave this instruction:

“Paying tithing is not a token gift we are somehow charitably bestowing upon a God. Paying tithing is discharging a debt.”

I testify that regardless of how stressful our financial situation may be or how much or how little money we may have, when we pay a full tithe, we aren’t only discharging a debt that we owe to the Lord for His sacrifice, but are receiving an abundance of blessings that stretch far beyond the 10% that we paid in tithing. If there’s one thing that can improve our situation and increase our faith in God during these troubling times, it’s simply paying a full tithe. I assure you from my own personal experience, when we pay our tithing that that little 10% will be unnoticed and insignificant compared to the abundance of blessings that we’ll receive beyond measure.

Marie Yvonne

Marie Yvonne is a motivational and devotional speaker for teens and young adults. In her devotionals, she shares her personal testimony and journey of learning to accept herself as God created her. Her journey can also be found on social media and her personal blog and website, TheConfidenceToShine.com.

www.theconfidencetoshine.com

When I went to college, I expect my ultimate goal was graduation — but what I got was beyond my fondest imagination. This was the realization of my life’s dreams. And yet, the manifestation of my reality was not what I expected or even comprehended. How could that be?

​

I suppose because I was focused on studying communications at the time, I didn’t follow the typical selection of classes, which meant the majority of my major involved writing papers, composing lengthy prose, and working for a time at The Daily Universe, the school’s student paper and writing laboratory. The editors, writers, photographers, and copy editors are all students, some paid, some reporting for a journalism class. The opinion pieces in the paper are overseen by an editorial board that includes student staff, professional staff, university professors, and local professionals.

​

So when I became a senior and was finishing the completion of classes for graduation, I realized that I had somehow overlooked freshman English. With the volume of writing I had done, I thought it was just a formality to go back and take this class. I had to complete it in order to graduate, so I registered for this course my senior year. I had no idea what I was getting into.

I was married by that time, and what I thought was going to be an elementary lesson of common principles I already used every day turned out to be a semester-long struggle to maintain a passing grade. The tests weren’t the problem. I aced them. It was the compositions. I barely pulled passing grades the entire semester. I couldn’t understand. I concluded that the instructor had it out for me, or maybe I didn’t fathom her teaching style or expectations. My wife sympathetically listened to my complaints.

Then I learned the final examination was going to be an hour-long writing assignment in class. “The paper you will be asked to write will be a culmination of everything you have learned this semester, and since it will have significant impact on your final grade, a different instructor will be grading your paper.”

​

I remember the day of the final examination. My palms were sweaty as I took my seat in the classroom. We were instructed not to turn the papers over until directed to do so by the teacher. “You will have until the top of the hour. I will announce verbally once we have reached one-half-hour mark, then fifteen before the top of the hour, and finally with five minutes remaining. When I say time’s up, you are to put your pencils down and stand beside your seat. I will collect the papers and class will be dismissed.”

“Ready? Begin.” 

​

I turned the paper over and read the instructions. We were given three possible topics from which we could choose to write. One of the choices was essentially to tell about the similarities and differences of your parents and how these characteristics made their marriage work. The other two options, I can’t remember.

​

So I made my decision and chose this topic, then I began to write.

My college education had also given me the opportunity to take a few dance classes for PE credit. They weren’t particularly eventful, but from them I learned that this discipline requires the participants to be in harmony and demonstrate courage, resilience, and devotion—just like marriage.  

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I realized through this process that my parents’ lives and love had spilled out on the dance floor in the form of a happy home, children they cherished, and lives of courage, love, trust, and consideration.

So the following week I went to class, where we were to receive our scores for the exam. Best I can remember that for some reason, I arrived that day after the class had already started. I took my paper from the front of the room on the way to my seat. The students were discussing with the teacher their scores and wanted to know if this test was being graded on the curve.

“If the person that got the highest score wants to make that known, it’s up to him.” Suddenly everyone was looking at me, waiting for a response.

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To read more of Walter’s articles, click here.

“Me?” I stammered, after a long, uncomfortable pause. 

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I looked down at my paper and, for the first time, noticed the beautiful letter “A” scrawled in red pen across the top of the score sheet. It turns out that it was the highest score awarded that semester. I asked if I could have my paper back, but university policy required that examination pages were not returned to the students. I asked the department chair, but the answer was the same.

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So a few years later, I rewrote the paper for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. The thing is that I am still learning “the dance”—not from instructors in a university class setting, but from experts in the University of Life.

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Life is a test, and I still have a lot to learn, but it is much better going through our time here with good examples, a Great Instructor, and a partner you love. That is the reason for the dance in the first place.

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When you get the choice, I hope you dance.

Walter Penning

In 1989, Walter Penning formed a consultancy based in Salt Lake City and empowered his clients by streamlining processes and building a loyal, lifetime customer base with great customer service. His true passion is found in his family. He says the best decision he ever made was to marry his sweetheart and have children. The wonderful family she has given him and her constant love, support, and patience amid life’s challenges is his panacea.

Just as the people who attend the various bridal showers differ, so do the gifts and advice. While I find the gifts interesting, it is the advice that I find even more so — for just like the gifts given, some are practical and some are just for fun. Some you decide to keep and other you discard.

Through the years, I have heard much good advice given, which I have stored away for the day when I will embark on that sacred journey called marriage. Here are a few pieces of counsel I have found particularly first-rate:

– Go into your marriage with both eyes open; afterwards, close one eye and squint through the other.

– Go to the temple often with your spouse — at least once a month. This will remind you of the covenants you have made individually with God and together with your spouse.

– Make sure to sincerely share your love with your spouse every day, in words as well as in other ways.

– Never let the sun go down on an argument. Make peace before you go to bed so that you do not do so with a festering wound in your relationship.

– In addition to personal and family prayers (once you have children), make time to have couple prayers every day. This will help you and your spouse grow closer together, and will bring a special spirit into your relationship. It allows God to be a part of your eternal union.

– To keep love alive in your marriage, look for ways to serve each other every day, and make sure to show your appreciation for that which is done for you.

I think that the reason all of these words of counsel have resonated with me is because they all remind me that I can’t take my (future) loving relationship for granted. Love takes work and needs daily nourishment to stay strong and alive. It needs the touch of God, for everything He touches lives.

There is one last word of counsel I would like to share that has had a great impression upon me since I first heard it. The story reportedly goes like this: One day the prophet President Spencer W. Kimball was speaking to a returned missionary. He asked the young man what his plans were for the future. After sharing his education and career plans, the young man said that every night, he prays that he’ll marry the girl he loves. To this, the prophet advised the young man to instead pray to love the girl he marries, explaining that the first prayer would end with his marriage, whereas the second prayer never would, so it would be continuously answered throughout the rest of his life.

So what advice do I give my friends as they prepare to get married? Often it is what I have just shared with you: make sure God is a part of your marriage in every way possible, never take your loving relationship for granted, nurture your love through service and gratitude, and enjoy the journey.

This post was originally published in July 2008. Minor changes have been made.

Julia G

This post is the second in a two-part series about the spiritual promptings that led Sonja to meet her husband (and how they make their marriage work). Read part one here.

Sonja and her husband, Dale

I wouldn’t call myself an impulsive person — I see myself as decisive! Of one thing, I was certain: I didn’t have to “water myself down” in my relationship. I fully intended to move forward with the assurance that the Lord opened this door and I wasn’t going to let the grass grow under my feet! I would be open and vulnerable, nothing wavering.

I wish I could remember precisely what I sent back to him after his letter. Since I am a writer, I’m sure I had a lot of things I wanted him to know about: how I felt about the gospel, family, the importance of uplifting relationships, etc. All I remember for sure is that it fit (barely) into a 10” x 13” industrial-strength manila envelope. I secured it with packaging tape. I did include a note suggesting he take his time reading through it.

I invited him and his son to join our extended family at the beach on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. He explained that he had to work that day and wouldn’t be able to come. I mentioned I would be home by early afternoon on Sunday if he wanted to drive up (100 miles) after church.

When my sister and I got home from the beach, she headed off to a meeting and I was preparing to attend choir practice. I heard a knock on the door. I opened it and my response was “Oh my heck!” He was standing on my porch and I was completely smitten. (He had me at “Hello!”)

I invited him in and we sat in the living room. He just looked at me for several moments, so I asked, “What are you doing?” He smiled and said, “I’m imprinting you on my brain.” We visited for awhile and then I jumped up and told him I wanted to sing him a song. He indicated that he thought it would be embarrassing, so I told him to just sit there and I’d sing from the adjoining room. When I got the karaoke machine set up, I turned and he had followed me into the room. He said, “Driving up here today was something I never do… I may as well do this, too.” The song I chose? “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do.” As I finished singing, he stood up and hugged me for a long time. It felt like we had found home. After 25 years, he still hugs me the same way.

Although he lived 100 miles south, we spoke on the phone every day and he came up every Saturday and stayed for church before heading back home. Sometimes he would bring his 14-year-old son. When it became apparent that we were getting serious, I told him we would have to get married or quit seeing each other. His response? “Well, that’s not going to happen.” His next question? “Where are we going to live?” I said, “Together.” We started looking around for a house to rent close to his work, and I planned to be a stay-at-home wife. 56 days after we met, we were married for time in the Portland Temple and were sealed for eternity a year and 10 months later in the Seattle Temple.

I had been involved for about 10 years in research and development for a revolutionary therapeutic treatment for collapsing and releasing emotional toxins from abusive and toxic generational family cultures. It was coupled with an ongoing life skills class that was focused on the premise that if you didn’t learn healthy coping skills to improve your life, you would just keep recreating the same ineffective outcomes. I have studied and taught about developing emotional resilience, which teaches you how to think and respond differently to the events around you in order to have more productive outcomes. (It is very similar to the training done in the military to hopefully address a needed reduction in PTSD.) I love this quote: “Resilience transforms. It transforms hardship into challenge, failure into success, helplessness into power.”

However, all of this was a foreign language to my husband, whose focus for all of his adult life had been on welding, fitting, fabricating, and becoming a master craftsman with anything made from steel. However, I have never met a more teachable person in my life. I joke that he’s been in a life skills class for the past 25 years.

When I would hold life skills classes in our home, he would sit in the back of the room completely silent, listening to the interactions with and between the other students. None of it was escaping his notice, and he began sharing concepts with co-workers. One of the phrases he shared one day with an ironworker apprentice that had just been harshly reprimanded by a journeyman was “Create your day.” She asked what that meant. He told her, “If you don’t create the day you walk into, you’ll be walking into a day somebody else, who may not even like you, created.” Later that day, he saw her up on a mezzanine and he called out “How are you doing?” Her response, with a big smile on her face and a thumbs up, was “Making my day!” 

After we had been married for just a few months, we each got a physical. We went to a nutritionist who was a former bishop. We didn’t tell him that we were newlyweds, but after the routine tests, he said, “I sense that both of you are suffering from what I can only refer to as ‘broken hearts.'” That definitely caught my attention! I shared that we were newlyweds and had both been through a lot. He said, “It will be important for you to heal so you don’t allow past events to affect your relationship.” Then he asked us if we wanted to learn an exercise that would ensure that Christ would continue to be the foundation of our relationship. Of course we did!

He had us sit facing each other. Each of us placed our right hand on the other person’s heart and looked steadily into the other’s eyes. Then he told us to alternate saying “I love you” to each other three times. “Each time,” he instructed us, “let the emotion go deeper as you continue to look into each other’s eyes.” Then we were to do the same with “I accept you.” Then say “In the name of Jesus Christ.” He said if there was ever a time we couldn’t do that, we would know that our relationship needed our attention and we needed to invite Christ back into it.

Through the years, we have added a song to this exercise.

Beginning a life together has many complexities. All of them are manageable when both of you are willing to be kind, patient, and loving. Most importantly, each partner must be able to say how they feel and ask for what they want. Since my husband and I both completely believe that it was Heavenly Father who brought us together, we have always included Him in our relationship. We choose to see each other the way Heavenly Father sees us.

Let me close by sharing with you one of my favorite memories.

When I completed my coaching certification, I worked for a few months with my mentor coach. I helped her put together intensive weekends for couples in relationship coaching. One of those workshops was focused around the husband and wife thinking about a metaphor that would express their relationship. They would journal about that and then share it with each other in the presence of the coach. What a great idea!

Since I tend to think in metaphor anyway, I could see my husband easily as the lighthouse on the rocky shore. Strong, solid, dependable, protective, and trustworthy. I saw myself as the raging sea of emotion — but no matter how hard I crashed into him, he never faltered. I didn’t crash into him to knock him down; I crash into him because that’s what I do!

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

We have many lighthouses in our little bungalow by the sea, large and small. Just a couple of years ago, I was pondering my metaphor and realized that I had never asked my husband what metaphor he would use to describe our relationship. When I asked him, he pondered for a few moments. Then he said, “Well, I can see that I’m the lighthouse.” He paused for a long time, then remarked, “You are the light and it’s my job to make sure you keep shining.” Oh my goodness! As you can imagine, my heart melted right down into a little puddle of goo.

We thank Heavenly Father every day for our loving companionship. No disagreement lasts for more than a couple of minutes ’til we are embracing, apologizing, and reassuring each other of our love. Our favorite place to be is together. 

What a blessing it is to be in this season of life with such sweet companionship. I truly wish everyone could find and develop what we have together. Successful relationships are not made in heaven. They come in kits and you have to put them together by diligently following the Lord’s blueprint, which is in harmony with the nature of happiness.

To close, I heard a wonderful New Year’s greeting that I’ll pass along to each of you: “May the tears you cried in 2019 water the seeds you’re planting for 2020.”

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

My first marriage was at the age of 17 and it lasted about three months. Two years later, I remarried the same person. This time, it lasted about nine years, and by then, I had two sons. A year later, I remarried. This marriage lasted about four years. Within the following year, I remarried again. A year later, we were sealed in the temple. This marriage lasted about eight years. Within another year, I again remarried. In due time, we were sealed in the temple after my previous sealing was cancelled. This marriage ended after nine years. At this point, after five failed marriages, I had to admit I wasn’t very good at selecting a husband. I did learn a lot as a result of the merry-go-round of relationships. Many have described me as an eternal optimist in my persistence. (I joke that sometimes it requires an entire courtyard of gentry to prepare a queen!)

Regardless of the serial short marriages, I never considered myself to be a “quitter.” Perhaps the most profound thing I learned was the undeniable importance of establishing a boundary beyond which I was unwilling to go. That boundary? I knew that no one had the right to kill my spirit — not even me. When I felt my heart’s inner light barely flickering and about to be snuffed out, I knew it was time to move on.  

In retrospect, I now understand that I had persistent abandonment issues from years of being in foster homes away from parents and siblings. Consequently, it isn’t too surprising that I didn’t want to be alone. Since I believed it was important to be morally clean, I kept jumping quickly from one marriage to another. I never thought of myself as being an “at risk” person, and in those days, I hadn’t even heard of PTSD.

I am reminded of a beautiful poem written by Carol Lynn Pearson in her book Goodbye, I Love You. Years later, she wrote a Facebook post about this poem:

“Please pass this thought along to someone at risk. Several years ago, a dear young friend of mine attempted suicide and gratefully was spared. I gave her a tiny poem I had written in a deep, dark place of my own—the second stanza two years after the first.

 

My young friend is now doing very well, and for a recent college project on suicide prevention, she created and sent to me an art project using the words of my little poem along with her drawing of a candle:

 

DRAMA IN TWO ACTS

I dim
I dim
I have no doubt
If someone blew
I would go out.

 

I did not.
I must be brighter
Than I thought.

—CLP

Thankfully, I had grown to the point where I was ready to stop the madness and petitioned Heavenly Father for His help. I still didn’t want to be alone, but I realized (finally) that I was not qualified to make a suitable choice. I completely let go of any details of what I thought I wanted in a husband. I only wanted who Heavenly Father wanted for me. I’ve heard many times, “Heavenly Father is preparing someone just for you.” I was completely ready to test that theory.

I spent weeks fervently praying, no idea what to expect — if anything. I was simply filled with the desire to do whatever Heavenly Father wanted me to do… Little did I know how quickly events begin moving into place once you “let go” and “let God.” Heavenly Father apparently knew that I seriously needed divine intervention. Looking back, I can easily see how all the pieces fit together over the next few weeks — but at the time, I had no clue that the confusing, lonely, mind-scrambling, and painful life I had known was about to forever slip away.

In October of 1994, I lived just south of Portland, Oregon. A girlfriend I hadn’t seen for decades was flying in from the Midwest to see me for a few days and I reminded her to be sure to bring her recommend because I wanted to go to the temple on Saturday morning.

As we stepped into the endowment room, I felt strongly the Spirit communicating to me that the companion the Lord had chosen for me was in that room. The feeling was so pronounced; a tangible presence I can only describe as goosebumps. There were only about a half dozen men seated in the room, all but one of them clearly in their 70s or 80s. One man that looked to be in his 40s was sitting by himself just a couple of rows behind the row I was sitting in. I kept turning my head to look at him. He eventually noticed, so then I kept my eyes forward. I thought that I might see him in the celestial room, but he wasn’t there. I started showing my friend the different artwork in the celestial room, and we climbed the stairs to the mezzanine. As we looked down on the room below, I felt the goosebumps again, and I turned around to look down the hall leading to the sealing rooms. The door at the end of the hall opened and there he was with another man. They entered into one of the sealing rooms and closed the door.  

My friend and I started walking down the hall past the sealing rooms and viewing the artwork on the walls. As we got to the door he had entered, the goosebumps started again. I stood there for a few moments just to make sure I wasn’t imagining what I was feeling. There was no doubt in my mind that the Spirit was communicating with me. We turned and went to the dressing rooms, then out into the parking lot. I had a distinct feeling we were supposed to go back into the temple. I remembered I wanted to show my friend the unique baptistry, and we went back into the temple. There was a baptism session in progress, so we decided to get something to eat in the cafeteria near the baptistry.  

We got our food and were sitting along the far wall in the cafeteria. After a few minutes, I started feeling the goosebumps again. I looked up and scanned the room — and at the exit from the food line, there he was. He was coming around the end of the food service area with another gentleman. They sat at a table not far from ours. I could hear them talking. He mentioned where he lived and how many years he’d been a member. He had a deep, resonant voice that did not escape my notice.

When my friend and I finished our meal, we went to put our trays away. There were some friends seated at a table by the dishwashing area and we stopped and spoke to them for a moment. I looked over at his table and he was sitting alone, so I excused myself by saying, “There’s a light over there I need to go check out.”

As I approached his table, he looked up and had that “deer in the headlights” expression on his face. I introduced myself and said I wanted him to know I appreciated the spirit he brought to the temple. I had no way of knowing at that point whether he was single. I just knew the persistent goosebumps definitely grasped my attention. We spoke for just a few moments and then my friend and I left.

That evening, my sister, my friend, and I were having a great time doing “girl things.” All the sudden, I said something about this feeling like a slumber party. Then I said, “I know what girls do at slumber parties! They call the boys!” I’d been a secretary for several years and I knew how to find information. So I called information in the town he mentioned he lived in. (I had his name from when I introduced myself — so what was a girl to do?) 

 I got the phone number and I asked if there was an address listed. There was and the operator gave it to me. I was equipped with the information I needed. I didn’t really think about the fact that I had no way of knowing whether he was single or married; I just dialed the number and waited. I heard a younger voice say “Hello?” (It was definitely not his deep voice.) The next words out of my mouth were, “Is your mother there?” “No, my mom doesn’t live here. She lives in town.” “Is your Dad there?” “Sure.”

The next voice I heard was the deep, resonant voice from the cafeteria. “Is this Brother Hoskins?” “Hoskins? No, this is Brother Hopkins.” “Oh, I’m sorry. Please excuse the call.” And I hung up.

To read more of Sonja’s articles, click here.

All right!  Now I knew I had the right person and his son’s mother didn’t live there. I had his mailing address and I wasn’t afraid to use it. I sat down and wrote him a note, telling him once again that I appreciated the spirit he brought to the temple. I also added that I didn’t know if it was appropriate for me to extend my friendship, but if he was looking for a new friend, I would enjoy getting to know him better. 

I addressed the envelope and put on a stamp. The next morning, I dropped it into the mail. (I refrained from spritzing the envelop with perfume!)

I think it was a couple of weeks before I got a response. When it came, it was on a single sheet from a small note pad. Now, I don’t know if I’m the only one that reads the last couple of pages of a novel first to see if I like the ending enough to read the whole story. I employed the same strategy with this note.

I started by reading the last sentence:  “Getting your note was an answer to my prayers.”  

Part two coming soon!

Featured image: The Portland, Oregon Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints via ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

Sonja Hopkins

Sonja lives with her husband, Dale, on Anderson Island, Washington. She and her husband are Church Service Missionaries serving in the Addiction Recovery Program, focusing on pornography and sex addiction. She is also a certified life coach and teaches “Life Skills for Emotional Self-Mastery” in her stake twice a month. She does not teach you only to process something traumatic done to you in the past; rather, she helps you learn to feel it, heal it, and LET GO of whatever you still do to yourself and to others in order to cope with what was done to you in the past.

I write this with an entirely new perspective on that issue, with the passing of my wife, Lorraine, just over a month ago (Oct 25, 2019). Lorraine and I share a connection and a commitment to each other that I have seen in few other couples — let alone friendships or other relationships — in this world. During her mortality, we knew more than each other’s preferences, hobbies, hopes, dreams, testimonies, quirks, and such. We knew each other’s heart so well that on more than one occasion, we got about as close (I imagine) as anyone in this world can get to sharing feelings with each each other without actually opening our mouths. That has changed to a more direct form of spirit-to-spirit communication since she passed, and that certainly has its benefits (as it is easier than doing it from mortal to mortal), but I have learned a few things firsthand now that have helped me understand the value of human connection on an even deeper level.

Honestly, I don’t believe that it is possible to completely understand the full value of things like looking into the eyes of our loved ones, hearing their voices, and experiencing their hugs until those things are taken from us. This is from a journal entry of mine from Sep 2, 2019:

“To be totally honest, I really miss hearing Lorraine’s voice and getting her input on what I’m doing. She can look at me and focus on me, but with the emptiness of her expression, it just looks like she isn’t even understanding a word I’m saying. She can’t lift or even move her fingers, hands, arms, head, or neck. At the moment, all she can do is raise her eyebrows up and down. Sometimes I think she’s doing it to try and communicate, but once every few hours I will notice her doing it for no apparent reason whatsoever, so I’m trying to trust that Heavenly Father is in control and is in all of the final details from the recovery, especially since her most recent [priesthood] blessing she got said she would recover from this [non-verbal, barely responsive state]. But I won’t lie: it has been hard over the last 48 hours. After she opened her eyes a few days ago for the first time in almost a week, my gratitude for being at least able to look her in the eye[s] grew a lot. Now I just wish I could hear her voice again.”

I’m not sure whether it was more painful to have any ability to communicate with or understand Lorraine taken from me by means of illness or by means of death. A part of me thinks it’s easier in one way because now she can at least communicate with only my spiritual perception limitations as a barrier on her end, but another part of me feels like I would prefer to hear her voice and look into her eyes, even if that means there’s the barrier of mortal language and its limitations with spiritual connection. It’s kind of a happy and a sad trade-off. Either way, I know I’ll be overwhelmed with joy when I can have both of those kinds of connection in their fullness when Lorraine and I can reunite physically.

What I know for sure is that we frequently underestimate the value of deep, beautiful, meaningful, loving, nuanced, face-to-face connections with each other as mortals. In his autobiographical book The Message, Lance Richardson said the following:

“Some of the grandest experiences of my visit [to the Spirit World] were my opportunities to exchange greetings with others. Because in their world, they do not wave ‘hello’ or shake hands; they hug. A spirit can feel another spirit just as we feel flesh to flesh. And so they embrace one another. And when they embrace, an amazing experience occurs. It is as if each spirit can transfer a feeling and synopsis of their life to others. Suddenly one knows and understands another more deeply and thoroughly than could ever be possible through verbal communication. It creates an instant bond of closeness and friendship to build foundations for loving one another more perfectly. Oh, how I missed those hugs when I left.”

In another part of the book, that appreciation was manifested for a form of connection far more muffled by mortality. Lance was in a barely-conscious state, but heard his son — who didn’t know if Lance could hear him — talking about football. When the nurse told his son that he needed to leave for a while, he said, “Dad, I love you. And I am not going to let anything take you away. I promise! I don’t care what happens, I’ll keep you. OK, dad?” Lance was so overcome with emotion himself that he was actually able to cry a single tear, which ran down his cheek. His son’s response?

“‘Dad, we saw that! You cried, you cried!’ he shouted. ‘You really are there!’ Then he paused a moment again, knowing he had to leave. ‘Oh, Dad. I love you so much. Please come back to me.'”

Please, never underestimate any small sign of the beauty of human connection. It means more than you can possible imagine. Lorraine and I experienced almost all extremes of that spectrum, from being able to communicate almost clearly, spirit to spirit, to being limited to mere micromovements. Every last tiny piece of loving, deep connection between us is worth more to me than all the rest of God’s creation combined. It is supposed to be so, and I’m glad it is. God put that intense longing for connection in us and allows us to hurt when it is taken away because it teaches us its sacred, holy, and beautiful nature. It’s why things like charity, forgiveness, kindness, humility, faith, virtue, knowledge — feel free to recite the rest of D&C 4 if you wish — are so important: because they are all ways we can have those healthy connections with each other and with our Father in Heaven.

Nurture them, cherish them, desire them with everyone — and whatever you do, never underestimate them.

Paul Pulsipher

Paul Pulsipher grew up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Western Colorado as the second of five children and has been blessed with a rich heritage.

He has been playing piano for 30 years and has numerous compositions and arrangements. He also plays guitar, loves to sing and runs his own music production business. He is also an Eagle Scout. He spent ten years caring for his late wife Lorraine who was very ill the whole time and she passed away two months before Christmas in 2019. He remarried after some time back in the States and he and Collette now live in south Utah where he is finishing up the education he never got the chance to while in Canada. You can see his musical work here: www.pulsipherproductions.com

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