Hi Everyone,
Last
Sunday Sister Peterson gave a wonderful lesson in Relief Society. A lot
of people had requested the full version of the talk that she used and
she asked that I post it on our blog so that everyone can access it.
Also
if you want to download a free PDF copy I am attaching a link below.
Just click the link and it will take you to the website where you can
download a free copy.
Have a great Monday everyone!
What Happens When Life Gets One Degree Colder?
DALLAN R.
MOODY
Dallan R.
Moody was associate athletic director over finance at Brigham Young University
when this devotional address was given on 6 March
2012.
As a
brand-new missionary in England, I was assigned to the southern coast for
my first area. One Sunday afternoon my companion
and I
decided to go tracting in the small town of Sandwich, located just a few miles
north of the white cliffs of Dover. After a few hours of
knocking on doors, feeling like we must have talked to every living
person in the place—and without any success at all—we sat down dejectedly on
a nearby bench.
Although
it was summertime, it was a rather cold and damp day, as sometimes happens in
England. Feeling downcast due to
the lack
of response to our efforts to share the gospel, my companion tried to lighten
the mood by remarking, “It’s okay, Elder. It could be
worse: it could be one degree colder right now.”
His
comment was well received and hit home. Life really wasn’t bad. We were in a
beautiful country. We had the gospel. We were missionaries on the Lord’s
errand. In fact, I had more blessings than problems. I felt much better
knocking on doors the rest of the afternoon, armed with an enlightened
attitude and a purer perspective—although I was still cold and damp and I
still wished someone would listen.
As
insightful and perceptive as was my companion’s point—that “it could be worse:
it could be one
degree colder”—what happens when
it does get one degree colder? Or, for that matter, what happens when,
metaphorically speaking, it gets ten or
even
fifty degrees colder? What happens when the pressure is on, the crowd is
watching, and the game is on the line?
In a
college
environment, what do you do when
the homework is grueling, the exams are punishing, the roommates are
exasperating, and the longed-for eternal
companion
is not materializing? Or, after college, what do you do if you
don’t land a job, you get laid off, you have stress in your marriage,
you have poor health, or your teenagers don’t listen? In those times of
trial, despair, fear, and worry, the stage is best set for God to show
forth His power. Indeed, it is often in the most dire of circumstances
that God’s arm is revealed most miraculously.
Miracles
require
faith and generally some amount
of courage and hope on our part as well as trust that God will always do His
part. We must also remember that
God’s
ways are not our ways. His response to a given situation might be different
than what we want to have happen. In addition, the timing of
His response could vary greatly from our expected timing. Yet in all
cases, God’s involvement in our lives is carefully crafted to bring about
the greatest good. For “he doeth not anything save it be for the benefit
of the world.”1
Find
Courage and
Hope
Several
years ago I gave a lesson in my elders quorum based on the July 2004 First
Presidency message written by President Thomas
S. Monson
and titled “Miracles of Faith.” One part of the lesson particularly struck me
because of the uniqueness of a principle that I had not
previously considered—a principle that afterward became even more
personally poignant because of imminent events that were to occur in our
home.
From time
to time the Lord puts certain truths into our hearts that affect our future
destiny. We may not fully understand His
reason
for teaching us these principles at these particular times. Instead, it is
often once we have passed through the ensuing experiences that
clarity comes. We can then look back through life’s lenses and more
fully see that God does prepare a way for us to accomplish what He
commands.2
Part of
President Monson’s message that I shared with my elders quorum read:
Mothers
and fathers
who anxiously await the arrival
of a precious child sometimes learn that all is not well with this tiny infant.
A missing limb, sightless eyes,
a damaged
brain . . . greets the parents, leaving them baffled, filled with sorrow, and
reaching out for hope.
There
follows
the inevitable blaming of
oneself, the condemnation of a careless action, and the perennial questions:
“Why such a tragedy in our family?” . . .
“How did
this happen?” “Where was God?” “Where was a protecting angel?” If, why, where, how—those
recurring words—do not bring back the
lost son,
the perfect body, the plans of parents, or the dreams of youth. Self-pity,
personal withdrawal, or deep despair will not bring the
peace, the assurance, or help which are needed.
Rather, we must go forward, look upward, move onward, and rise heavenward.
It
is imperative that we recognize that whatever has
happened to us has happened to others. They have coped and so must we. We are
not alone.
Heavenly Father’s help is near.3
What
struck me was that “the absence of the miracle” could actually be a
miracle in and of itself—the premise being that as God’s ways and
thoughts are higher than man’s, at times the Lord may choose to provide a
miracle counterintuitive to what we may want, knowing full well His own
end purpose. Because of the absence of the miracle fixed in our minds,
He is better able to help us grow and thus become happier than we ever
could have been had we received the desired miracle for which we had
prayed.
At the
time I initially read this First Presidency message, I naively thought my
impression of that principle was because I had
given a
blessing to the daughter of a family I home taught, hoping that a dramatic
recovery would spark the family back into activity. When the
little girl ended up in the hospital that same day, I thought the
absence of the miracle would somehow bless their lives more than if she had
been miraculously healed. However, little did I suspect the
extraordinary experience among the challenges that the Lord was already
engineering.
About a
month later my expectant wife, April, and I went to an ultrasound appointment
to see whether we were having a boy
or a
girl. We learned that we were having our third son. We also learned that there
were severe physical complications afflicting his body. He
was missing large portions of his brain, his skull wasn’t properly shaped,
and the doctors weren’t even sure if he would survive till delivery.
During the ensuing weeks it seemed that every time we received
additional information it was bad news. I still remember sitting in a room in
the
Brewster Building, across the street from the
Wilkinson Center, when my wife called to tell me the latest update: Our son
didn’t have a right
eye. Thinking back to what my
mission companion had said, I certainly felt like things were much worse than
one degree colder.
With
faith, and in order to pray more specifically and effectively for our
unborn son, we decided on his name early. Previously we had waited until
we actually saw our children to make sure they matched their names. We
chose the name Caleb, after the Old Testament Israelite who was a
companion to Moses and Joshua and who was noted for his “fearlessness in
the face of overwhelming odds.”4
Caleb
survived
his birth, though it became
quickly apparent that he would be very much like a newborn throughout his
entire life. He would never walk. He would
never
talk. He would never feed himself or be able to so much as hold his head up on
his own. When we asked how long we might expect him to
live, the doctor replied, “Take him home and never bring him back to the
hospital. We can’t do anything for him. He has a few weeks to a few
months—outside chance of a year, possibly two.”
I
remember being terrified as we walked out of the hospital with our little boy
to
take him home. The number of machines and medical
equipment we needed to sustain his life was overwhelming. The possibility of
losing him was a
constant fear. Simply feeding him
required extraordinary effort because he needed to eat every three hours. The
process to eat took one hour to
complete.
This involved waking up throughout the night: start the pump, sleep for an
hour, stop the pump, sleep for two hours, start the pump,
sleep for an hour, and so on. We wondered how we would keep ourselves
alive, let alone our fragile son.
Thankfully,
the Lord blessed
us with many miracles in
what seemed like a hopeless situation. Angels in the form of ward members,
family members, friends, and medical
personnel
came to our aid. We literally had meals brought in for three months. We had a
competent and caring nurse, a doctor who made house
calls, and family and neighbors who prayed mightily on our behalf. We
could feel heaven’s hand upon us. I felt angels walked our hallways and
sat in Caleb’s room. Our three-year-old son told us that sometimes he
saw Jesus peeking in our windows.
In
Caleb’s baby blessing I
promised him that he had
completed his task on earth by being born and that he could now rest for a
time. But this was not the plan for Caleb
and his
mother. In some kind of pact with heaven that I have yet to fully understand,
Caleb and April bargained with heaven to do a greater
work. God had matched them up perfectly—Caleb with his fearlessness in
the face of overwhelming odds and April with her mother’s love and daring
optimism.
April
purposefully chose hope and trust in the Lord. To her core she is happy
and optimistic. With God’s help she took what
could
have been a terrifying trial and reshaped it. She took a corner of heaven and
pulled it right down into our home, opening it up for all to
enjoy. Every day became a celebration with Caleb. She made him a
birthday cake after his first week, cupcakes for his second week, cookies for
his third week, and so on. She celebrated everything about Caleb, for
every day was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the boy who was
sent home without hope.
In what
might have looked like a burdensome task to others, caring for Caleb became a
privilege. Though his
body was misshapen and broken,
his spirit was whole, noble, and great.5 Being in his presence was
healing and heavenly. I love my
wife and
thank her, Caleb, and Heavenly Father for making the time with Caleb not only
possible but powerful. It was indeed heaven on
earth.
Even his
missing eye was a blessing. It became his distinctive feature. People were
drawn to him, especially children. They
would
often ask, “Where is his eye? What happened to him?”
I would
usually say that Caleb was a pirate or that a bear had eaten his
eye. But my wife would explain that in our family, a wink meant “I love
you.”
Before
Caleb was born, we told our boys that he would
only have
one of his eyes. They were concerned for their brother. “Don’t
worry,” April would say. “He will just wink at us every
day!”
Caleb was
never able to tell us he loved us with words, but he told us every day with his
wink. His little wink was a daily
message
of love from heaven. He brought the love of God and the Light of Christ into
the lives of all who knew him. His winking eye was a sweet
reminder of his deep love for all of us.6Hope and
courage have always characterized the righteous. Ever the optimist,
Joseph Smith was once quoted as saying:
I should
never get discouraged, whatever difficulties should surround me, if I was sunk
in the lowest pit of Nova Scotia and all the Rocky
Mountains piled on top of me, I ought not to be discouraged but hang on,
exercise faith and
keep up good courage and I should
come out on the top of the heap.7
It was
this type of faithful fortitude that
saved the
Nephites from the decree of death declared by the unbelievers if the sign of
Christ’s birth did not come. It came the very night that
Nephi prayed.8 Likewise, a measure of firm faith and trust in
God preceded the parting of the Red Sea;9 saved Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abed-nego from a fiery furnace;10 and helped
David defeat a giant.11
Recognize
God’s Ways Are
Higher
However,
not all miracles deliver. Sometimes, according to God’s purposes, miracles are
seemingly withheld in order for His
greater
designs to develop. After all, Abinadi was burned at the stake, the Mormons
were driven out of Jackson County, and Joseph Smith was
martyred at Carthage Jail. On a less important scale, but still
significant to those involved, lost puppies may not be found, testing center
prayers may not be immediately answered, and Church basketball games may
not be played with good sportsmanship in spite of prayers offered
otherwise.
But that
doesn’t mean God is absent or doesn’t care or hasn’t provided a miracle. Again,
it is during those times when it
is ten
degrees colder that God is involved, He does care, and He is performing His
work. We must remember that “as the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are [His] ways higher than [our] ways, and [His] thoughts
than [our] thoughts.”12
Just
imagine what would
happen if miracles were left up
to us. In my arena of athletics, it would probably go something like this: The
Church is true. The Church is the
sponsoring
organization of BYU, the Lord’s university. The BYU sports teams are flagships
of the university. Therefore, no BYU team should ever
lose, which would be irrefutable evidence that the Church is true. What
a blessing this would be to the growth of the Church. I can picture the
missionaries talking to an investigator: “Brother Jones, as you know,
the BYU football team has never lost, the basketball team has won every
national title, and each of our golfers gets a hole in one on every
swing. Don’t you think it’s about time you were
baptized?”
Obviously
the Lord does not work this way. A plan in which supposedly everything would go
right so nobody would be lost was
already
proposed and rejected. The plan of salvation, on the other hand, allows for
opposition in all things: sadness and sweetness, wrongdoing
and repentance, trial and testimony.
With so
much opposition in our lives at times, it seems like God chooses to work
through
underdogs. Take Gideon of the Old
Testament, for example. Israel was in bondage to the Midianites. God called
Gideon to deliver them, and Gideon
raised an
army of 32,000 men.
And the
Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give
the
Midianites into their hands, lest
Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.13
God
asked Gideon to reduce his army to 10,000, which was still too many. God
then asked him to reduce his force even further to just 300 men to go
against a foe who were “like grasshoppers for multitude; and their
camels were without number, as the sand by the sea side for
multitude.”14 With the help of God and against all odds,
Gideon and those 300 men bested the Midianites and their tens of
thousands.
God is
clearly not limited by the same constraints that obstruct our mortal way. Left
on their own, Gideon and his 300
would
have had little chance for victory. But Gideon was not alone, nor is he the
only instance of God using small and simple “means to bring
about his great and eternal purposes.”15 God took Enoch, a
lad slow of speech, and walked with him.
And so
great
was the faith of Enoch that he
led the people of God . . . ; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth
trembled, and the mountains fled,
even
according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their
course . . . ; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was
the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of
the language which God had given him.16
God also
took former
Egyptian slaves and molded them
into the mighty Israelite nation. He turned a fisherman into a chief apostle.
And He shaped a plowboy into a
prophet.17 The Lord
Himself came to earth in the most humble of circumstances—as a babe in a manger
who was born into a carpenter’s
family
and who became Lord of lords, King of kings,18 and Savior of worlds
without end.
Trust God
Such
miraculous
transformations come as a result
of trusting in God’s plan. One night for family scripture study we read the
account of the “man which was blind
from his
birth.”19 The “disciples asked [Christ], saying, Master, who did
sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born
blind?”20
Seeing
the obvious parallel in our own home, our young sons asked why Caleb was born
blind. In the next verse the
Lord provided our response:
“Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God
should be made manifest in
him.”21 Then Jesus
healed the man so that he could see.
Caught up
in the grandeur of the story, our boys asked if I could
heal Caleb. I stammered some kind of response that I didn’t feel it was
the Lord’s will for Caleb to be healed. I added that often the healings
recorded in the scriptures were performed by Jesus, prophets, or
apostles—very righteous men commissioned by God to perform miracles for
specific purposes of blessing the lives of those involved and increasing
the faith of those who would eventually read these
stories.
Not to be
put off, and possibly sensing my apprehensive response, my boys faithfully
concluded that it was time to appeal to
a higher
authority. It so happened that we were going to the Church Administration
Building later that week to attend the setting apart of my
dad as a mission president by one of the Brethren. Knowing that we would
be meeting an apostle, my sons requested that I ask him to heal
Caleb.
Talk
about being put between a rock and a hard place. How could I sustain their
faith without selfishly imposing on an apostle?
I
compromised with my boys by telling them that I would not ask for a blessing on
Caleb but that we would leave it in the hands of the
Lord.
It was a
wonderful occasion to be with my dad as he was set apart and to be in the
presence of one of the Lord’s special
witnesses.
He was not inspired to heal Caleb. But as we walked out of his office, he
stopped at Caleb’s stroller, bent down, and kissed him. He
told him three times that he loved him. He then shook my hand and hugged
my wife while whispering in her ear, “I am so proud of you.” In the
sight of God, Caleb did not need healing. Instead, it was I who left
that office peacefully whole.
Rely on
His Timing
Trusting
in God means that we also trust in His timing. The man in the New
Testament story was blind from birth. I’m not sure how old he was, but he had
waited years for that miracle. Then one day the Master came along and
healed him. “In his own time, and in his own way,”22 God will
respond.
As an
example of the Lord’s timing in my life, I had been at my new job in the BYU
Athletic Department for about three weeks
when I
had to go down to Las Vegas for a business meeting as part of the conference
basketball tournament. I woke up very early to make the long
drive in time for my meeting at noon. My wife and I prayed fervently
that I would make it safely. Caleb had been in the hospital for a few
weeks, and we had been up many late nights to be with him. Despite every
precaution and physical effort I could make, just outside of St. George
I fell asleep in the blink of an eye while driving full speed down the
freeway.
I woke up
to find myself heading down a hill into the
median
dividing the highway—one set of tires on the pavement, the other set in the
weeds and gravel. I quickly spun the wheel to take me back on
the road, but this only caused me to do a 180-degree turn across the
lanes of traffic. Thankfully no other cars were near me. Once I got to the
far right side of the road, I had the fleeting thought that I could pull
it off and would be able to stop the car on the right shoulder. Not so.
I think the car was still traveling about 60 to 70 miles per hour when I
slammed into the sand and sagebrush, flipping the car
over.
Eventually
the car came to an abrupt stop with me hanging upside down by my seat belt. I
undid the catch and fell to the
floor—which
had been the roof of the car. It was impossible to open any of the car doors.
They were all wedged shut because the car had become
fairly flattened to the ground. I climbed through a window, since all
the glass in the vehicle had shattered.
Besides a
bruised and
embarrassed ego, I was completely
unharmed. The only cut I had was a small slice on my hand where a piece of
glass had stuck me when I released
myself
from the seat belt and fell to the ground. After being checked out by the
police (who also issued me a ticket), my sweet grandmother who
lived in St. George somehow let me borrow her car so I could finish my
trip to Las Vegas. I walked into my meeting about fifteen minutes
late.
The hard
part was telling my boss, Tom Holmoe—who was also at the basketball
tournament—that I had destroyed a university
vehicle
during my first month on the job. To make a bad situation worse, my seat at the
basketball game following the meeting happened to be
directly in front of President Samuelson. I spent the game pulling
glass out of my hair as inconspicuously as possible.
In my
mind the
timing of that wreck was life
turning one degree colder. I was trying to make a good first impression at my
job. My wife and I were doing our
best to
take care of a sick child. We had prayed for safety.
The
Lord’s timing and purpose were made clear over the following days and
months. Tom is a great boss and has never held the accident and the loss
of the car against me. The university eventually replaced the car but
thankfully didn’t have to replace me—because I was still alive. The Lord
had preserved me from what should have been a fatal accident. Having
come so close to death helped me more fully appreciate my life and the
people around me. I especially enjoyed the time spent with Caleb late at
night when I would wake up to take care of him. Not only did it mean I
was still alive, but Caleb was too.
There
were times when I
thought Caleb would live a long
time. He had so often successfully battled sicknesses and surgeries, illnesses
and infections. He had been to
the hospital many times but
always came back to us. We loved having him in our home. “Caleb could have
quickly returned to heaven but, instead,
he
brought heaven to us for seven years.”23
Twenty-five
days ago, in the timing of the Lord, Caleb slipped peacefully away
while being held in the arms of his mother and surrounded by his family.
He had spent a courageous day fighting with his might against a vicious
infection brought on by pneumonia. The wonderful doctors, nurses, and
other medical personnel at Primary Children’s Medical Center had done all
they professionally could to keep Caleb alive. His body was simply too
worn out.
I have
heroes in my life: Joseph Smith, Captain
Moroni,
Ammon, and others. On that day, my wife was my hero. As she bravely and
tenderly leaned down to hug Caleb, she whispered in his ear, “I
love you, Caleb. I am so proud of you. If your body is too tired, it’s
okay. You can go back. You can return to Heavenly Father.”
For
over seven years her love and God’s will allowed Caleb to be a
significant part of our earthly experience. But in the very moment when it was
needed, her heart changed. She could let him go. She trusted God because
she knew God. She knew that God understood her personally, in a way
that few others could, for God had also lost a son. And through the
Atonement of that Son, God can do miracles. He can forgive a sinner. He can
save a lost soul. He can heal a broken heart.
“With God
nothing [is] impossible,”24 especially when life is hard and it is
ten degrees colder outside. “But behold, all things have been done in
the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.”25 God provides the
plan and we contribute the faith and courage. We trust in His timing and
in His ways to achieve His purposes, even when—and probably
especially when—such purposes may be unclear from our
perspective.
At a
stake conference not too long ago, I had an interview
with a visiting General Authority. He learned about Caleb as part of our
discussion. After he acknowledged the hard work it took to care for
Caleb, I thought he would then encourage me to keep it up and to
faithfully persevere in the service and sacrifice I was providing. Instead, his
next four words entirely transformed my
relationship with Caleb. He simply said, “You are being exalted.”
All this
time I had thought
that we were taking care of
Caleb. But in reality, God, through Caleb, had been taking care of us. God was
making a miracle where I hadn’t
expected
one. He was performing a miracle on me, on my wife, on our kids, and on all
those who came in contact with Caleb. Having Caleb in our
home was an honor and a privilege. It was also a sacred experience.
Through
our faith, courage, hope, and trust, God will bless us—no
matter how cold our lives may feel. I know that God loves us. I know
that He hears us and heals us. And I know that He is exalting us. In the
name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
1. 2
Nephi 26:24.
2. See 1
Nephi 3:7.
3. Thomas
S. Monson, “Miracles of
Faith,” Ensign, July 2004,
4.
4.
“Caleb,” Think Baby Names; www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Caleb.
5. See
Abraham
3:22.
6. The “I
love you” wink idea was written by April Moody as part of a message from the
Moody family to hand out to family and
friends
at Caleb’s funeral.
7. Joseph
Smith, quoted in Memoirs of George A. Smith, in George A. Smith papers, ms
1322, box, folder 1,
Family and Church History
Department Archives, Salt Lake City; see Tad R. Callister, “Joseph Smith:
Prophet of the Restoration,” Ensign,
June
2002, 66, note 7.
8. See 3
Nephi 1:9–16.
9. See
Exodus 14:13–31.
10. See
Daniel 3:15–28.
11. See 1
Samuel 17:45–51.
12.
Isaiah 55:9.
13.
Judges 7:2.
14.
Judges 7:12.
15. Alma
37:7; see Alma 37:6 and 1
Nephi 16:29.
16. Moses
7:13.
17. See
William Tyndale, quoted in John Foxe, Book of Martyrs (Hartford,
Connecticut:
Edwin Hunt, 1845), 259; see
Robert D. Hales, “Preparations for the Restoration and the Second Coming: ‘My
Hand Shall Be over Thee,’”
Ensign, November 2005, 90. See also
William A. Morton and L. A. Ramsey, “From Plowboy to Mormon Prophet: Being a
Short History of Joseph
Smith for Children” (n.p.: USA,
1912).
18. See
Revelation 17:14.
19. John
9:1.
20. John
9:2.
21. John
9:3.
22.
D&C 88:68.
23. See
“Obituary: Caleb Joseph Moody,” Walker Family Mortuaries;
tributes.com/show/Caleb-Joseph-Moody-93217356.
24. Luke
1:37.
25. 2
Nephi 2:24.
