My mother was a woman of great faith,” recounts Avilda’s daughter. “It was Mother’s practice to never let a day go by without praying to God for his watchful care. When I was a small child growing up in Monroe Louisiana, Mother had a dream one night that she was driving along a country road with my sister and me playing in the back seat of the car. En route, my mother suddenly glanced in the rearview mirror and saw smoke and flames shooting from the trunk area. Quickly, she pulled to the side of the road, jumped out, and began searching for something to douse the flames. In a nearby gully, she spotted a rusty bucket filled with rainwater. Grabbing it, she ran back to the car and emptied the bucket on the fire. A strange dream, my mother thought as she awoke. And she let it go at that.

The next morning, Mother piled my sister and me into the car for a sixty-mile trip to attend Sacrament Meeting. About halfway there, on an infrequently traveled road, she was suddenly startled to see flames and smoke rising from the trunk of the car. My sister and I were frightened, but because of her dream Mother knew what to do. Pulling over to the side of the road, she quickly got out, ran about ten yards to a nearby gully, located a rusty bucket of rainwater, and extinguished the fire. Then, catching her breath and offering a simple prayer of gratitude, she settled back in the car and drove to church.

Avilda’s miracle story is not uncommon. Many people have experienced divine intervention from an unseen Source. Often, that intervention came at a time of crisis when other options had failed. Pure and simple, it was a gift.

What Are Gifts?

Gifts, by definition, are pure, voluntary offerings of love, indisputable evidence of the Giver’s affection. A gift cannot be earned; it is freely imparted with no expectation of repayment. Furthermore, inherent in the gift is the personality of the Giver. The gifts of God, for example, reveal his perfect attributes of character-his power, his awareness, his love-upon which believers rely and upon which their faith pivots.

These gifts-miracles-are unique in that they are inexplicable by the laws of nature. We receivers cannot duplicate them. Large or small, the gifts of God attest to his nearness and his interest in our welfare. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “God is found in the details of our lives.” Thus we can expect to find him as we struggle with relationships, finances, health and weaknesses. We discover him as we labor over difficult decisions. We become acquainted with him as we receive unanticipated warnings of danger, gain added strength to endure, and follow carefully prepared paths of escape. From time to time we glimpse him delivering unexpected bouquets of affection, those almost anonymous offerings that communicate, “I am aware. I am near. I love you.”

Gifts often come when extraordinary help is needed; gifts provide us evidence of the existence of the Giver and illustrate his active involvement in our lives. God’s gifts provide hope, anchor faith, and demonstrate that prayers are heard and answers come. One man wrote:

Our family had suffered through a string of serious illnesses that had taken their toll on our family. My husband, who had been sick for three years, had finally come to the conclusion that his business could not be saved and that he needed to liquidate the inventory to pay his creditors. He made the difficult decision to close down the company and begin to pay off $300,000 in debts–without a job! Two years later, he had managed to pay back only $100,000 by liquidating the best of the remaining inventory. To retire the last $200,000 seemed impossible and he began to despair.

On New Years day, 1993, he called a friend whom he knew to be a man of faith. After my husband had explained our situation, he and his friend decided to pray and seek God’s help. Then the friend, in the authority of the priesthood, laid his hands on my husband’s head and sought divine counsel. The words of the blessing were astonishing.

“The time for your efforts is over. Heavenly Father has prepared another way to pay your debts.”

When the blessing had ended my husband asked, “I don’t understand. What should I do?”

“Go about your daily life,” his friend answered. “Your debts are God’s now.”

Ten days later, the area where we lived experienced a massive snowstorm.

Early on the morning of January 10th, my husband received a phone call and was told that he should hurry down to the warehouse where his inventory was stored. When he arrived, he could not believe his eyes. The warehouse roof had collapsed under the weight of the snow. A water line had broken and water was gushing all over his inventory. It appeared as though a bomb had exploded. Substantially everything was damaged.

As we later gathered to consider our options, bankruptcy was the only thing that came to mind. It was a discouraging alternative, one that we had tried to avoid for several years. Then we remembered the insurance policy. Five months earlier, the thought had weighed on my husband’s mind that he should reinsure the inventory for a value equal to what we owed the creditors. Although he had to scrimp to find the money for the extra premium, he had followed the prompting.

The result?

Within six weeks from the day of the priesthood blessing we were out of debt. The insurance company paid us $200,000!

Gifts Draw Us Close to the Giver

People who receive gifts from God often consider their experiences as holy ground whereon they become acquainted with the Giver. Diverse and intimately personal, gifts are woven from a common loom, summoning within their owners deep confidence in their Father in Heaven. Placing hope in the Giver of gifts proves not to be a vain effort after all.

Sometimes receivers of gifts experience miraculous intervention, and other times gifts come as quiet love notes. In either case, those who receive the gifts experience an increase of faith so that when they encounter difficulty again, they are better equipped to once more appeal to a loving Father who has the ability to help, is indeed aware, and cares enough to help. Receivers of gifts believe that their hope is anchored to something substantial. Simply put, they believe they are not alone.

This is not to say that there is an equation for God’s intervention: A+B=C. Our definition of deliverance is seldom God’s definition. We can dictate neither timelines nor terms. Nevertheless, we can be absolutely confident that our every prayer is heard and counts, and that somewhere in the process of working through, a divine encounter will happen. A son in Utah recounts:

When Mother was dying of cancer, she asked for a blessing to know the will of the Lord. I agreed to give the blessing, but I knew it would be the hardest of my life. Not that it would be harder for the Lord. I knew that he could heal cancer as easily as a cold. But for me, I had to prepare. I dared not approach this blessing casually.

Over the next few days, I attended the temple and prayed and humbled myself before the Lord. I read the scriptures about miraculous manifestations of power and healing. I counseled with wise men that had spent a lifetime exercising their priesthood righteously. Then I began to fast. I would not eat until the blessing was given. Mother lived six hours away.

As I drove through the night, I prayed continuously. I attempted to remove all doubt from my mind. I knew that God could heal Mother; I knew that the priesthood was the power; I knew that the ordinance of anointing and sealing had been revealed for this very purpose. I had come to that point of confidence and clarity. I pushed aside the temptation to craft words and plan the blessing. I had no desire to be eloquent or clever. I only wanted to plainly state what would be dictated by the inspiration of the Spirit-and remarkably, I now felt fully prepared to pronounce the promise of healing and witness a miracle.

I will not recount my reaction to stepping into Mother’s room and witnessing her frail, weakened body. My emotions were so tender. I loved my mother. How I longed for divine permission to say the words of healing. Our family knelt in prayer. We pled for a miracle. I was sure it would come.

It did.

At the moment I laid my hands upon my mother’s head, the Spirit said, “No.”

I wasn’t prepared for the answer. I felt Mother relax and concede under my hands. The miracle followed–sweet words of comfort and peace, every word dictated by a loving influence that knew her and understood her pain. Mom was going home.

Gifts Build Faith in God

In the Lectures on Faith, the Prophet Joseph Smith laid out the fundamentals of our achieving faith in God. Imperative in that process is our having a correct idea of God’s perfect attributes of character, including power, knowledge and love. Hope and faith in God turn on the belief that he possesses these and other attributes in perfection.

Otherwise, what’s the use in petitioning God at all?

In times of urgency, we hope that God has the power to help, we hope that he is aware of us, and we hope that he loves us enough to rush to our rescue. We reach out to the Giver and plead for his gifts because we believe that he has both the ability and the disposition to grant them. In the end, perhaps there is no better way to know him.

A great example is found in the oft-told tale of the ill-fated journey of the Martin and Willie handcart companies. Having begun their westward trek late in the fall of 1856, they were caught in an early winter storm in Wyoming. Although help was quickly dispatched from Salt Lake City, the storm took a terrible toll. Some people froze to death; others starved. When the survivors had later recovered in the safety of the valley, they settled and tried to piece together their lives. Years of controversy ensued. Debating the wisdom of their journey made good fodder for backyard courts and juries.

Much later, in the setting of a comfortable, frontier Sunday School class, criticism was raised once more over the company’s shortsightedness in leaving so late in the year.

An old man in the corner sat silent and listened as long as he could stand it, then he arose and said things that no person who heard him will ever forget. His face was white with emotion, yet he spoke calmly, deliberately, but with great earnestness and sincerity.

In substance he said, ‘I ask you to stop this criticism. You are discussing a matter you know nothing about. Cold historic facts mean nothing here, for they give no proper interpretation of the questions involved. Mistake to send the Handcart Company out so late in the season? Yes. But I was in that company and my wife was in it…. We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? Not one of that company ever apostatized or left the Church, because everyone of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities….’ (Relief Society Magazine, January 1948, p. 8.)

It is upon our own personal holy ground that we add stories of our receiving God’s gifts to these. It is within our individual sacred space that we become acquainted with Someone who hears, who knows us, who has the ability to help, and who loves us enough to shower us with his gifts.

Jairus was a Jewish ruler. Luke informs us that Jairus’s twelve-year-old daughter was at the point of death. When all hope seemed lost, Jairus had heard that Jesus was coming, and evidently he had waited on the seashore all night anticipating the Lord’s arrival. When Jairus saw Jesus, he rushed to Him and “fell at his feet, and besought him greatly.” No time for introductions, Jairus cried, “My little daughter lieth at the point of death; I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.”

Of the father’s distress, Ted Gibbons noted,

We feel this father’s great faith and confidence in this appeal. His girl was dying. Jesus could heal her if He would. He had healed others . . . had [even] done so from a distance.

[But] their journey was interrupted by the touch of the woman with the issue of blood, and as the Savior finished speaking with her, someone from the bedside of the child came looking for her father and said to him, “Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?” (Mark 5:35).

Imagine the pain caused by those words. Christ had healed the sick. . . . But this was no longer a matter of sickness; the child was dead. “Why troublest thou the master any further?”

Don’t Listen to the Negative Voices

Jairus must have buckled under the weight of the news. But notice what Jesus did: “As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue [Jairus], Be not afraid, only believe.” Jesus would not allow a negative, alternative voice to damage Jairus’s faith. In effect, Jesus said to him, “Don’t listen to that voice. What the voice is saying is not true. It is not too late. Focus on me and let’s go to your house and save the child. The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth!” And when they arrived, Jesus took the child by the hand and commanded, “Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose, and walked.”

Jesus gave the same never-to-late message to grieving Martha at the death of her brother, Lazarus: “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Even now, though Lazarus had lain in the grave four days and all evidence pointed to his complete and unalterable demise, though he were dead, yet would he live! Although Martha was distraught, she remained focused on the Savior and His saving power: “But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.” And Jesus confirmed her faith in Him: “Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.”

And Lazarus did rise again. Jesus “cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.” This story has obvious spiritual implications.

It Is Never Too Late

We must never listen to the alternative voices or imagine that it is too late. If we persist in sanctifying ourselves, one day the Savior will come as He did to Jairus’s daughter, lay His hands on our children as it were, and they will live. President Howard W. Hunter said, “Whatever Jesus lays his hands upon lives. If Jesus lays his hands upon a marriage, it lives. If he is allowed to lay his hands on the family, it lives.”

We must believe that the Savior can call out a wayward child, as He did Lazarus, who might be decaying in the tomb of spiritual death, and though he be dead, yet the child will emerge alive. Although the child might be bound with the graveclothes of sin, the Savior will say, “Loose him, and let him go.” The promises made by the Lord’s prophets of such deliverance are sure. To participate in God’s plan of deliverance, we must sanctify ourselves and follow the direction of the Spirit.

An Example of Improbably Redemption

Consider the following account of one father’s once-wayward boy:

Our son was dead; spiritually dead, that is. Where does one begin to describe the deep sadness and the feelings of total helplessness and loss? Even these words do not adequately describe the emotional [black hole] that surrounded and imprisoned my wife and me as we watched our son rapidly and undeterred set out to destroy not only his life but also his eternal salvation and divine appointment.

Jeff’s downward slide started in his teenage years. I still can’t believe it happened, but if it can happen to Jeff it can happen to anyone. My wife and I had loved our only son, indulged him, and wanted him to have every opportunity to be happy and feel good about himself. Jeff was the all-American boy. . . . He was also a basically good kid, although he sometimes struggled with self-worth and often associated with friends who were not the best examples. During his teenage years, he began to change; he became arrogant, selfish, and argumentative. He learned to get his way by using his anger to intimidate and exasperate us. He portrayed himself as a victim. Nevertheless, he [still generally] seemed to want to do good things, and he even encouraged one of his best friends to go on a mission. Jeff helped his friend prepare by reading scriptures with him before school. His friend was older and entered the MTC three months before Jeff’s nineteenth birthday.

That inspired Jeff and he started working with the bishop to prepare his mission papers. But after several meetings with the bishop, he stomped into the house offended one night because the bishop hadn’t shown up for their appointment. For some reason, this hurt Jeff deeply. He imagined that the bishop didn’t really love or care about him.

That single event tipped Jeff over, and he decided not to serve a mission. Thereafter, Jeff lost interest in the Church and started questioning Church policy and the validity of its doctrines. He stopped attending his church meetings and fulfilling priesthood assignments. Because he was the leader of his band of friends, who were not very active, he persuaded them to also abandon their mission plans. He began to disregard all Church standards, and he started hanging out with a rough group that frequented R-rated movies and stayed out until all hours of the night. He began coming home smelling of smoke and alcohol. Then he declared himself to be agnostic.

Because Jeff was a likable, natural leader, he attracted other misfits. He brought them to our home, freely shared our food with them, and relentlessly argued with us about our rules and standards. Soon, we had to ask him to either follow our rules or live elsewhere. This angered him, but he moved out and shacked up with people who could only be described as the dregs of society. Now he was so entrenched in this debased lifestyle that he went out of his way to fight against and live opposite to every ideal and value of the Church.

Jeff began using pot and other drugs and driving under the influence. Drugs were readily available at his workplace and from his associates. . . . He engaged in gratuitous sex with his girlfriend. He began stealing from stores to get things that he wanted. When he was broke, which was often, he would drop in on us for some quick food-and, of course, he brought his drug-using friends with him and expected us to feed them. He got a tattoo on his arm, earrings, and studs in his tongue. He would arrogantly walk into the house with his friends and proudly flaunt his newly acquired attire, piercings, and opinions. He would poke fun at the Church and its standards and express how liberated he felt now that he had adopted beliefs that aligned with his behavior.

It was all we could do to not retch and cry. I wanted to slap him and shake him from this evil state. I wondered, Where did my loving boy go? Every once in a while, I would try to calmly point out the flaws of his lifestyle and the blessings of righteous living, but he always became irate. It was as though he was possessed. He was truly past feeling. Our hearts were broken. We loved him so deeply and hurt so much for him. We greatly feared for his salvation. Our beloved son was dying, and there seemed to be nothing that we could do.

My wife and I prayed hard, night and day. We came to appreciate how Alma the Elder must have felt as he prayed for his son. We wondered, If Alma the Elder could pray for something dramatic to provide his son an opportunity to change, could we not do the same? We didn’t care how the opportunity came-a visitation from an angel or just for Jeff to hit bottom-all we wanted was for something to happen to shake him loose [from Satan's hold].

Then one night, my wife had a strong impression that we needed to stop preaching to him, acting disappointed about his choices, and looking down on him and his friends, and simply love him. So that is exactly what we started to do. A change in us had to happen before a change in our son could occur. That was not a comforting thought, but one that we embraced nevertheless. Thereafter, when Jeff would criticize our lifestyle, beliefs, or the Church, we would smile, acknowledge his opinion, then ask why he felt that way or gently change the subject. My wife welcomed his friends into our home and offered them food. Being the saint that she is, she actually hoped that they might feel the Spirit in our home. On the other hand, I found it very hard to show love in this way. I had to bite my tongue on many occasions. I tried to take cues from my wife, who comes by the gift of charity more easily. She was able to genuinely radiate love to Jeff and his friends. Over time, as I watched her, I had the impression she was the angel that I had been praying for. In the end, she became the agent that made Jeff’s change possible.

Until that ordeal, I had never been able to comprehend exquisite pain and exquisite joy. Now, we had experienced both extremes. Years before, we had prayed for a son to come into our family, and when we were blessed with him, we had tried to love him unconditionally. We had nurtured, taught, sacrificed for, and tried to raise him to be a valiant child of God. Then, watching him plummet down to depths so low that he became unrecognizable caused pain worse than death. When Jeff should have been serving a mission for the Church, he was fighting against it. In fact, I call those two years his “Mission to Hell.” The answer to our prayers and the change that took place in Jeff’s life are incomprehensible to me now.

A series of significant events took place as if orchestrated from above. These events had a profound influence on our son. First, Jeff’s missionary friend was set to return, which started Jeff thinking about their relationship. With Jeff’s new lifestyle, how would he renew a friendship that was supremely important to him? This concerned Jeff and made him think more seriously about his choices.

Next, Jeff attended a rock concert, where he and some friends were smoking pot and doing mushrooms. He passed in and out of consciousness while he was listening to the music and under the influence of the drugs. He felt out of control, and he remembered thinking that imminent death was a possibility. He reported that every time he [tried to focus on] the music, he would loose consciousness again. But every time he held onto the thought of family, he would stay present and not succumb. He struggled between the two worlds. He survived, and he realized that he had been spared. After the concert, these thoughts continued to play in the back of his mind.

Finally, at work, someone secretly placed on his desk a piece of paper that outlined the difference in behaviors between a person who chose Christ and a person who chose Satan. He noted that all the behaviors listed on Satan’s column were exactly what he was doing. For some reason this conflict played right in front of him and struck a nerve. He started crying uncontrollably and couldn’t stop for a long time.

A few days passed, and when his friend returned from his mission, he and Jeff began to hang out. Jeff was still quite moved by his recent experiences and was primed for a change. He and his friend had long talks that resulted in spiritual moments. The walls of rebellion finally tumbled down. One night, in tears, Jeff came home with his returned missionary friend and another friend and asked me for a priesthood blessing. I was floored. The once-proud Jeff now stood before me genuinely broken-hearted and of a contrite spirit. He wanted God’s forgiveness. He pled for my wife’s and my forgiveness. He wept freely in our arms, expressing love, gratitude, and remorse. In the blessing I felt impressed to express to him his Savior’s undying love, His awareness of Jeff’s circumstances, and His promise of total forgiveness. Jeff received a spiritual witness of the truth of those statements.

From that day forward, Jeff asked us to be patient with him while he tried to change. Each day he gave up a different vice. From the moment of the blessing, he never took another illicit drug or engaged in any sexual behavior. He stopped smoking one day and gave up alcohol the next. Having been previously disfellowshipped, Jeff started meeting with his new bishop to restore his membership standing and his priesthood. Our once-wayward boy is home at last! Seeing him now, I want to cry out with the prodigal son’s father, “This my son was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found!”(See Luke 15:32).

Our Children Are Bound To Us

As this story illustrates, our children are bound to us through our keeping of righteous covenants-whether they come back to the fold in this life or the next. As President Joseph Fielding Smith said, “Those born under the covenant, throughout all eternity, are the children of their parents. Nothing except the unpardonable sin, or sin unto death, can break this tie. If children do not sin as John says, ‘unto death,’ the parents may still feel after them and eventually bring them back near to them again.” May we have the patience and faith to “feel after them” until the time of their redemption.

Author’s Note

This article was adapted from my book, Rescuing Wayward Children. Follow this link to learn more.)

Also, get a sample of my new 5-book series on Zion: The Three Pillars of Zion. Click here.

Mark 5:22-23.

Mark 5:23.

Ted Gibbons, Be Not Afraid – Turning to Christ in Times of Crisis, 8.

Mark 5:36, emphasis added.

See Mark 5:39.

Mark 5:41-42.

John 11:25, emphasis added.

John 11:22-23.

John 11:43-44.

Howard W. Hunter, “Reading the Scriptures,” Ensign, November 1979.

Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, Volume 2, 90.

Zion is built upon three covenants or pillars. The first of these pillars is the New and Everlasting Covenant. No doctrine has ever been revealed that is more glorious than is this covenant. When we abide in it, we remain absolutely safe. Here is an example of a faithful couple, who found safety in the Covenant.

Dear Larry,

My husband finished his Masters degree a year ago, but because the economy is in a free fall, we have not been able to find a permanent job. We sacrificed everything for this education. Our assets consist of a little furniture and one very old car. We depend on that car. We can’t imagine not having our car. Over the years that we have been in school, I have prayed daily that Heavenly Father would keep our car going and keep us safe when we drive around in it.

We make a little money doing contract work and teaching a dance class. We call it survival money: enough, but nothing extra. Nevertheless, we pay our tithing and attend to our callings. I have gained a great testimony of tithing and remaining true to our covenants. At times, when we have compared our budget to our bank balance, we have looked at each other and said, “If we go down, we will go down being square with the Lord.” Then we have swallowed hard and paid our tithing.

A couple of weeks ago our car broke down. For ten days it sat in our driveway while my husband and I struggled to find a solution. We prayed for help. We desperately needed a way to pay for the repairs, and we had nothing in the bank. The first week passed and then the second. We continued to pray. Then one day I walked out to the mailbox. Our tax refund had arrived in the amount of $400. We rejoiced, but it was short-lived. Our car was old and tired, and although we had tried to take good care of it, we had a feeling that the $400 would be a drop in the bucket.

On the second week, we decided to act on faith and take the car in for a diagnosis. We took advantage of our insurance policy’s free towing benefit. We took the car towed to a trusted mechanic.

Two days went by without word from the mechanic shop. We began to fear the worst, but our prayers continued. We tried to summon faith that the Lord would somehow present a solution, but we couldn’t image what that solution might be. We knew that our car was too old to pour a lot of money into repairs, but that we didn’t have the means to buy another car. We were stuck and didn’t know how to get out.

The third day came. I took a deep breath and called the mechanic. He knew our situation was difficult. He was as nice as anyone could be when they bare bad news. As he began to read the long list of repairs, my heart sank. He started with the front left side of the brake system and explained that the rotors must be fixed simultaneously. That would require repairing both the left and the right side. Then he paused as if to ascertain my reaction. When I asked if there was anything more, he said that the back brakes were shot too. He explained that his shop has a state licensing obligation to not leave certain repairs undone so that the car would be unsafe. He listed more problems with the car, and finally, when he was finished, the total ranged between $1200.00 and $1300.00!

I suppose by my silence he knew he had just delivered news like a doctor’s telling someone that he/she had terminal cancer. He gently asked if I wanted him to keep the car up on the hoists or take it down. I told him that I would call my husband, but I was pretty sure he would say take it down.

After I talked with my husband, I knelt down to offer a prayer. I said, “Heavenly Father, apparently you don’t feel we need a car.” That was an interesting idea, I thought. Then I told Him that I trusted Him. If we didn’t need a car, although it would be hard, we would somehow get by-but we would not abandon our trust in Him. And we would keep paying our tithing. If a solution existed, that solution would be found in keeping our covenants.

Within 30 minutes, the owner of the mechanic’s shop called back. He sounded baffled and embarrassed. The first thing he did was to reassure me that he and his employees were honest and careful. Now, I was baffled. I wondered why he was saying these things. Then he told me that the notes he had read to me were from one of his mechanics. Apparently, after he had spoken with me, he began to feel uneasy about the mechanic’s notes. He started to wonder if the notes were correct. He approached the mechanic, and together they poured over the notes. Then the mechanic took him to our car and showed him the car. At that point, they noticed all kinds of debris in the braking system. When they cleared it away they were astonished with what they discovered. There was nothing wrong with the back end of the car at all. In fact, the debris was causing the back breaks to malfunction.

Then they followed the brake line under the car and found that the brake fluid was empty. Strangely, they found no leak in the line. The shop owner explained to me that there was no way the fluid could leak out, but he had no explanation. Of course, that meant that there was no need to make that repair. Then when he and his mechanic examined the front right of the car, they discovered that what they had thought was a major problem was really only a minor one. The total bill would come to only $400, the exact amount that we had received from our tax return.

The shop owner was totally baffled. He told me that he didn’t understand how this could happen. It never had. I wanted to tell him that it was a miracle, but I resisted and just thanked him. When I hung up the phone, I knelt down and expressed my gratitude. I told Heavenly Father that He must feel that we really do need a car after all! And by the way, the next week we received a full-time job!

I can attest that staying true to our covenants and paying tithing keeps us safe in the Lord’s hands. I can also testify that there is no risk in trusting Heavenly Father.

*******************************************************************

President George Q. Cannon said:

No matter how serious the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, [God] will never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It is not His character [to do so]. He is an unchangeable being; the same yesterday, the same today, and He will be the same throughout the eternal ages to come. We have found that God. We have made Him our friend, by obeying His Gospel; and He will stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters; but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties the better and purer for them, if we only trust in our God and keep His commandments.

One of the monumental discoveries of our entering into and abiding in the New and Everlasting Covenant is God will take care of us. The Lord’s intention is to build our faith in him, not to confuse or injure that faith. Therefore, despite our misgivings, we are absolutely safe if we abide in the Covenant.

One of the greatest demonstrations of the safety of the Covenant is that of the ancient Israelites.

This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations; Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go. Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst. Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, [so that] they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.

The Lord never forsook them, although they were often weak and rebellious. He was with them both day and night. He constantly instructed them. He provided manna and water to sustain them. For four decades of wandering, they lacked nothing! Amazingly, neither their clothing nor their shoes wore out!

At the end of Jesus’ life, just before he entered Gethsemane, he reminded his apostles of their early missions when he had purposely placed them in a condition of lack to teach them of their safety in the Covenant. He accomplished this lesson by sending them out with neither purse nor scrip. Now looking back he asked them: “When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said, Nothing.” As much as the apostles needed firsthand experience with the Covenant’s safety, so do we. When we lack, we can go to the Lord, and because we are one with him in the Covenant, he will take care of us. We are safe.

Nehemiah 9:18-21, emphasis added

Luke 22:35

Within the Plan of Salvation is a personal plan of salvation for each of us. It might require the appearance of an angel, or it might come as a series of quiet steps over an extended period of time. Two things are certain: the plan is in place, and the Maker of the plan is working the plan. Here are letters from parents, who attest to the reality of God’s plan of salvation for their children…and have seen it work!

 I Am A Once-Wayward Child

Dear Larry,

I just got done reading your article about wayward children.  I can be a witness that wayward children do come around.  I gave my parents so much grief.  I started hanging around with the wrong friends, experimenting with drugs, sex, alcohol, you name it.  I would disappear for days on end with no phone call to my parents.  I put my parents through a living hell.  My parents tried everything from yelling, grounding me, to talking lovingly with me.  They even got to where they just gave me my space to do what I was going to do and just loved me from a distance (although I know it was killing them inside).  

We cannot see into the future or what Heavenly Father is doing behind the scene.  We don’t know when Heavenly Father will start to work a miracle in someone’s life.  And that is exactly what happened to me.  

I had a friend who started to change her life. She started to take some Institute classes.  She quit doing drugs and tried to talk to me about her new changes.  I brushed her off quickly as I had no intention of quitting or changing my life.  But you know, I really think something deep inside my conscience was just a little bit pricked.  The strangest things started to happen.  All of the sudden, I couldn’t even breath around cigarette smoke. I didn’t enjoy getting high on drugs anymore. I even developed a severe case of anxiety and panic attacks when I thought about going to parties. I couldn’t go anymore.

My reaction to these things was that I thought I was going crazy or perhaps I was experiencing some kind of challenging health trial. It never occurred to me that Heavenly Father was working on me. Looking back, I know that I needed those spiritual feelings and experiences to turn my life around.  I am absolutely convinced that Heavenly Father saved my life.  

As days turned into weeks and then months, I started to realize that I needed to change my life.  The one thing that stuck in my mind was my dad’s tender testimony of the gospel. I focused on that, and I eventually came to know that the Church really was true and that I needed to change. I was scared because I had a lot of serious repenting to do, but my parents were there every step of the way encouraging me and loving me.  My dad gave me some of the most precious priesthood blessings I have ever received in my life.  

There were years when my parents feared for what would become of me.  I know that my behavior tested and stretched them to the breaking point. But I can tell you that the day that I got married in the temple, all of their effort and pain was worth it. My dad hugged me in the celestial room for what seemed like five minutes, and we just cried and cried together.  It was really an amazing experience.  

I know that Heavenly Father can change lives because I am living proof.  Now that I am a parent of three small children, I know how important it is to share my testimony with my children frequently so that it sinks deep into their souls.  You never know if that will be the one thing that awakens them later and can help bring them back.

A once-wayward child

We must keep in mind that an individual’s plan of salvation is very personalized. If it happens too fast or too slowly it could destroy the child. We must keep in mind that Heavenly Father is a perfect being. That means that everything he does is perfect. We should be careful not to try and hurry him along. That would be paramount to asking him to cease being perfect. Because Heavenly Father anticipated the child’s season of waywardness and because he established a plan of salvation to rescue the child, we can be assured that the plan, including its details and its timing are as perfect as its Maker.

Seeing Progress

Dear Larry,

I don’t know if you will remember me. I once wrote you about my wayward son. We have been implementing the principles of the gospel, as you suggested, and I happy to say he is doing something positive with his life. He is now in the armed forces. He has stopped drinking anymore and seems to have some direction. He remains inactive, but amazingly, he now joins us in family prayer and Family Home Evening. It’s a start!

The pain that my wife and I felt when we thought we had lost this boy was unbearable. We watched him spiral downward, and we felt that there was nothing we could do. But we held true to our covenants and hope in the Savior, and we survived that difficult season with the love our Father in Heaven. The guidance we have in this gospel is priceless!!!!!!

Thanks again,

A Father Seeing Progress

We must remember that redemption is the work of God. Parents are not immediately equipped to do such an exalted work. They need to learn spiritual skills, which require that they sanctify their lives. It is a gospel irony that we must work on ourselves before we can work on others, and yet it is true. We purify our lives to eliminate contaminants and pollutants; then we sanctify our lives, which term means to change our purpose. For example, on Sunday the priests take common bread, bless and sanctify it, and now the brad has a new purpose. Similarly, parents need to draw on the transforming power of their covenants to sanctify their lives (change their purpose) from caregivers, nurturers, disciplinarians and friends to saviors on Mount Zion. Then they are in a position to better partner with God to facilitate a conversion opportunity for their wayward children.

Looking Back with Gratitude

Dear Larry,

Your article made me ponder the past fifteen years and how things have changed in our family. Of our six children, we had two wayward sons. They truly broke our hearts. My husband and I aren’t perfect parents, but we tried to do our best. When our sons strayed, we felt as though all we had taught them and all our sacrifices were for nothing.

Our oldest son was on a mission when his two brothers fell away. As a mission mother, I quickly learned that agonizing over my son, who was so far away, was wasted energy. That piece of information became my anchor. My husband and I knew we could do very little for our wayward sons, but we could earnestly pray for them. We also tried to reach out and be supportive to them without stepping over the line and enabling them. We focused our attention on maintaining the relationship, and we always let them know our love was unconditional and steadfast.

My husband and I put their names on the temple prayer roll often, and we began to attend the temple more regularly. We tried to increase our commitment to our callings and become more steadfast in keeping our covenants. We drew our other children as close to us as we could. During this time (late teens and early twenties), both boys used drugs and were involved in illegal. We didn’t know what would happen to them or how this terrible situation would ever turn around.

Fast-forward fifteen years. Now one son is 31 and married with two children. He is active in the Church, and he and his wife and children attend Church us most Sundays. He is married to a nonmember but they both try to be good parents and are clean and are close to us. When I look at him now, I am amazed at the change. When he was 18, he moved out on his birthday and we hardly saw him for a few years. Now he lives in our area by choice. Miracles can happen! I testify of this.

The other son is 28. He is going to be sealed to his wife and daughter in July. Both he and his wife are active in the Church. They are committed to the gospel and to one another to and their little girl. He is going to college and has a wonderful career path planned.

Of course, both of our sons live with the consequences of their choices, but they have come so far and are headed in the right direction, I have learned the power of prayer, personal sanctification and trusting in the Lord and his timing. Your remarks were so true about Alma the Elder and how he implemented gospel principles to help bring back his wayward son. When I read that story, I knew that Heavenly Father loved my sons as much as He did Alma’s son. I also knew that my sons were Heavenly Father’s sons before they were mine. With that trust, I was able to put my sons into His hands and things began to happen. Some things were hard, and those incidents humbled my sons and caused them to wake

It can happen! This is my testimony. Thank you for writing about such a difficult topic that so many of us deal with.

Looking Back with Gratitude

And I would add, thank you to these parents for sharing their experiences and giving the rest of us hope.

President Hinckley said, “I leave my blessing upon you. May there be…a sense of security and peace and love among your children, precious children every one of them, even those who may have strayed. I hope you don’t lose patience with them; I hope you go on praying for them, and I don’t hesitate to promise that if you do, the Lord will touch their hearts and bring them back to you with love and respect and appreciation.”  

Invitation

This article was adapted from my newly released book Rescuing Wayward Children.

The following story is disturbingly common:

“Marie,” a mother in Arizona, wrote, “Nothing could have prepared me for the excruciating pain of my first delivery. I had thought that I wanted to have the full experience, so I turned down the epidural. I did fine for the first few hours, and then my water broke. The sudden, blinding pain was more than I could bear, and I was only dilated to ’3′-I had hours to go. When the nurse offered me the epidural, I gladly agreed. In fact, when the doctor was delayed because he was treating another patient, I began to panic. I couldn’t get relief from the pain fast enough. At the time, I thought, Who would knowingly go through pregnancy and delivery again? But for as much pain as I experienced that day, it was nothing compared to the spiritual suffering I experienced when that same, sweet little boy chose drugs over school, immorality over chastity, friends over family–he abandoned the Church and broke my heart.”

Mormon was not just an observer of the future; Mormon was a prophet with remedies for the latter-day epidemic of waywardness. If we parents will internalize his message, we need not stand by and wring our hands. Powerful gospel tools are at our disposal, which arm us so that we can actively attack this problem and win. The Book of Mormon, modern-day prophets, and the Lord have promised!

The Book of Mormon Parallel

To help us, Mormon chose powerful examples from his history that would correspond with his vision of the last days. Regarding waywardness, he chose the story of Alma the Elder and his son.

To set up the story, Mormon related an important incident regarding the Nephite “pioneers,” whom the Lord had delivered and brought to their land of promise. The similarity between the Nephite pioneers and our forefathers does not escape us. Those stalwart parents, who had sacrificed so much to establish their Zion in Zarahemla were now rearing children who did not believe, as had their parents. Here is how Mormon describes these children of the next generation: 

Now it came to pass that there were many of the rising generation that could not understand the words of king Benjamin, being little children at the time he spake unto his people; and they did not believe the tradition of their fathers. They did not believe what had been said concerning the resurrection of the dead, neither did they believe concerning the coming of Christ. And now because of their unbelief they could not understand the word of God; and their hearts were hardened. And they would not be baptized; neither would they join the church. And they were a separate people as to their faith, and remained so ever after, even in their carnal and sinful state; for they would not call upon the Lord their God.

This frightening account of children abandoning their parents’ beliefs and following paths of carnality and sin is played out in too many LDS families. Mormon made the point that no set of parents, not even the king of the land or the prophet of God, is safe from the effects of the plague of wayward children: “Now the sons of Mosiah were numbered among the unbelievers; and also one of the sons of Alma was numbered among them, he being called Alma, after his father….” Clearly, Satan can reach into any family and snatch away any of our innocent children.

No Grief is as Acute

Of course, when this happens to us, we feel grief-stricken, isolated, ashamed and guilty. In vain we internalize and personalize the child’s bad behavior: “What did I do wrong? Why didn’t I see this coming?” We groan under the weight of apparent scriptural indictments: “And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents…And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.”

Perhaps worst, we feel helpless to change things. Should we employ tough love and risk destroying the relationship? Or should we silently watch and mourn and risk losing the child completely? Where are the answers? Where is power to change things?

There is an Answer

Mormon knew what parents could do. So did the ancient prophets, and so do the modern prophets. It is a common scriptural and prophetic theme. We begin with admission: the sickness of spiritual waywardness is a spiritual problem that needs a spiritual remedy. To lay the groundwork for spiritual healing to occur, we need at least three spiritual tools:

1. Perspective. We need to remember that the Fall has rendered us significantly impotent. We feel sin ever beckoning us, and we cannot escape the realities of corruption, aging, disease and opposition. Clearly, mortality is a hard experience for our children and for us.
2. Grace. We cannot make it alone. The Fall would be an impossible situation to negotiate without divine intervention and help. Only Jesus Christ can give us the strength to persevere, overcome. and do good works.
3. Strength. Strength to do what? We seek strength to change our circumstance–not to eliminate it. We seek strength to believe in and draw upon the power of the Atonement, where there is infinite power to affect a change. We seek strength to believe that the Lord is bound to us by covenant, and therefore there are promises that we can count on. We can tap into the Lord’s power and change our situation.

For parents to become agents of change and people who are capable of acting in the strength of the Lord, we must reevaluate our level of belief in the Plan of Redemption and adopt a new perspective. Perhaps we need to reexamine our faith and ask ourselves some questions.

• Do we simply believe that Christ exists, or do we believe who he really is-the Deliverer?
• Do we believe that the gospel is a nice culture, or a vibrant system of reclaiming and redemptive tools?
• Is our child’s waywardness indicative of our personal failing, or is his waywardness indicative of a divine trust?
• Did Heavenly Father foresee this season of spiritual sickness, or did it catch him off guard? 
• If he knew about it, did he plan for it? 
• Am I alone? Do I have to fret and come up with a plan to save my child, or is there already a plan of salvation in place, and I just need to learn and do my part?
• If what I am going through is a calling rather than a curse, was I prepared for it? Can I count on God making me equal to my calling?

So what do we learn from Mormon? Why did he direct our attention to wayward Alma and the wayward sons of Mosiah? The answer lies in what Alma the Elder did: He sanctified himself. Rather than put his energy into changing his son, he put his energy into changing himself, and that effort facilitated a spiritual awakening for his son.

This is the lesson that we learn from Alma the Elder: Every effort that parents make to increase their level of sanctification has a direct redeeming effect on their children. In other words, the redeemed parents partner with the Redeemer to do the redeeming. Therefore, we do not have to sit by and helplessly watch a child spin out of control. We can go to work, and the primary work we will do is on ourselves. Speaking of this principle and stating a promise, Brigham Young said,

Let the father and mother, who are members of this Church and Kingdom, take a righteous course, and strive with all their might never to do a wrong, but to do good all their lives; if they have one child or one hundred children, if they conduct themselves towards them as they should, binding them to the Lord by their faith and prayers, I care not where those children go, they are bound up to their parents by an everlasting tie, and no power of earth or hell can separate them from their parents in eternity; they will return again to the fountain from whence they sprang.

The gospel of Jesus Christ absolutely holds the spiritual solution for spiritual waywardness.

Divine Positioning

The gospel centers on redemption. Period. Redemption is the primary work of the Gods. Redemption is also the work that we signed up to do, because we desired to become like the Gods. Therefore, redemption is the work that we will be doing throughout eternity. Is it any wonder then that God gives us opportunities to learn redemptive skills? Clearly, God has redemption in mind when he places struggling children with faithful parents. How could we believe otherwise? Do we really believe that God, who created and organized the universe, simply rolls the dice and hopes for the best when he sends children into our families?

Elder Neal A. Maxwell called family placement “divine appointment,” or we might say divine positioning. This organizational method often calls for weak children to be placed with strong parents, strong children to be placed with weak parents, or strong individuals to marry into weak families. Why? To do the work of redemption. BYU professor, Catherine Thomas, said, “God may place spiritually challenging children in homes of spiritual and conscientious parents for their mutual benefit.”

Possibly countless ages of divine premortal observation and planning determined our children’s mortal placement. Beyond every other consideration our children’s familial placement was meant to rescue them and to magnify their opportunity to advance toward exaltation. Even the difficulties they would experience could serve to save and exalt them. Heavenly Father’s house is a house of order!

Sweeping Prophetic Promises

Of course, nothing trumps agency, and no guarantee could ever been made that a child will ultimately choose to turn from a life of waywardness. Nevertheless, these principles are so powerful that the prophets have used very little qualifying language in making universal and incredible promises. The atonement has a much greater reach than we might imagine. Joseph Smith said, “Our Heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in his mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive.”

Then come the promises:

 ”There is never a time when the spirit is too old to approach God. All are within the reach of pardoning mercy.”–Joseph Smith

 ”God hath made a provision that every spirit in the eternal world can be ferreted out and saved.” –Joseph Smith

 ”I tell you that when the prophets and apostles go to preach to those who are shut up in prison, thousands of them will embrace the Gospel. They know more in that world than they do here.”– Wilford Woodruff

 ”When the gospel is preached to the spirits in prison, the success attending that preaching will be far greater than that attending the preaching of our elders in this life. I believe there will be very few indeed of those spirits who will not gladly receive the gospel when it is carried to them. The circumstances there will be a thousand times more favorable.”–Lorenzo Snow

 ”God has fulfilled His promises to us, and our prospects are grand and glorious. Yes, in the next life we will have our wives, and our sons and daughters. If we do not get them all at once, we will have them some time…. You that are mourning about your children straying away will have your sons and your daughters. If you succeed in passing through these trials and afflictions…you will, by the power of the priesthood, work and labor, as the Son of God has, until you get all your sons and daughters in the path of exaltation and glory. This is just as sure as that the sun rose this morning over yonder mountains. Therefore, mourn not because all your sons and daughters do not follow in the path that you have marked out to them, or give heed to your counsels. Inasmuch as we succeed in securing eternal glory, and stand as saviors, and as kings and priests to our God, we will save our posterity.” – Lorenzo Snow

“Jesus had not finished his work when his body was slain, neither did he finish it after his resurrection from the dead; although he had accomplished the purpose for which he then came to the earth, he had not fulfilled all his work. And when will he? Not until he has redeemed and saved every son and daughter of our father Adam that have been or ever will be born upon this earth to the end of time, except the sons of perdition. That is his mission. We will not finish our work until we have saved ourselves, and then not until we shall have saved all depending upon us; for we are to become saviors upon Mount Zion, as well as Christ. We are called to this mission.” — Joseph F. Smith

“You parents of the wilful and the wayward! Don’t give them up. Don’t cast them off. They are not utterly lost. The Shepherd will find his sheep. They were his before they were yours–long before he entrusted them to your care; and you cannot begin to love them as he loves them. They have but strayed in ignorance from the Path of Right, and God is merciful to ignorance. Only the fulness of knowledge brings the fulness of accountability. Our Heavenly Father is far more merciful, infinitely more charitable, than even the best of his servants, and the Everlasting Gospel is mightier in power to save than our narrow finite minds can comprehend.”–Orson F. Whitney

“The Prophet Joseph Smith declared-and he never taught a more comforting doctrine-that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God.” –Orson F. Whitney

 ”Those born under the covenant, throughout all eternity, are the children of their parents. Nothing except the unpardonable sin, or sin unto death, can break this tie. If children do not sin as John said, ‘unto death,’ the parents may still feel after them and eventually bring them back near to them again.”–Joseph Fielding Smith

 ”I leave my blessing upon you. May there be…a sense of security and peace and love among your children, precious children every one of them, even those who may have strayed. I hope you don’t lose patience with them; I hope you go on praying for them, and I don’t hesitate to promise that if you do, the Lord will touch their hearts and bring them back to you with love and respect and appreciation.”–Gordon B. Hinckley

Such optimism from the prophets for eventual success should kindle hope within any parent’s despairing heart. These empowering principles and promises should be good news for us. Rather than languishing in hopelessness, while watching our children die spiritually, we can employ the sanctifying principles found in the Plan of Redemption and expect miracles to happen.

And miracles do happen!

There is Hope

The powerful principles in the Plan of Salvation are within the reach of anyone who is willing to exert the effort. Is there a need? A survey of any ward in the Church or a scan of Conference talks should provide the answer. Spiritual waywardness is epidemic. You are not alone! In fact you are in good company. Some of the best parents who have ever lived have struggled with wayward children–so much so that one begins to wonder if this situation is not common to the mortal experience. Perhaps a wayward child is not a curse after all; maybe the child is a trust. Nevertheless, this epidemic was foretold in the scriptures, and a remedy was prescribed. Once parents become acquainted with these redemptive principles, miracles often happen.

The divine resources that are available to us are amazingly expansive, and the vast body of confirming evidence of eventual success is overwhelming. Therefore, to discount the Lord’s power to reclaim, even from incredible distances, or to minimize the power that the Lord has placed within our reach is to disparage the redeeming power of the infinite and universal atonement of Jesus Christ.

Absolutely, there is hope.

Invitation

This article was adapted from my newly released book Rescuing Wayward Children. I invite you to join my new Facebook group called “Rescuing Wayward Children.” 

Mosiah 27:8

D&C 68:25, 28

Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 208

M. Catherine Thomas, “Alma the Younger, Part 1,” Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

For example, see 1 Corinthians 10:13; Romans 8:28; Ether 12:27

D&C 132:8

Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 257

Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 191

Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 356-57

G. Homer Durham, ed., The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p. 152

[xii] Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Latter-day Prophets Speak: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Church Presidents, p.35

Lorenzo Snow, The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow, p. 195

Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith, p. 442, emphasis added

Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, April 1929, p. 110

Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, April 1929, p.110

Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol 2, p. 90

Gordon B. Hinckley, Address given to the Saints in Great Britain, August 1995

My article today is not long or profound; it is simply one of gratitude. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the example of my son, Matthew, who had suffered over the last three years from the effects of kidney failure, hemophilia, hepatitis, West Nile Virus, cancer, respiratory failure and grand mal seizures. After he had survived all of these maladies, and when, after multiple attempts and failures to find a matching donor, he finally was scheduled for a kidney transplant only to lose the opportunity hours before surgery because of a rare blood chemistry shift. Amazingly, the response of Matt and Kristin, his wife, was to regroup around their faith, declare their allegiance to God, and move forward toward the promised miracle.

But nevertheless, we were faced with a dilemma. The possibility of a matching kidney now seemed more remote than ever. Over the last year, we had tried almost every family member and come up short. On top of everything else, Matt had developed antibodies to eleven common antigens. Essentially, he is allergic to most kidneys. Remarkably, his sister, Katie, emerged as a perfect match, like an identical twin, but she was rejected twice because the anatomy of her kidneys made harvesting one of them risky. But she was not to be denied. After Matt’s latest disappointment on March 5th, she tried again. The family had prayed and fasted one more time, asking for a miracle. Several days later, the surgeons huddled and determined that the head surgeon could, indeed, perform the surgery on Katie, and she was offered the position.

And just like that, we had a donor!

The day after Matt’s latest disappointment, I observed Matt and Kristin’s response and wrote an article for Meridian called, “Why I Believe in God.” The article referenced the title of Matt’s journal and Kristin’s and his declaration of faith. In response to the article, our family was suddenly overwhelmed with love from well-wishers all over the world. Offers to help poured in. Some readers shared their stories or found strength in Matt and Kristin’s story. Others placed his name on temple rolls, prayed, and entered into fasts. We felt your strength. We were exhausted, and you buoyed us up. I am convinced that this is the condition of Zion-a situation of love and the absence of lack. Having written about this subject for years, I came away from this experience believing that there are many saints who could easily segue into the priesthood society of Zion at a moment’s notice, because they are already Zion people.

I am sitting here in the surgical waiting room with Buffie, my wife, Kristin, Matt’s wife, and Jason Purdie, Katie’s husband. Kristin just took a call. The surgeons have just removed Katie’s kidney successfully, and they are preparing it to transplant into Matt. So far, so good. We are tired. We took a survey, and the most sleep any of us received last night was two hours. We started at 4:30 a.m, and now we have settled in for a five-hour wait. Jason and I gave blessings to both Katie and Matt. The image of the Israelites’ day of deliverance came to mind. I tried to imagine what it must have been like to one day be a slave and the next day become a free man, walking away forever from bondage. How many prayers and tears preceded that day of days? I suppose that many people lost faith that life could ever be different. Perhaps some people stopped praying all together, imaging that their prayers were vain. I am reminded of verses in Malachi 3.

Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.

That is to say, what good has it done us to serve God and keep the commandments? We look around us and see wicked people apparently happy and prospering, and yet we, who have tried to be obedient, suffer in the bondage of our circumstances, and see no relief in sight. Why are wicked delivered and we continue to languish in captivity? Where is our deliverance? Has God forgotten us?

Then, the Lord’s answer:

Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.

That is to say, the Lord absolutely remembers us. In fact, a book of remembrance is kept in heaven. This book records the sufferings, declarations of faith, acts of patience, and the manifestations of devotion to God. The Lord hearkens to such people. He knows and loves those who take upon themselves and remember his name despite all odds. God claims such people as his own; they are his jewels, his most prized possessions. He promises to spare them and care for them as would a father, who cares for his devoted son.

We are not forgotten after all. We are being “written up” and polished. When our story is completed and when our shine is the brightest, the Lord will declare, “It is enough; it is finished.” Then with a strong hand, he will deliver us. He is called the Deliverer for good reason. We can count on his fulfilling that title.

We have been in the surgical waiting room a long time now. Recently, Katie’s surgeon told us that her surgery went perfectly and she is in recovery. Matt’s surgery was going equally well, and he said he had “a good feeling.” Over the past roller-coaster year, after the eight tries and seven disappointments, I have wondered why. Why do Matt and Kristin have to continue going through this agony? Why so hard? Why the delay? Then the Spirit whispered, “This has more to do with your family’s education than for Matt and Kristin’s education.” Then I remembered that every eligible person has stepped forward and invested in the outcome. This is no small decision. Considering the donation of an organ is a sanctifying event that teaches you something about the Atonement that is very personal. You can never again look at people the same way. If giving my family an experience with the Atonement was the Lord’s goal, he certainly succeeded. We will never forget this event; we all took ownership.

Matt’s surgeon just met with Kristin and informed her that Katie’s kidney that had been placed in Matt is functioning perfectly, as if it was his own. What a miracle we have experienced! Only a few weeks ago, we felt as though we were doomed to the darkness of midnight, but now we see the sun breaking on the horizon.

As we gather up our things and wait for the call giving us permission to visit Katie and Matt, I am reminded of an incident when the apostles were attempting a sea crossing by night.

     And when even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land.
     And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.
     But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out:
     For they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered.

When we find ourselves toiling in the midst of the sea, the wind contrary to us-when we are afraid and troubled, encompassed by the blackness of the “fourth watch,” the darkest time of night, when we cry out, he will speak to us “immediately,” saying, “Be of good cheer. It is I; be not afraid.” Then he will board our fragile vessel, take a seat beside us, calm the wind and storm, and navigate us safely to shore.

It is a truth. I have witnessed it time and again. And I have witnessed it once more today. Thank you for your prayers and support.

When I think back over the last three years, I wonder how anyone could have survived such an ordeal. In July 2006, Matt’s kidney failed. He only had one-mine. I had donated it to him in 1990 when both of his kidneys abruptly failed. He was only fifteen. Now he had carried around my kidney for 16 years, and it was getting old and sick. Matt had been nursing it along for the last year. The doctors had ordered several ultrasounds, and each time they had seen a couple of troubling spots, but the biopsies had come back negative. No cancer…or so we supposed.

To complicate things, Matt was born with severe hemophilia, a bleeding disorder that prevents his blood from coagulating. Because hemophiliacs hemorrhage into joints, and because blood acts like an acid on joints, causing arthritis, both of Matt’s ankles have been fused. Perhaps worse, over the years that he had received blood products to coagulate his blood, he had become infected with hepatitis C. When the doctors prescribed Interferon to clear the disease from his liver, they informed him that the Interferon could kill his kidney. Even then, they only gave him a 20 percent chance that the treatment would arrest the hepatitis.

Faced with two impossible choices, Matt chose a third alternative: Turn it over to God. That is the way he has always handled things. His faith would sustain him, but little did we know that he was about to enter the worst set of trials of his life. Matt calls it his crucible.

Remembering the First Kidney Transplant

Today is March 5, 2009. Tomorrow morning, my wife, Buffie, and I had planned to arise at 4:30 so that we could be at University Hospital in Salt Lake City for Matt’s kidney transplant. Our son-in-law, Ryan, was scheduled to be the donor. Ryan was the last of a long list of potential donors, who, over the past ten months, were cancelled out for one reason or another. Buffie and I would have been accompanied at the hospital by our daughter, Lindsay, who is Ryan’s wife, Kristin, who is Matt’s wife, and Ryan’s parents, Lee and Tani.

The last few days have filled me with emotional memories. When I donated a kidney to Matt in 1990, I thought I was pretty tough. Then when the day came to check into the hospital, I fell apart. I was scared. Tears came easily, and I was embarrassed. A few days ago, Ryan asked me some questions about the upcoming operation, and soon he had to stand up and leave the room. Lindsay asked me to stop explaining.

My donating a kidney totally changed my life. On one occasion I told Ryan that being a donor is an experience that I would not deny anyone, especially a man. Whereas a woman can give birth, the experience of giving life escapes a man. When his wife is giving birth, he might appreciate what is happening, but he cannot quite understand the miracle that his wife is experiencing.

To give of your body so that someone might live approximates the Atonement. Donating a body part is as though the testimony of the Atonement is being carved into your being. Suddenly, the Atonement is no longer theoretical. In a very real way, the Atonement is part of you. You gain an in-depth appreciation of the Savior that you might not achieve otherwise, not even through temple proxy work. You can never look at people the same way. The entire focus of your life changes. Being a donor defines your life. It is never forgotten by the family. It becomes part of the family’s heritage. The blessings seem to redound to other family members and everyone who is touched by the event.

Ryan is our latest hero. Our other children who also tried to be donors are heroes: Gavon, Rebecca, Katie and Justin. The friends who stepped forward are heroes, too. It is no more possible to express our gratitude to them for trying to save our son’s life than to express gratitude to the Savior for saving our eternal lives. All of them understand something about the Savior that they never knew before, and they are forever changed.

The Crucible

In the summer of 2006, Matt was in and out of the hospital repeatedly. He was experiencing kidney failure, but some of his symptoms were atypical. But because he was growing worse, the doctors determined to remove the failing kidney, which they usually don’t do. Perhaps the Interferon to clear the hepatitis from the liver was the culprit. Even after the kidney was removed, Matt’s symptoms persisted which was a mystery to the doctors.
Matt began dialysis. We hoped it would be a temporary fix until he could receive a transplant in a couple of months. Little did we know that he would spend the next 2 ½ years confined to a dialysis chair–four hours a day, three times a week. During those years he would forget what it felt like to feel well. Whereas a kidney will completely clean the entire blood supply every 1-2 minutes, dialysis cleans the blood supply with 30% efficiency every two days. The buildup of toxins leaves a dialysis patient constantly exhausted and often feeling sick.

If hepatitis, kidney failure and dialysis weren’t big enough bombshells, the next piece of news was. When the doctors removed the kidney from Matt’s body, they discovered that it was cancerous after all-renal cell carcinoma, a very deadly cancer. More tests would be required to see if the cancer had spread. If it had, it would most certainly kill him. The initial results were promising, but to make sure, Matt would have to remain on dialysis for at least two years, long enough to rule out any possibility that the cancer would return. If the doctors decided to immediately give Matt another kidney, his immune system would have to be suppressed so that he would not reject the kidney. If there was even a trace of cancer in his system, his suppressed immune system would not be able to fight back, and the cancer would quickly overwhelm him.

But there was more bad news to come. Matt’s health continued to spiral downward, and trips to the emergency room became a normal occurrence. Buffie and I shuddered every time the phone rang in the middle of the night. To allow Kristin to stay at home with their three little girls, I became the driver. Typically, we would end up at University Hospital, some 40 miles north of us, where Matt’s specialists were located.

By August, we were becoming more and more concerned for Matt’s life. Due to respiratory failure, which he would experience again, he was in Intensive Care on a ventilator in an induced coma. One day, after prayer and contemplation, Buffie came to me and said, “I think Matt has West Nile Virus.” She was so certain that she insisted that he press the doctors to begin testing. The doctors reacted with skepticism, but agreed to test. What could it hurt to check it out? They learned a lesson that I learned early in my marriage-Believe a mother’s feelings. Sure enough, Buffie had been right; the tests came back positive. The doctors discovered that Matt had been suffering with West Nile Virus for at least three months. That had been the cause of his illness, not kidney failure.

Suddenly, we realized that a strange miracle had occurred. If Matt hadn’t contracted West Nile Virus, which had caused the symptoms that prompted the doctors to remove Matt’s kidney in the first place, the cancerous kidney would still be in him. It is rare for doctors to remove a failing kidney. They would rather keep it in and avoid another surgery, especially in a hemophilia patient. If the kidney had remained, the cancer would have spread, hastened by the transplant, and before anyone could have diagnosed the cancer it would have been too late. Therefore, in a remarkable set of circumstances, God had preserved Matt’s life with the West Nile Virus!

I would like to report that Matt and Kristin sailed through these adversities without a hiccup in their faith. But that would not be true. Even Job and Joseph Smith suffered lapses when the crush of adversity became overwhelming. Matt reminds me that most of the book on 1 Nephi is about the journey and not about arriving. But each time they have been beaten down, they have somehow found a way to get back up, find their way back to God and try again. Despite what they are feeling inside, they exhibit faith in public, and that is why they continue to inspire people who are also carrying tremendous loads. It is okay to hurt; it is okay to lapse; it is just not okay to abandon God or accuse him.

Other Miracles

Matt is no stranger to miracles. When he was twelve, I was impressed that he needed a special priesthood blessing. We had been hearing about a strange new virus called HIV that might be infecting the blood pool from which the clotting factor for hemophiliacs was manufactured. In Matt’s blessing, he was promised protection and a long life. He needed that protection. Late one night, Buffie and I received an urgent call from the pharmaceutical company that the batch of medicine we had on hand was contaminated with HIV. We had given Matt an infusion from that batch only hours earlier.

A few years later, we came to more fully appreciate the power of that priesthood blessing. During the 1980s, some 95% of hemophiliac boys were infected with HIV and many died of AIDS. Buffie’s cousin was one of the casualties. Almost an entire generation of hemophiliac males was wiped out within a matter of years by their simply taking medicine. But Matt was spared. His case was so remarkable that the doctors asked for a blood sample for research. There was no question that Matt had been exposed to HIV multiple times, but he never tested positive for the antibody. The doctors couldn’t figure out why, but we knew. You can’t see a priesthood blessing under a microscope.

Matt was the recipient of another set of miracles in 1990, when he needed his first kidney transplant. During that time, Buffie and I were testing to see who could donate, when I was abruptly cancelled out. This troubled me because six months before Matt’s kidneys failed I had received a strange impression that I would someday donate a kidney. The reason for my being canceled out was because I had nearly died of nephritis when I was eleven. Nephritis is a complication of strep throat that attacks kidneys. The doctors told me that my kidneys were likely damaged and I couldn’t donate. I took my concern to the Lord, and felt an impression to go to my bishop, ask for a blessing, and my kidneys would be fine.

After the blessing, I begged the doctors to reconsider. When they finally consented, they discovered that my kidneys were perfect. I became the first nephritis patient to ever donate a kidney, and Matt was only the second hemophiliac to receive a kidney transplant. We were so rare that our case was written up in a medical journal.

Matt’s miracles would continue. Early in their marriage, Matt and Kristin discovered that they could not conceive children. On the fertility scale, Matt was almost non-existent. To complicate things, Kristin was suffering with endometriosis that eventually cost her one ovary and almost the second. To save the remaining damaged ovary, the surgeon scraped and wrapped it in gauze and hoped for the best. After the surgery, Kristin was given Lupron, a drug to arrest the endometriosis by sending her into temporary menopause.
The combination of the operation and the sudden cessation of hormones caused her to become sick and put on weight, cruelly mimicking pregnancy. Worse, she developed a large stomach obtrusion that the doctors feared was a tumor. Almost seven months into the treatment, the doctors ordered an ultrasound that the lump was not a tumor, but a baby! A previous priesthood blessing had guaranteed Matt and Kristin would have children. Once again, we experienced the unequalled power of the priesthood. But the miracles didn’t stop there. Now they have one adopted daughter and two natural daughters-from parents who were physically incapable of having children.

The Price of Blessings

Of course, all blessings come with a price. Matt was now dealing with hepatitis C, renal cell carcinoma, dialysis, and West Nile Virus, and of course his ongoing hemophilia. I remember the words of an early priesthood blessing, one of many that would follow. The language compared Matt’s ordeal to stepping into a fiery furnace, as did the three Hebrew youths. He was promised, as were they, that one day he would emerge from the furnace without even the smell of smoke on his clothes. Until then, the Lord would stand with him in the furnace and protect him. From that point forward, he has lived from prayer to prayer, fast to fast, and blessing to blessing. Nothing except the intervention of God could have seen him through.

Now the fun began. The West Nile Virus sapped Matt’s energy. He began to go downhill fast. During those months, he hadn’t the strength to climb a set of stairs to his bedroom. He would spend hours, sitting in his front room, staring out the window at people living their lives normally, and wondering what it would feel like to walk to the mailbox and retrieve the mail. Twice, Matt became so weak that he felt his spirit try to separate from his body. He would struggle to hang on, knowing that if he relaxed he would be gone. He experienced fainting spells. He labored to get enough oxygen in his lungs. Twice, he went into respiratory failure, and he was placed on a ventilator in an induced coma.

I lost count of how many times I rushed him to the emergency room. Once, I rushed to his home, only to find him losing consciousness. He looked at me hopelessly, and said, “I can’t hold on anymore.” We called the paramedics, who transported him to the hospital. On another occasion, he experienced several grand mal seizures and was spitting up blood. We called the paramedics again. My older son, Gavon, and I arrived at the hospital moments later only to see Matt thrashing about with another seizure. The seizures had been caused by West Nile Virus and out-of-control blood pressure that skyrocketed to stroke levels then plummeted to the point that he would lose consciousness. The doctors feared that his heart had been damaged by the onslaught.

One morning, after he had been released from the hospital, Buffie and I drove to Matt and Kristin’s house to watch the children while Kristin took Matt to the doctors in Salt Lake. When he opened the door, nothing could have prepared us for the shock of seeing him. Overnight, his hair had turned silvery gray and his skin had turned a dark bronze. He ended up being admitted. The doctors couldn’t explain by his hair had suddenly turned gray, but they guessed that it might have happened because of the intense trauma brought on by the seizures. The jaundiced skin was another guess-maybe the hepatitis in his liver or perhaps a temporarily blocked gall bladder or liver duct.

Finding a Donor

Over time, many of the severe symptoms of his conditions declined, and life settled into a routine. Dialysis on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; part-time work at LDS Family Services on Tuesday and Thursday. (Matt is a therapist there.) The weekends were reserved for Kristin and the girls. The fact that we had come this far was truly a miracle. The priesthood blessings were being fulfilled. The cancer had not spread and the hepatitis was gone. The West Nile Virus had become less troublesome. He was experiencing bouts of paralysis because his dialysis catheter was failing, causing his Ph and electrolyte levels to rollercoaster. But another surgery to replace the catheter resolved that problem. Overall, Matt was recovering-enough so, that the doctors cleared him to receive a transplant. He had remained cancer-free for two years, and that was the echelon to proceed with the transplant.

Why we thought finding a matching kidney would be a slam-dunk, I do not know. Nothing had ever come easily for Matt and Kristin. Divine intervention had always been required. Finding a kidney donor would be no different.

In the summer of 2008, we started with Gavon, our oldest. He was cancelled out abruptly by a condition that we never had supposed. That was when we first heard that Matt had antibodies to many common antigens in the blood. Basically, he was allergic to the makeup of most kidneys. Over the months, seven people tried and failed to become a donor. No matter what, we could not find a match.

Our son, Gavon, tried three separate times, and failed. Our daughter, Rebecca, tried and failed. Our son-in-law, Justin, tried and failed. Several friends, tried and failed. Then our daughter, Katie wanted to try, but she had just had a baby. The doctors insisted that she wait for three months. When she finally began to test, she emerged as a perfect match-like an identical twin. We were elated! Finally, we had a solution.

Katie sailed through the tests, and the doctors were ready to set a transplant date. By October, she only had one more test to go, and that was supposed to be a cinch. This test was just to help the doctors plan the surgery. Early that morning of the test, Matt was awakened by the transplant office and offered another kidney. A 15-year-old girl had passed away and her kidney was a good match. Matt thought about it for a few minutes then turned it down. After all, his sister was a perfect match, and she was taking the last test that morning. Buffie and I had gone to the temple that day. When we returned, we received a call from our sobbing daughter. She had failed the last test because the arteries emerging from both of her kidneys were only half an inch long–not nearly long enough to splice into Matt.

So just like that, Matt lost two kidneys in one day.

Why I Believe in God

That was a bad day. We were out of options. Matt responded with typical faith. He didn’t want just any kidney, he would say, he wanted the kidney. God had promised, and he would deliver. Matt saw his responsibility as enduring cheerfully in faith. We knew that he and Kristin were hurting. We saw the tears; we heard the anger. But we also watched them regroup and return to God, who had always sustained them. Both the intensity of their trials and their ultimate response to them left us shaking our heads.

After that, Matt began to write down his experiences in a journal with the hope of helping other people. For several months, while he sat in a dialysis chair, he would remember his trials and the Lord’s mercies. Then on Christmas day, he presented the journal to us. He called it “Why I Believe in God.”

I wonder if I would have that level of courage? I wonder if I could cry my allegiance to God over and over despite the setbacks and the disappointments?
Today, the transplant was canceled just hours before the surgery, and Matt and Kristin are being tried again. Today marks the third time they had come within an inch of liberty only to be thrust back into captivity. In a bizarre twist of fate, Matt’s chemistries changed within the last few weeks, leaving him incompatible with Ryan. No one knows why. It just happened. Maybe because the doctors gave him an immunization shot a month ago. Ryan and Lindsay can’t stop crying; neither can Kristin, Buffie and the rest of the family. Matt is too numb to cry. He just stands in his living room and stares at all the gifts from congratulating friends. Literally hundreds of people are invested in the outcome. We’ve spent hours calling people to undo the preparations: Relief Society dinners, babysitting schedules, transportation. It feels like waiting nine months for a baby, then coming home empty-handed because the child was stillborn. Now, with all hope dashed, Matt and Kristin have to find a way once again to dig down deep into that place of crucible where prophets were purified and polished and emerged as gold. And remarkably they did.
No Risk in Trusting God

Without hesitation, they still can bear testimony that there is no risk in trusting God. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is more than a culture to them. It is power that they have drawn upon repeatedly for every eventuality in their lives. It binds together their marriage and their family with a seal that cannot be broken. It has healed and upheld them. It has drawn down heaven to earth and saved them. I have heard Matt bear his testimony in the words of Alma: “I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions; yea, God has delivered me from prison, and from bonds, and from death; yea, and I do put my trust in him, and he will still deliver me” (Alma 36:27).

Today, we hurt. We are disappointed and exhausted. We do not understand how we can continually come within a breath of relief only to have it snatched from our hands. We cannot see a solution. And yet there is hope; there is always hope. If there is a God, there is hope. We recognize that our circumstance is the perfect formula for a miracle. Therefore, we will regroup around our faith as we always have, and return to the Source from which our blessings have always come. Despite the present difficulty, we are determined to stand firm in our faith and, like Matt and Kristin, cry out our allegiance to God, who has always saved us. We fully expect that there is a glorious ending to Matt’s journal, and it will sum up perfectly his thesis, “Why I Believe in God.”

The Power of God

Falling off the Roof on Halloween Night

Some years ago, my son, Gavon and his friends, then teenagers, had tired of trick or treating. One of the boys was the son of my friend, Mike. His roof could be easily climbed and often was. It required little effort for a nimble 16-year-old boy to mount the fence, swing up a leg up and roll onto the roof.

Looking for more excitement that boring Halloween night, the boys had climbed to the peak of Mike’s roof and pondered the possibilities. Someone suggested that they rig a microphone to scare passing trick or treaters. There were no dissenters. The prank played out like this: target a victim below, scream into the microphone, and run to another side of the roof to hide. Their fun time went on for a long time.

The boys had just frightened another unsuspecting child and had raced to the far, dark side of the roof, when suddenly Gavon disappeared. His friends heard a hard thump twelve feet below. When I received a phone call from Mike’s dad, Ted, he only could say, “Gavon’s been hurt. It’s pretty bad.”

I arrived just as an ambulance was pulling up. My son was lying on his back, unconscious and groaning. When the paramedics shined a flashlight on him, I saw blood seeping from his ears. “He fell directly onto his head and right shoulder,” one of them said. I tried to reach out for him but was prevented. “He may have injured his neck or back,” they said.

Ted, anticipating my needing a friend, said, “I’ll go with you to the Emergency Room.”

At the hospital, doctors cut away Gavon’s shirt and began to work on him. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight. He was still bleeding from his ears. His face was swelling. His right collarbone had a large bump that appeared to be trying to protrude through the skin. I was told that it was broken badly.

“Does the bleeding from the ears mean head injury?” I asked.

“It’s the sign of concussion. It doesn’t look good.”

“What about his neck and back?”

“We’ve ordered a CAT scan.”

When the doctors left the room, I said to Ted, “I’m so afraid for my son. Will you help me give him a priesthood blessing?”

Ted is a man of great faith. Over the years he and I had been each other’s Home Teachers. We had given many blessings together. In other trying situations, I had seen him take his problems to the Lord with the perfect assurance that he would be heard and answered. On occasion, I had knelt with him and heard him pour out his heart in behalf of someone in need. This was to be another of those times. We stood on either side of my son’s bed and pled for a miracle of healing. Then we laid our hands on my son’s head and pronounced the blessing. When we finished, the doctors took Gavon to Radiology.

During that long night while we watched Gavon’s unconscious body being scanned, we talked of God, faith and past miracles. I didn’t know what would happen to my boy. Periodically I called home to discuss the situation with my wife, who was tending our little children. We tried to prepare ourselves for whatever news might come. Finally, a doctor came from a room and approached Ted and me with a handful of x-rays. His speech was clinical. He pointed out bones, growth plates and the obvious concussion.

Has the bleeding from the ears stopped?” I asked. “Is there any brain damage?”

“The bleeding has stopped and there is no apparent brain damage.”

“What about breaks? His back, his neck?”         

“No breaks.”

“Not even his collar bone?” I asked in astonishment.

“Nothing. He will probably have a headache for a few days.”

Gavon woke up 24 hours later with the predicted headache, not remembering anything expect standing on the edge of the dark roof. The bruising and swelling was gone within the week. Within a few days, he was back playing carefully with his friends.

The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him (Nahum 1:7)

The Knowledge of God

No Food in the House

In a particularly difficult financial time, I sought God for help. I suppose that I am like other people whose prayers are offered with more feeling in times of urgent need. I remember feeling ashamed that I had not previously put more effort into my relationship with God when money had been plentiful. Still, believing that such petitioning could help, I arose one morning and began to plead for help.

The answer came in a strange way. A thought entered my mind: “Your friend Paul (name changed) has no food in his house. Go and take him some money.”

“But I have so little,” I said aloud. Then, considering to whom I was talking, I asked, “How much?”

“One hundred dollars.”

I felt anxiety shoot through me. One hundred dollars was all I had in the bank! I searched myself hoping that I had made the whole thing up. I tried to pray again but felt only silence. Then, through the quiet I perceived a message. It seemed to say, Will you trust me or not?

Paul was a good man who had recently lost his income source and was struggling through very difficult financial times. No effort of his had seemed to be able to stop the rapid decline of his assets and reserves.

I dressed, drove to the bank, withdrew one hundred dollars and headed to Paul’s house. When I stuffed the money into his hand, he couldn’t hold back the tears. He said, “My wife and I totally ran out of food last night. We have been up since four o’clock this morning praying for a miracle.”

I never missed the one hundred dollars. One thing after another fell into place to sustain my family. But no miracle was as great as the one that occurred inside me when I discovered that God truly loves his children and often uses other people to prove it.

… let us fall now into the hand of the Lord; for his mercies are great…(2 Sam. 24:14).

The Love of God

Welcome Home

Two months after my daughter, Katie, and her husband, Jason, were married, Jason was diagnosed with Crohns Disease. In an emergency operation, eighteen inches of his intestine were removed. From that point forward, Crohns became a third member of their marriage and the hospital became their second home.

Home. That word became foreign to them. During their first years of marriage, strangling medical debt dictated their residences and moves. Now they had a baby girl. More poor health and meager finances forced them to move once again, this time in with family. The three of them crowded into two tiny bedrooms that Jason’s parents graciously provided in their house.

Later, when they thought that the Crohns was in remission, they decided that education was their only hope for normalcy. So they moved-again. This time to be students. Their excitement to finally be on their own was short-lived, however. Too soon, they discovered that the college program that they wanted required unethical practices of its students in exchange for grades. Jason and Katie had a choice to make: live their values or to leave school. They packed up and left.

When they returned to Jason’s parents’ home and the two cramped bedrooms, they felt defeated. Then Jason’s Crohns took a frightening and deep dive. Suddenly they had to face the difficult realization that his current health status would not allow him to maintain a full-time job. Katie would need to become the primary breadwinner and their prospects for affording a place of their own now seemed worse than ever. And, of course, the medical debts kept mounting.

They wanted to be self-sufficient; they wanted to be an independent family. They did not want to be reliant upon other people. So they prayed. They knew that no one could get them through this challenge except Heavenly Father.

Slowly, things began to change. Within a short period of time they received a government grant and an unexpectedly large tax return. Suddenly they could pay off their medical debts! Then Katie received a job offer; then a few months later a better one; and then a few months later a better one. But their living situation had not improved-two cramped bedrooms in their parent’s house.

One night Katie prayed again. She didn’t want to be ungrateful. She knew that one thing after another had been working out. She knew where their blessings were coming from. She hoped she wouldn’t be asking amiss.

For some time she had longed for and pictured in her mind a sweet little apartment that her family could live in-a modest place with some elbowroom, a yard with green grass, a safe neighborhood, a nice ward and a friend for her little girl…and it had to fit in their slender budget. By scrimping they might be able to come up with $650 a month for her dream place.

Unlikely. Impossible. These words had kept her from offering the prayer before. But this night she yearned for change, and she knew that she could not achieve it on my own. She humbly took her request to Heavenly Father. She imagined that it was too much to ask. But she asked anyway.

The next day, Lindsay, her sister called. Lindsay’s brother- and sister-in-law were just finishing building a new home, she said. It had a large, basement apartment. It had a huge green yard. It was in a nice part of town, and the ward was wonderful. A little girl, the same age as our daughter, lived next door. They were willing to rent the apartment for only $650 a month!

Suddenly what Katie had thought could never change changed. What she had imagined impossible was possible. When she first walked into her “dream apartment,” she said, she felt as though Someone had already been there. It was as though Someone had placed a little note on the door saying, Welcome home.

…the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth (Ex. 34:6).

May ever be aware of our powerful, loving Father, who is ever aware of our needs and who showers us with his gifts.

To rescue a wayward child spiritually, we must begin with basics. Nothing is more basic than faith in God and Jesus Christ. It is one thing to believe that they exist, but it is quite another to believe in who they really are. Here is a letter from a mother who, from the depths of sorrow, cries out her allegiance to her Heavenly Father and Savior in an attempt to regroup around her faith.

Dear Brother Barkdull,

I won’t be able to write much because of the tears following down my face. 

I have one brother who has been excommunicated after joining an apostate group, a brother who has removed his name from the records of the Church, and one brother who is totally less-active.  All of them have been through the temple, and is a returned missionary. My parents’ hearts are broken, but they continue on faithfully with good cheer and great hope.  They are my heroes and examples.  I never thought I would be living through their experience.

Last year, my son was disfellowshiped and left the Church. Within the last few months, my son-in-law has become less-active. Again, both had been through the temple, and one is a returned missionary.  My heart is broken, but trying to follow my parents’ example, I attempt to move forward with good cheer and great hope, and I try my best to be faithful.

Your messages each week lift my load and my heart. Thank you for your spiritual words. They always help, but today when I read your article about the Savior’s sanctifying himself to arrive in a more powerful position to rescue others, I began sobbing with gratitude. My husband and I are trying so hard to be worthy so we might be instrumental in helping ‘save’ these sons of ours.

You can never know how thankful I am to you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

Writing Through Tears

***************

Dear Writing Through Tears:

I am overwhelmed when I contemplate that the Father calls us parents to become saviors on Mount Zion, representing in every way the Savior, doing in proxy what he would do: “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.” Representing Jesus is a weighty responsibility. In a remarkable manner, we become to Jesus what he is to his Father: “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” Admittedly, we need an infusion of faith for such a commission. Obviously your parents are people of great faith, as are you and your husband. Great faith produces great miracles.

Allow me to ramble a bit.

Who God Really Is

In Lectures on Faith, the Prophet Joseph Smith stated that faith pivots on our hope and belief that God possesses certain characteristics in absolute perfection. We would say the same of the Savior. In times of urgency, we hope that God has the power to help, we hope that he is aware of us, and we hope that he loves us enough to rush to our rescue. We reach out to him and plead for his help because we believe that he has both the ability and the disposition to grant our request. Therefore, when we search our faith and find it lacking, we might ask, “Which of these characteristics do I believe that God does not possess?”

Here is an abbreviated, personalized list, which I created to help me through the hard times:

             POWER. God is all-powerful. Otherwise, how could I believe that he could help me if I imagined that something was beyond his ability? Nothing is too hard for him. He can do anything, in any situation, at any time, in my behalf.

KNOWLEDGE. God possesses all knowledge about everything, including past, present, and future events. Otherwise, how could I believe that he could anticipate and solve my problems if there was something that he didn’t know, or if his attention was momentarily diverted away from me, or if I thought he had forgotten me? He intimately knows and “foreknows” me and is constantly aware of my thoughts and my circumstances.

LOVE. I am God’s child. In some remarkable manner that I do not understand, I receive all of his attention all of the time. He loves me completely. He is merciful, compassionate, kind, comforting, patient, gracious and abundant in goodness. Otherwise, how could I seek his help to face unbearable situations or to take the difficult steps of change if anything I was going through or had done could distance me from his love? His love for me is unconditional and continual and is the consistent motivating force in his interactions with me.

CONSISTENT. God is perfectly unchangeable. What he did yesterday he will be doing today and tomorrow. Otherwise, how could I anticipate the whims or circumstances that could change his mercy for me to reproach or his love for me to disdain?

JUST. God is perfectly equitable and no respecter of persons. Otherwise, how could I believe in him if I thought that he played favorites? If God’s laws specify blessings and consequences, I can count on his justice prevailing and his judgment to be correct.

TRUTH. God cannot lie. He does not make promises casually. Otherwise, how could I believe that my future with him is secure if I thought that he didn’t mean what he said, or might seek an out, or might change his mind? He will keep his word in his own way and in his own time

Ultimately, our faith in the Father and the Son is strengthened or injured according to our trusting in their divine attributes of character-all of which define who they really are. 

Faith is Trust

There are only three reasons for not trusting someone:

1) I don’t know you well enough.

2) My past experience with you was disappointing or inconsistent.

3) I don’t think you can do it. 

When we feel our trust waning, we might ask ourselves which of these reasons is retarding our hope in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ?

The Three-legged Stool of True Love

If we have truly faith in God–not only faith that he exists but faith in who he really is–we trust him. Trust, I have learned, is one leg of the three-legged stool of love. In order for love to be true love, it must consist of loyalty, sacrifice and trust–and trust is often the hardest of all.

We say that we love God, but we fail to trust him; we accuse him of disloyalty, and we think that he is not doing enough for us. However, if we would examine our lives honestly, we would be forced to admit that he sacrifices and has sacrificed everything for us, he is and has been perfectly loyal, and he is and has been completely trustworthy. That is to say, he gives himself totally to us–his time, ability, and all that he has and is; he never divides his affection; he never, ever lets us down. In every way, he is the beloved Bridegroom, and we are his adored “bride.” The question of love, therefore, might be asked of us, not of him. 

The Time of Decision

Somewhere along the way, we have to make up our minds if we really love and trust the Savior. Elijah asked the people in his day to stop vacillating back and forth and make a decision: “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). The same could be asked of us: “How long are we going to go on declaring our faith in God on the one hand, while discounting his perfect attributes and characteristics on the other? If the Lord be God, trust him; if something else is your God, trust that. But stop trying to mix the two.”

We must decide once and for all if he really exists and what he is really like. When we stop comparing him to mortal men, accusing him of inattention, inability, indifference, incompetence and ignorance, then we can get back to basics and love and trust him.

If we truly have faith in God, we will have faith in Jesus Christ. We will really believe in the Atonement. We will really believe that the Savior anticipated our present circumstance, paid a terrible price to resolve it, and now holds the keys of deliverance. Turning those keys seems to be linked to our personal sanctification and divine timing. Our sanctifying ourselves and waiting in faith for him, are how we show our love for and trust in him. Remember, God showed his love for and trust in us by sending us these children. We are partners with him in their personal plans of salvation. Their present waywardness is our opportunity to get into the trenches with the Father and the Son and learn the invaluable principles of redemption that will benefit us in our eternal work. Who else would they trust with such a job? 

I testify that you are greatly loved and trusted, and the work that you have been called to shoulder is on a course of success that you cannot presently perceive. 

Blessings,

Larry Barkdull

Why else would Mormon (who was writing only for our benefit) choose to spend so much time on the rebellion and conversion stories of Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah? Why else would he carefully glean from Nephite history the heartbreaking account of the disbelieving children, who succeeded their righteous pioneer forefathers? Why else would God inspire the compilers of the Bible to include the conversion story of the young, vile and sinful Paul, who, upon repenting, became one of the greatest apostles and missionaries in history? Is there not a last-days’ parallel in these accounts?

Nothing shall be impossible with God

Clearly, we live in the prophesied generation whose decadences and perversions rival those of Enoch and Noah’s. But we must not collapse under the crush of latter-day realities. In every situation, the Lord prepares a way of escape. Nevertheless, when our children slip off the path of safety and appear to be spiraling into a free-fall, we often panic and underestimate the far-reaching effects of the Atonement. Reminding us that “nothing shall be impossible” with God and nothing shall be impossible for us when we place our trust in God, the Lord inspired prophets to fill the scriptures with purposely-placed, extreme accounts of redemption that are often beyond the boundaries of our comprehension. Consider these examples:

The examples of Alma and the sons of Mosiah

Alma the younger, who categorized the seriousness of his sins with near murder, “became a very wicked and an idolatrous man…a man of many words, and did speak much flattery to the people…he led many of the people to do after the manner of his iniquities.” Apparently he and the sons of Mosiah established a type of secret combination to “destroy the church” and “to lead astray the people of the Lord, contrary to the commandments of God, or even the king.” They “rebelled against God” and stole away “the hearts of the people, causing much dissension among the people; giving a chance for the enemy of God to exercise his power over them.”

Few of our wayward children will sink lower than did Alma, and yet within two days of his coming face-to-face with the truth, he repented and testified that he had been “born of God,” snatched–grasped or seized hastily-from certain “everlasting burning” and “eternal torment.” Likewise, the sons of Mosiah, Alma’s companions in rebellion, who were described as “the very vilest of sinners,” repented and were promised eternal life. Again, few of our children will fall this low, and yet God found a way to rescue them and make them “instruments in his hands.”

The example of Lamoni

When Lamoni, a king so wicked that he murdered his servants merely for falling short in performing their duty, was presented with the truth, he embraced it so thoroughly that his strength failed him and he “fell to the earth as if he were dead.” Remaining in this condition for two days and two nights, he was “under the power of God…” and “the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind….” Moreover, “the light which did light up his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was a marvelous light of his goodness–yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul [had] overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God.”

When Lamoni awakened, he bore this testimony: “I have seen my Redeemer.” Again, few of our children will achieve the gross wickedness of Lamoni, but nevertheless, the Lord was able to “snatch” him from an incalculable distance and draw him back.

The example of Lamoni’s father

Lamoni’s father, the preeminent Lamanite king, also a documented murderer, experienced a mighty change of heart when he, too, was presented with the truth. Now realizing that no quantity of possessions or continued indulgence in sin could replace the loss of his soul, he cried out to Aaron:

What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken? Yea, what shall I do that I may be born of God, having this wicked spirit rooted out of my breast, and receive his Spirit, that I may be filled with joy, that I may not be cast off at the last day? Behold, said he, I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy.”

Then praying mightily to God, “I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day.” Upon his cry for deliverance, the Spirit overcame him and “he was struck as if he were dead,” and when Aaron had raised him up, the old king became the missionary to his people, “ministering unto them.”

The unspoken lesson is repeated once again: few of our children will sink lower than the father of Lamoni, and yet the Lord had the power and the desire to rescue him.

They never did fall away

Upon Lamoni’s father’s conversion, religious liberty was proclaimed throughout the land, and tens of thousands of Lamanites abandoned their sins, which had been perpetuated by the wicked traditions of their fathers. The strength of their conversion carries a comforting promise to latter-day parents: once these sinners were reclaimed by the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and had become “converted unto the Lord,” they “never did fall away.”

Mormon describes them with this language: “For they became a righteous people; they did lay down the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more, neither against any of their brethren.” To distinguish themselves as people of God, they assumed the name Anti-Nephi-Lehi, “and the curse of God did no more follow them.”

They had been “the most lost of all mankind” and had committed “many murders,” and yet once they were presented with the truth and embraced it with all their hearts, they exclaimed, “The great God has had mercy on us, and made these things known unto us that we might not perish; yea, and he has made these things known unto us beforehand, because he loveth our souls as well as he loveth our children…Oh, how merciful is our God!”

Even the worst sinners can be “snatched”

Imagine, no more sin by false tradition; no more sin by choice; no more curse; no more weapons of rebellion; no more distance from God. Even the “most lost of all mankind,” who had committed “many murders,” can be “snatched” by the power of Jesus Christ from “everlasting burning and eternal torment.”

Other scriptural accounts could be cited, but these examples should signal the universality of the Savior’s redemptive power and message. Again, few of our children will approach the abysmal level of sin that these people achieved, and yet the Lord had the desire and power to reach and rescue them…in an instant! With some degree of confidence, then, we might speculate that Mormon did not choose these stories randomly; rather, he likely chose them to demonstrate that even the vilest of sinners can be “snatched” and redeemed at a moment’s notice.

Two powerful lessons

Mormon’s tight grouping of these stories, which comprise chapters 27 and 28 of Mosiah and chapters 17 through 23 of Alma, seem to indicate that Mormon was trying to drive home at least two redemptive messages:

1. Excluding the sons of perdition and those who have had the full light then shed innocent blood, no one, absolutely no one, is beyond the redemptive reach of the Savior.

2. At some time, every son and daughter of God will be presented with the full truth and given a clear choice.

Universal experiences

Clearly, the conversion experiences of Alma, the sons of Mosiah, Lamoni and his father, and the Anti-Nephi-Lehies are to be understood as universal experiences. Heavenly Father, who is both just and merciful, would not condemn his children with an immutable, eternal judgment without first laying out the truth and extending to them a choice. For beyond the issue of our sins, which by repentance can be covered by the Atonement, we will be judged by the desires of our hearts.

We are assured that the Savior will accomplish this miracle of redemption in his own time, and if there is one thing that he has lots of, it is time-all of this life, including life in the Spirit World, up until the moment of resurrection. Therefore, time is on his side. He is always on time, despite our occasional accusation that he is late. He has promised that he will not “delay his coming.” Rather, he will employ all the resources of heaven to reclaim and redeem his wayward children.

Joseph Smith’s perspective

The Prophet Joseph Smith took a long view on the redemptive process. He said, “There is never a time when the spirit is too old to approach God. All are within the reach of pardoning mercy.”

And then to give us hope, he taught: “Our Heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in his mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive.”

Because we cannot imagine redemption now does not mean that it is not on the way. And when redemption comes-and it will come-it will be as marvelous as the Redeemer, whose commission this is.

Sunday will come

We must cling to that hope, and we have every reason to expect that our hope is not in vain. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin spoke of the Friday of Jesus crucifixion as the darkest day in history. The mighty Jesus apparently had been defeated by his enemies, and the confused, devastated apostles could only watch helplessly.

But Friday’s darkness could not endure. On Sunday, the glorious Savior burst the bands of death, and the brightest day in history dawned.

All of us will have our Fridays, Elder Wirthlin said. Those days will seem as though our world has shattered and we will never be able to pick up the pieces. The he testified, “Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.”

Your feedback

I invite your feedback and stories. Other despairing parents need information and hope. Visit my website: http://www.larrybarkdull.com/.

See Mosiah 26:1-4

See Acts 9

2 Nephi 9:10

Luke 1:37

Matthew 17:20

Alma 36:14

See Mosiah 27:10

See Mosiah 27: 8-11

Mosiah 27:28

Mosiah 28:4

Mosiah 28:7

Alma 26:15

Alma 18:42

Alma 19:6

Alma 22:15

Alma 22:15

Alma 22:23

Alma 23:6

Alma 23:7

Alma 23:17-18

Alma 24:11

Alma 24:14-15, emphasis added

Joseph Fielding McConkie and Robert L. Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 4 vols., 1:, p.257: “Murder is thus a sin unto death,” wrote Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “at least concerning members of the Church, to whom this revelation [D&C 42], which is entitled ‘the law of the Church,’ was addressed. We do know that there are murders committed by Gentiles for which they at least can repent, be baptized, and receive a remission of their sins. (See 3 Nephi 30:1-2.)” (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 231.)

See D&C 137:9

Alma 12:24

3 Nephi 29:2

Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 191

Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 257

See Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Sunday Will Come,” Ensign, November 2006