Wow, what a great topic this is! When I think of all the people I have met in my life, I have to conclude that every one of them changed from the first time we met. Sometimes they changed for the better, and others changed for the worse. But change is the stuff of which mortality is made, isn’t it?
If we believe change in people is not possible, then why would we deploy tens of thousands of missionaries all around the world to see if we can share the gospel message with them? We have this abiding belief that they will embrace the fulness of the restored gospel, come unto Christ, join His Church here on earth, and then take steps to the temple where they are promised they can receive “all that my Father hath.”
Imagine just how audacious that might seem to some. “I’m happy just the way I am,” they used to tell me in Northern England all those years ago. Or, “Got me own, luv,” was another frequent response when we posited changing churches. Those, of course, were the ones who could have cared less that I was in their home country on a two-year mission to save the world - their world - from certain destruction if they booted me off their doorstep. I learned how to deal with rejection in very real and precise terms in that experience.
But I also, on occasion, was a witness to those few precious souls who DID embrace the possibility of change. They gave up coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco and hard drugs for starters. They had to change before they could be baptized, and a few blessed souls to whom I carried that possibility actually did change in dramatic ways right before my eyes. As our visits together progressed, I saw visible changes in their homes. They cleaned up before we had lessons. They cleaned their clothes, they bathed and dressed their young children so they were “presentable” to us. One even told me they thought we were angels from the presence of God who had come to their home. And they changed. Asking an Englishman or woman to surrender their tea to us, then never drink it again was like asking some to cut off their arm. It was the acid test of their sincerity, and some just couldn’t do it.
How does this relate to raising our children in today’s environment? Maybe that is a more compelling question for us to consider as parents and children.
We are bound together by celestial bonds and covenants as an eternal family. We love one another, we love being together, and we are sometimes saddened when one of us might weaken or falter in whatever extremity with which we are dealing at the moment. So we reach out to help one another in love. We are inspired by each other as we witness one rising above their challenges and succeeding as they move along life’s path. I know I have drawn strength from each of you as I watch from the sidelines. I thank you, each one of you, as I see you change, grow, and conquer your demons.
A few months back, after I had upgraded to the new i-Phone 15, I hadn’t realized I would have to download all my apps on my new phone. The Google browser was just spinning, and I couldn’t figure out how to get it unstuck. Grandson Alex was here, I asked him my question, he took my phone, hit a few buttons, and bingo - it somehow “magically” downloaded in seconds. He said something that has stuck with me: “Grandpa, sometimes the best solution when it comes to technology is just to hit the restart button. That solves almost every problem.” I told him whimsically, “That’s why you came home from your mission, so you could help me change my phone.”
Isn’t that the way it is with each of us? Sometimes we get “stuck,” and we can’t seem to find the next step out of our dilemma, whatever it may be. We need a “reset.” How blessed we are to have the gospel to guide us to daily repentance. We reset ourselves, then begin again as we pursue our course in life and get back on the covenant path if we have wandered off it for a time.
I think about just how extraordinary it is to be part of my family we started calling "the Goates Kids"!! We aren’t perfect, far from it (well, maybe not THAT far, right?) As many of them shared their memories of infant daughter Adrienne’s death thirty-one years ago, I was humbled to read that for many of them that tragic event in our family was the beginning of their testimonies of The Plan of Salvation and the hope of eternal life with their baby sister. They recounted that she has been a ministering spirit among us for all these many years since. I wonder if that reality doesn’t have something to do with who we have become as a family. Her death has cemented us, anchored us, and continues to inspire us to live in such a way that we can be with her again.
That horrifying discovery that early December 9th, 1992, has sanctified this home in which I now live alone. It is, indeed, holy ground upon which I walk every day. I have changed. I no longer think about death the way I once did. I know it is a logical next step for me someday. I will eventually die, I know that. I have no doubts or fear about it at all.
I love my dear companion, Patsy. When I watch the YouTube video Steve and Tina Goates put together and I see her so young, so vibrant and so beautiful from the earliest days of our lives together, I realize how much she changed (and changed me) and just how successful she was.
I have always said that 95% of the stuff she worried about never came to pass, and now I realize that each of us should follow her lead and worry a little more than we do. We just need to adjust our thinking with the powerful thought that whenever we need to we can “reset” with powerful daily repentance to assist us along the way back to our heavenly home.
Just look at how well that worked out for her and how successful she was at chasing away all the bad things that might have happened if she hadn’t worried so much!
I testify we can all change. We must change. We will continue to grow and progress as a family anchored in our faith in the gospel. Change isn’t the least bit scary when we put it all in perspective, is it?
I must include one final thought about the Abrahamic Covenant, as found in Abraham 2:8-12:
"My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee.
"And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee above measure, and make thy name great among all nations, and thou shalt be a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and Priesthood unto all nations;
"And I will bless them through thy name; for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father;
"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal.
"Now, after the Lord had withdrawn from speaking to me, and withdrawn his face from me, I said in my heart: Thy servant has sought thee earnestly; now I have found thee."
My children are all the literal seed of our bodies, Patsy’s and mine. They are blessing everyone in their path with the blessings of the gospel, and they are fulfilling the promise given to Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed with “the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal.”
President Russell M. Nelson reminded us all at the recently concluded General Conference of the importance of cherishing the blessings of the priesthood keys and the gospel of Abraham.
Keep up the good work, all of you out there in the blogosphere! You are the agents of change in your world.
No comments:
Post a Comment