Life is Sweet

A few years ago my friend Anne was walking down the hallway of the school where she is an administrator. She drew in a deep breath and sighed "life is sweet". She called me bursting with love for life, and as usual I asked if I could borrow her rose colored glasses. I have been asking to borrow these glasses for years, she always says I am welcome to them, I think somehow it is like the oil and the bridegroom story, she always gives me the tools to make my own pair of glasses but she can't give me hers. Anyway shortly after her exclamation of life is sweet, life went terribly wrong for her. In a matter of days she was dealing with a embryo granddaughter with a heart defect, cancer, and many other very serious issues in her immediate family. She has never made that exclamation since, she feels it on almost a regular basis, but she never says it out loud. We laugh about it all the time, and there are many days, I must admit that I say it out loud, and here I am publishing it, wise or unwise, only time will tell. But as I come to the autumn of this year I look back at some of the most scariest things that I have dealt with and I realize that the message is still the same.

In the middle of all the crisis I had an abscessed tooth, I kept putting it off using antibiotics and pain pills to get through until I had time to go to the dentist, finally when there was a small window of time I could use to get to the dentist I went. As I sat there with my mouth full of cotton Dr. Hincks assistant kept asking him questions about the gospel. It was obvious that he had dealt with her and her questions before because instead of getting into a confrontation with her he would just say, "that's a good question!", I knew that Dave knew the answers because we have talked for over 20 years about deep gospel issues, he had been a bishop, so why didn't he just answer the question? Finally she asked, "Does God feel sorrow?" Dave said, that's a good question and walked away, now even though my mouth was packed with cotton I still had to let her know that yes indeed God does feel sorrow, obviously. So she asked me, "how do you know? And if that is true than I am not interested in going to Heaven!" I muttered with cotton flying out of my mouth that I had heard all morning how much she adored her little girl, she is her world and if anything ever happened to her little girl it would kill her, so I said look at your feelings about your little girl, God lost one third of his children, his only begotten Son he sent down as a sacrifice to be mocked, ridiculed, tortured, pay for all the pain and sins of the world, does God feel sorrow? of course he does, look at the wickedness of this world, and this is the two thirds of his children that made it down here. But we also know he has a fullness of joy. After they repacked my mouth with cotton, I tuned their conversation out and reflected on my own life. I looked at all of the challenges I had when I left that chair. I thought to myself, God has so many challenges and no doubt even more than I can comprehend, he must have tools....I know he loves me so he has shared these tools with me....I am going to study these tools and apply them in my life. Many of you already know this story because you have shared the tools you use, and I am very grateful. If anyone remembers my blog where I talked to my brother Bobby and told him I was going straight to the book store to buy inspirational CD's this is while my mouth was still numb from the Novocaine, (Dave probably gave me a little extra as punishment because he was now going to have to listen to his assistant go on all day with the ammo I gave her).

Some of my very favorite lessons were from Sheri Dew, especially "The Savior Heals Without a Scar" there are many others that were wonderful. Doug actually sited this book to the young men on Sunday, and used his own experience when we were in the hospital at 2 am and I requested a priesthood blessing for Doug before he left for exploratory surgery. The moral to this story is that the men who gave Doug the powerful blessing were prepared and in tune with the spirit. We never know when we will have an emergency situation when we need the power of prayer, and are we prepared? Well the point to this blog is that during one of the most difficult years of my life, I have tried to use all the tools that God has provided and it has made it possible to not only endure the trials but yes, even to say "Life is Sweet"!