The other night I picked up a ride at the Mavrick Center after a concert. It took me a while to get in to the ride after three different police officers gave me four different suggestions on how to get to the spot I needed to get to. Sometimes it’s confusing and quite frustrating.
I pulled up to the curb and this woman was waving at me. She has my car description and license plate number plus a photo so she knows what she’s looking for. I have nothing so I assume that was her.
After she got in she just gave off a vibe of being very alone and unhappy. I’ve developed a sense by the spirit to sometimes recognize people who are members of the church that feel disaffected and a little bit upset. Generally it has to do with the misunderstanding of intentions or doctrine. One thing I know is that the doctrine of the gospel in its impurity should not make anyone that is a good person angry including this woman, yet that’s what the spirit was whispering to me about her.
We started driving and we talked a little bit about the concert for the first couple of minutes but this was a long trip to Herriman. I felt prompted to talk about her family with her even though that’s a big no-no . I started by asking her where she was from and she said, Orem Utah and asked me if i’d ever heard of it. I said, as luck would have it, I live in Orem and I coached football at Orem High School up until a few years back.
She said, I went to Orem High School but I got pregnant my senior year and so I didn’t have a great experience. Then she launched into her family. She said, I have four children from four different men. None of them like me. I said, I’m sure that’s not true. She went on to talk about her 19-year-old daughter who was a competitive cheerleader. She aid she spent thousands of dollars and drove all over the country to support her and she wouldn’t hardly talk to her.
I said, that’s kind of how it goes sometimes with mothers and daughters. It goes on for a few years but if you just continue to show your love she’ll come back to you. She talked about how her kids had all decided they wanted to live with their dad and it was quite depressing for her. I started talking about being happy and loving and then eventually that would bring them to her side.
She looked at me and said, I’m angry at you Mormons. I said why are you angry at us and why are you angry at me. I said that’s definitely going to affect my tip isn’t it and I laughed. She laughed too and she said, well it’s not personal but I just hate the way you all teach that I can never be with my children in the next life. She said, it makes me so angry.
One thing I knew from this discussion at that point was that she believed the church was true or it wouldn’t have had the power to make her so angry. I knew that on some level she knew it was true.
I asked her what she knew about her Heavenly Father, I wanted to find out what her relationship with him was. As I guessed, she didn’t have one per se. She said that she didn’t pray to God. She said that occasionally she prayed and talked to her mother who has passed. Her mother had been her friend and helped her with her children but had passed away several years ago
I told her that it was nice that she felt the presence and love of her mother but she had a father in heaven too. I told her, I knew you were a member of the church when you got in the car. I asked, did you have your records removed? She said, no! I said “still a Mormon then!”
She laughed and said, I guess so. I talked to her about our relationship with our father in heaven and how the spirit of God isn’t something we feel by accident or occasionally now and then. I told her that it’s meant to guide us and be with us and embrace us so that we can live our lives with God’s love.
I told her that the neat thing about the spirit is that when you have the spirit it brings peace to your life and others feel that and they want to be part of that. She said, I felt that since I got in your car. I felt relaxed and like I should talk to you. I said, that’s because I pray to have the spirit with me so that people will feel that way and feel the presence of their father in heaven . She said, mission accomplished.
I asked will you tell me what you feel in the car? She said, happy and peaceful. I said, do you like that feeling? She said, yes, I like being in your car. I told her that if she had the spirit with her, her children would feel that when they were with her and that bit by bit it would smooth out the rough edges of their relationships. It might take years but eventually they would be attracted to that because they would like how it feels.
I told her that everyone likes how that feels . We got so used to being in the presence of our father before we were born. Our spirits crave that recognize that and it’s like a magnet drawing us to him. I could tell that her countenance was changing as I looked in the mirror. She was a little bit emotional and said, how can I’d be sealed and have all my children with me.
One of the things I’ve come to understand about being sealed is that most parents think they’re going to be in heaven with their wife or husband sitting on a throne with their children around them . This is what they think of when they think of their family being sealed together. They don’t consider that they will be sealed to God and their spouse and so will their children. And while they will be family, they won’t be hanging out in the same house necessarily . They will all be serving God and working on their own progression at the different levels where they find themselves. I talked to her about this and asked her if she ever thought about that.
She laughed and said, I guess that’s right, they will be their own people. I asked her, that’s how you want it, right? She said yes. I told her that what she needed was faith in God that if she did what was right that everything would work out and it would be fine and just. I told her that the power of God and the power of Jesus Christ to save his children is incredible and that if she lived like she knew she should, God would work miracles in her behalf. I told her that with regards to them being sealed to her or not, she needed to trust God.
I told her that if she didn’t get them all sealed to her here on the earth, they would still be her children. I told her that if we all do what we need to do we will be there together. She said, that’s good because I don’t want to be in a place where my children can’t be. I told her they would have that opportunity and that if she did the things she was supposed to do that God would help them. I told her that the influence of a righteous mother is more powerful than almost any other influence.
I told her about Elder Holland saying that heaven wouldn’t be heaven if he didn’t have his wife and family with him and that God makes that possible. She said that she believes that is true. I said, see, you agree with an apostle! She laughed and said, I guess I do.
I told her that I felt like the problem she was having was that she put a shield around her heart and she wasn’t letting anyone in. She wasn’t letting God in and when anything would come her shield would smother it out or knock it away. I told her she was doing this intentionally and subconsciously and that it was very powerful. She said, I absolutely have a shield.
I told her to let God in so that he could warm her heart and this would change her countenance and change how others felt around her. I told her that eventually this would win over her children because they crave that love. They crave the love of God and the love of their mother. Again she was very emotional and she asked how do I do that? I said, tonight is a good start. You’ve allowed the spirit to penetrate your shield and touch your heart. She said, and it feels amazing.
Then I said, well, what do you think you need to do, what do you need to change, as you step forward. She asked what I thought she should do. I said, first you need to start with praying to your father in heaven. He is the one we pray to and occasionally you’ll feel the spirit of your mother but talking to her is not praying. We pray to our father in heaven. I said, that doesn’t discount that your mother might be there to help you through the tough times.
I told her that she needs to get right with the Word of Wisdom. This is something we had not discussed but I felt by the spirit that it was an issue even though she wasn’t impaired by any substances at the time. She said OK. I can make those changes
I said you need to go to church every Sunday. She said that’s going to be a tough one. I’ve gone to church and I think I burned my bridges there. I said, the good thing about going to church is that we’re all burning our bridges all the time and we all need to reconstruct the bridges every week. You need to go to church. She said, I don’t want to go to Relief Society. I told her that she should start by going to sacrament meeting, sitting in the back if she wanted and feeling the spirit. She said, OK. I said going to sacrament meeting will fill your tank. I told her as she got closer and closer to God there would be other steps to take but she had to go to God‘s house to take that first step.
I asked her if she had a Book of Mormon and she said no. I pulled out one of my Book of Mormon copies prepared by the Secrists and gave it to her I said, here is your Book of Mormon. You need to read it every day. This one will start you out easy because there are tabs and questions that are marked and answered. They will teach you about God, how he is your father and how he has the same concerns for you that you have for your children.
I told her that her Heavenly Father loved her and he wanted her back and that he would help her gather her children. I asked her if she would commit to do the things I had asked and I repeated them;
Pray
Obey the word of wisdom
Go to church
Read the Book of Mormon
I told her that if she does these things that her children will be drawn to her and her example will bring them home. I told her that the gathering is not a rounding up but is a coming together by invitation. God invites us, we invite others and the power of God is the thing that brings us together. Trying to do it otherwise brings frustration and disappointment. This is what she had already experienced and she agreed. She promised that she would do these things.
I asked her what it was that she had felt in the car and she said that now she knew it was the spirit of God and that it had been years since she felt it. She then said, I’ve never felt it this strong. I told her that the spirit of God was there because it testifies of truth and that everything we had discussed was what God wanted her to hear today. He was validating these words. She said that she believed everything.
So if you live in Herriman and you see a lady pop up in the back of your sacrament meeting, run back and say hi and give her a bunch of love . That’s really what she’s looking for. She’s been through a lot but she wants to come home.
I think about the scripture from 3rd Nephi 10: 4-6 in the Book of Mormon where Christ talks about how often he has gathered his children like a hen gathers her chickens under her wings. This work is all about gathering us “chicks.”
Sometimes God sends you a lift 