Moments of Clarity

Here I sit, advancing age playing practical jokes on my face, surprised at how many things I still haven’t figured out.
Sometimes I look around in bewilderment and say to myself, “Look at you…and after a lifetime of trying too.”

One thing I've noticed though, as I look back, is that now and again life presents small moments which shape you.
Often these are little happenings which may seem insignificant at the time. But whatever they are, they define you, along with all the rest that the years bring.

One happened to me on the day I first saw my husband’s face.
I was then a girl of 15, oldest of four children of a widowed, alcoholic mother. I had very little experience with faith or religion of any kind and knew nothing about the pre-existence.

Well, on this day I was expecting some of my girlfriends who were meeting at my house. We were going to the movies with some boys we had just met at Slide Rock a few weeks before.
The doorbell rang and there stood a couple of the young men I knew and with them was a stranger.
He was tall and handsome.
But first I must explain that I wasn’t like my friends who were always going gaga over some boy at the mere sight of him. I never fainted over a rock star or fell “in love” fifteen times a year.
Yet, when my eyes fell on this young man's face I had the oddest feeling.
It wasn’t …..OOOOOO! What a hunk!  It was more like trying to remember the words to an old song and not being able to.
I wanted to say something but didn’t know what it was.
Time passed but I never forgot that strange feeling.

Cut to years later.
Larry (the good looking stranger who was at my door) and I are married, have kids and have recently joined the church.
Friends from the ward have invited us to a popular LDS play called “Saturday’s Warrior.”
Remember, we’re in our first, wobbly steps of living in the light and ignorant of just about everything.

Well, as this fictional play unfolds, I realized that the storyline involves a couple who knew and loved each other in the pre-existence and were now trying to find each other here on earth. This idea, that people may have a history together before being born, was totally new to me.
As that thought sunk in lights came on in my brain.
I actually remember grabbing the arm of my theater seat to keep from jumping up and shouting.
“I know what it was!  I finally know what it was!  What I wanted to say when I first saw Larry.
It was, “I didn’t expect you so soon!”

Again it's years later.
I’m reading a book by one of my favorite apostles, Neil Maxwell, called “Things As They Really Are,” I think.  This man is a major “brainiac” as one of my students called really smart people.
In his book Brother Maxwell says that one day, despite all the injustice we see in this world, everyone who has ever lived will be able to honestly declare that Heavenly Father treated them with perfect fairness.
We will all agree that there has been no injustice, no inequity.
All of Father’s children were equally loved and blessed no matter what we may see from here.
What a thought!  It was one of those small moments for me.
I can’t tell you how many times it’s helped me to deal with the pain we all see in this world. How often have I wondered how sometimes horrific things could happen.
But, Brother Maxwell says that one day we will know that sufferings, big and small, even agonies, have been reconciled.
Those who hurt so much now will one day say, “Father loved me too. He blessed and loved me perfectly.”

Again it's years later.
As I sit in sacrament meeting I see ahead of me a beautiful, talented, faithful, woman in her 30’s. This young woman is loved by all who know her and is a rock in our ward.
She’s single and childless and longs for an eternal companion and family.
I think of what a wonderful mother she would be.
Then I remember some of my high school students, who are having children while still children themselves. With no idea of how to live a happy and productive life they are parenting a new generation of the lost and neglected.
What’s fair and right about that, I wonder.

I think of other lovely, faithful, single women of Zion that I know.
One I remember especially.
She was returning from a “Singles” dance where she said she felt like a piece of meat at the market.
She opened up her heart a bit to me and began talking about her hopes and dreams.
She looked me straight in the eye and said, “I’m not going to settle. I deserve to be sealed to a man I love deeply. A man who is a worthy priesthood holder, valiant enough to be a stake president.”
There was such an amazing mixture of faith and pain in the tone of her voice that I’ll never forget it.
I think it was an example of what Brother Maxwell called in his book…..“perfect grit.”

Cut back to me sitting in sacrament meeting thinking about these things. These small moments that define.
“Heavenly Father, something mighty wonderful has to happen to these amazing sisters if someday I’ll be able to say that they’ve been fairly treated. Nobody deserves a husband and family more than they do. Their children would go on to bless generations forever just because they had such mothers.
They only want what’s right.  What's just about their situation?”

Strangely my thoughts went back to that theater so long ago and that feeling I wanted to shout.
“I finally know what it was! What I wanted to say when I saw Larry for the first time."
“I didn’t expect you so soon.”

Well, I thought, perhaps one day these precious, beautiful sisters will look up or turn a corner, and there will stand the most handsome, valiant priesthood holder she has ever seen.

She’ll look at him, at the love in his eyes and the tears streaming down his rugged face, and she'll say...
“What took you so long?”
He’ll take her in his arms and say something like...
“I was on my way. We were at a ward campout and there was this young boy in the river. He couldn’t swim. I went out to help and I was called home.  I’ve been up here every day of your life praying desperately to Heavenly Father that you’d wait for me.”

There are other amazing possibilities for these precious sisters of course, but I could begin to see that Heavenly Father may know more about them than I do.

Maybe I should trust Him.