My talk in church today

Here's the text of a talk I delivered today in church. 

“Lift up your hearts in praise to God;

Let your rejoicings never cease.

Though tribulations rage abroad,

Christ says, “In me ye shall have peace.”

Eliza R. Snow

Is this really possible?  Do you find peace in Jesus Christ when your “tribulations rage abroad?”  Or in my case, when Klaus, my 2-year-old son, rages in the house and yard, do I find peace?

One Sunday morning I was getting all the kids and myself ready for church (which is no easy task), when Klaus found my makeup bag and decorated himself with my mascara!  I don’t think I was praising God and rejoicing at that moment.  After I had cleaned up the mess and gotten him ready for church the second time, the kids then told me he was splashing through mud puddles.  I certainly felt he was a tribulation!  But, if I remember correctly, I did eventually get him cleaned up and we did arrive at church eventually.  But I do think we sat in the foyer for the rest of the meeting so I could cool off.

I bring this up because I’m a busy mom!  I am also a wife, a homemaker, a homeschooler, a library worker, a YW leader, a gospel learner, a cook, etc., etc.  When Bishop Jameson asked me to give a talk on personal peace and peace in our families, I knew I was going to learn more from preparing the talk than you will learn from hearing it.

I needed to know how I could obtain peace when I felt so busy, so frazzled, and sometimes exhausted.

And personal revelation did come!  And it came at the strangest moment.  Picture me in the cold garage yesterday morning vacuuming out my crumb-filled car, pondering the list of chores on my to-do list for the day and also considering writing my talk that evening and how I could apply the words I had studied about peace to me at that very moment, when the understanding and the aha moment came to me and filled my eyes with tears.  I had to wipe my noise on my sweatshirt and I scrambled to write down my feelings on the only thing I could find which was a wrinkled postcard from my kids’ Highlights magazine!

And here’s what I discovered!  (Read from actual postcard): Peace doesn’t come from being perfect.  Or doing everything right.  We’ll never be perfect ourselves.  Peace comes from knowing our Savior.  Peace comes from following His example.  Peace comes from faithfully believing Him, studying His word and living His gospel.

What will it take for you to know Him?  Do you need to study His word?  Meditate?  Serve others?  Commit more fully?  Testify of Him?  Remember Him?  Teach your children of Him?  Pray more faithfully?

Whatever it is you need to do, just do what it takes to know Him as your Savior.  And you’ll have peace.  Jesus Christ is the key.  It’s not--do more yoga for inner peace.  It’s not--become financially secure for personal peace.  These two things are worthy and good and I try to accomplish them.  But the key is Christ.  And knowing Him.

Elder Holland stated: Christ and His angels and His prophets forever labor to buoy up our spirits, steady our nerves, calm our hearts, send us forth with renewed strength and resolute hope.  They wish all to know that “if God be for us, who can be against us?”  In the world we shall have tribulation, but we are to be of good cheer.  Christ has overcome the world.  Through His suffering and His obedience He has earned and rightly bears the crown of “Prince of Peace.”

(Read from other side of postcard):  Can we have peace when we’re so busy?  Yes, we can live full lives and be busy but we need to remember Christ, to know our Savior.  If our schedule is too full of one certain kind of thing, we can get out of balance and forget the spiritual side.  We need to always come back to Christ.  Remember Him when we’re busy.  For example, we can study our scriptures before doing our daily homework.  Or read our scriptures before reading for pleasure or going online.  Or when we’ve got troubles or struggles or problems, we turn in prayer to Heavenly Father first before talking to all of our friends about our problem.

Elder Holland, “I know that in times of fear or fatigue, ‘they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.’

We receive the gift of such majestic might and sanctifying renewal through the redeeming grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He has overcome the world, and if we will take upon us His name and ‘walk in His paths’ and keep our covenants with Him, we shall, ere long, have peace.  Such a reward is not only possible; it is certain.”

I know that peace.  I have felt it at special moments in my life like at my daughter’s baptism last night when I saw my cheerful, beautiful girl radiate happiness and maturity.  I’ve felt it at insignificant times in my normal daily activities when I have desperately pleaded for more patience and joy in parenthood.  I have felt it.  I have felt the Lord give me pause before disciplining a child and His Spirit always reminds me that this child is His child too and that I must treat him or her with tenderness and eternal patience.  These thoughts came from the Lord because I asked for it because I needed it.

In my last few minutes, I wish to read from another of Elder Holland’s conference classics called, “The Tongue of Angels” in which he reminds us to be always aware of the powerful effect of our words on our family members.

“Negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking, including negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak—or at least think—critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable.

I love what Elder Orson F. Whitney once said: “The spirit of the gospel is optimistic; it trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience.” ⁶ We should honor the Savior’s declaration to “be of good cheer.” ⁷ (Indeed, it seems to me we may be more guilty of breaking that commandment than almost any other!) Speak hopefully. Speak encouragingly, including about yourself. Try not to complain and moan incessantly. As someone once said, “Even in the golden age of civilization someone undoubtedly grumbled that everything looked too yellow.”

I have a tendency to talk this way and I recognize that and I know I can change.  One way that helps is that I’ve put a picture of Laela Christensen on my bathroom mirror including her mantra which was, “I choose to be happy.”  I see this several times a day as I go in and out of my bathroom and it helps to snap me out of my negative thinking and recognize the innumerable blessings I receive through the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It turns my heart from selfishness to gratitude.

Elder Holland: “Husbands you have been entrusted with the most sacred gift God can give you—a wife, a daughter of God, the mother of your children who has voluntarily given herself to you for love and joyful companionship. Think of the kind things you said when you were courting, think of the blessings you have given with hands placed lovingly upon her head, think of yourself and of her as the god and goddess you both inherently are, and then reflect on other moments characterized by cold, caustic, unbridled words. Given the damage that can be done with our tongues, little wonder the Savior said, “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” ⁵ A husband who would never dream of striking his wife physically can break, if not her bones, then certainly her heart by the brutality of thoughtless or unkind speech.

In that same spirit we speak to the sisters as well, for the sin of verbal abuse knows no gender. Wives, what of the unbridled tongue in your mouth, of the power for good or ill in your words? How is it that such a lovely voice which by divine nature is so angelic, so close to the veil, so instinctively gentle and inherently kind could ever in a turn be so shrill, so biting, so acrid and untamed? A woman’s words can be more piercing than any dagger ever forged, and they can drive the people they love to retreat beyond a barrier more distant than anyone in the beginning of that exchange could ever have imagined. Sisters, there is no place in that magnificent spirit of yours for acerbic or abrasive expression of any kind, including gossip or backbiting or catty remarks. Let it never be said of our home or our ward or our neighborhood that “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity … [burning] among our members.”

May I expand this counsel to make it a full family matter. We must be so careful in speaking to a child. What we say or don’t say, how we say it and when is so very, very important in shaping a child’s view of himself or herself. But it is even more important in shaping that child’s faith in us and their faith in God. Be constructive in your comments to a child—always. Never tell them, even in whimsy, that they are fat or dumb or lazy or homely. You would never do that maliciously, but they remember and may struggle for years trying to forget—and to forgive. And try not to compare your children, even if you think you are skillful at it. You may say most positively that “Susan is pretty and Sandra is bright,” but all Susan will remember is that she isn’t bright and Sandra that she isn’t pretty. Praise each child individually for what that child is, and help him or her escape our culture’s obsession with comparing, competing, and never feeling we are enough.”

In this month’s Ensign magazine, there is an article about a family from South Africa who received the gospel and how it changed their lives.  The father of the family is quoted, “Because of the teachings of the gospel, I never lose my temper.  Sometimes there are provocations, but the gospel is in my heart, in my head, and in my spirit.  It helps me stay calm.”

I’ve written this talk for my personal growth.  I’m thankful that we all have the opportunity to obtain peace by following our Savior’s example.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.