RESCUING THE LOST

"For the Son of man is come to save that which

was lost.

How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, 

and one of them be gone astray, 

doth he not leave the ninety and nine, 

and goeth into the mountains, 

and seeketh that which is gone astray?

And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, 

he rejoiceth more of that sheep, 

than of the ninety and nine

which went not astray.

Even so it is not the will of your Father

which is in heaven, 

that one of these little ones should perish."

Matt 18:11-14

Indeed it is not the will of the father that not one of us should perish. A will that sacrificed one of us for the good of all of us. Such is the love of a Father who desires to give us His all, who desires to give us eternal life. And so Jesus came to protect us, love us and claim us as His own. A shepherd who loves the one and will go and seek the one until that one is no longer lost. It matters not to Him how the sheep became lost or why, all that matters to Him is the rescue. How glorious and wise to relay His love for His sheep in such a poignant way. By leaving the ninety and nine he is not saying to them that they are not as important as the one that was lost, but to impress upon them that in Him is found true safety and protective care. In other words, by leaving the ninety and nine the Saviour was saying to them: 'If you get lost, I will come find you for this is what I do, I am come to save that which was lost."    

Since the beginning of man, the Lord has relied on His 'under shepherds' to do His work. Such under shepherds are found in prophets, Church leaders and anyone who possesses the truth. We are commanded to seek out and rescue the lost sheep but more often than not, we allow feelings of inadequacy to hold us back. We tell ourselves that we are not important enough or skilled enough for people to listen to us and believe our words when in fact we as the under shepherds and are endowed with power to do this sacred work. When Moses was called to his holy calling, in trepidation he replied that he was 'slow of speech'. The Lord replied, "Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say" (Exodus 4:10-12). In other words, 'do not suppose that this is your work, but mine, and you will say what I want you to say and I will empower you to say it'. 

When doing God's work, the power of the word is in God. It is never in us. When we speak with the tongue of angels, it is not by our brilliant skills but by the power of the Holy Ghost which not only empowers the bearer of the word but gives understanding to the hearer also. Such was the case for Enoch who was made mighty despite his claim that he also was of 'slow speech'. The Lord's reply was the same to him as it was to Moses: "Open thy mouth, and it shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance..." (Moses 6:32). So Enoch did and so great grew his power that when he spoke the word of the Lord, the earth trembled, and the mountains fled and the rivers of water were turned out of their course and all nations feared greatly 'so great was the power of the language which God had given him" (Moses 7:13) Not all went well for Enoch in the beginning though as he started his ministry. Even though he proclaimed the gospel with a 'loud' voice 'all men were offended because of him' (Moses 6:37). This is when most of us would give up. Fear of rejection and offence is a strong emotion so our rescuing efforts never get off the ground or become aborted when the going gets tough. Enoch, however, did not give up and he was rewarded, he was rewarded with rescuing a whole city, a city which became so righteous that the Lord took it unto Himself. 

The Lord never gives a commandment without attaching a blessing to it. Such is the case with the mission of rescue. The blessings attached to this work should negate all the fears we might have of rejection and offence and inadequacy. Proclaiming the gospel comes with a two-fold blessing. The Lord says clearly that if we get rejected, we will 'dwell with Him in His glory' and if we don't get rejected and those we are preaching to accept the testimony which is given to them, we shall have 'joy in the fruit of our labours' (D&C 6:29-31). In short, we cannot lose. Either way, rescuing will yield rewards.

And what of those who need to be rescued? How long and how hard should we expend our efforts, our time and our energy in offering them salavation? For as long as it takes. We should never give up on those who are receptive, even in the smallest way and proclaim them a 'hopeless cause'. Consider this example: "Like many of you, I have shared the gospel with some who are soon baptized or activated, and others - such as my nonmember friend Tim and his less-active wife, Charlene - take much more. For over 25 years I engaged Tim in gospel conversations and took Tim and Charlene to temple open houses. Others joined the rescue; however, Tim declined each invitation made to meet with the missionaries. One weekend I was assigned to preside at a stake conference. I had asked the stake president to fast and pray about whom we should visit. I was shocked when he handed me the name of my friend Tim. When Tim's bishop, the stake president, and I knocked on the door, Tim opened it, looked at me, looked at the bishop, and then said, 'Bishop, I thought you told me you were going to bring somebody special!' Then Tim laughed and said, 'Come on in, Merv.' A miracle occured that day. Tim has now been baptised, and he and Charlene have been sealed in the temple. We must never give up" (Elder Mervyn B. Arnold, To The Rescue: We Can Do It, Ensign May 2016, p 54). 

There was a time in my life when I was lost. I was attending Church every Sunday and living the gospel but in my heart I was harbouring resentment, feelings of betrayal and acute aloneness. I was freshly divorced and felt terribly betrayed by God. I had done all the right things from the time of my baptism and yet there I was with my heart in shreds and my life a shambles. Sometimes we see people at Church regularly and we do not know that they are lost in corridors, in Sunday School lessons, in fake smiles. But the Lord knows. He knows and He will reach out and send his under shepherds to find them and cradle them in the arms of His love. Such was the case for me. Following my divorce I moved and changed wards. I came into a freshly created ward where the Relief Society President was someone who was prepared by the Lord to be in that calling to rescue me. Through intricate, spiritually engineered sequence of events this sister was placed in my new ward and she became my source of security when I had none. She cried with me and she loved me and she cared for me. And she was not the only one. The Lord provided two other people who held me up, my Bishop and another sister who became my mentor and confidant for many years but my true under shepherd when I was hanging by a thread was my Relief Society President. To her I owe much more than I can repay for she provided comfort and grounding to me when I could not stand alone. She was sent at a particular time for a particular season in my life. I owe a debt of gratitude to her for her willingness to find the one that was lost.

"Our Saviour, the Good Shepherd, knows and loves us.

He knows and loves YOU.

He knows when you are lost, and He knows where you are.

He knows your grief. Your silent pleadings.

Your fears. Your tears.

It matters not how you became lost - 

whether because of your own poor choices or because of

circumstances beyond your control.

What matters is that you are His child.

And He loves you.

Because He loves, He will find you.

He will place you upon His shoulders, rejoicing.

And when he brings you home, He will say to one and all,

'Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost'"

- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"He Will Place You On His Shoulders

and Carry You Home"

Ensign May 2016

DIVORCED IN A MARRIED CHURCH

This week's Sunday School lesson is entitled "The Family is Ordained of God".  Whereas the Church lesson manual focuses solely on the importance of family, I know there will be a lot of discussion brought into the lesson about the evils of divorce.  I know because I have sat through many such lessons in the 18 years I have been alone.  It used to wreck me back in the beginning. Even though divorce offered me much needed relief back then, I am and always was deeply passionate about the plan of salvation and the importance of family.  All I ever wanted in life was to be married and to have children.  And I did get that but I also lost it.  That loss of that dream was excruciating and forced me to re-define my whole standing in the Church and to evaluate the strength of my testimony. 

I agree with everything that is said about the evils of divorce. Why? Because I have lived through those evils.  The repercussions and consequences  of that one event of my life have been enormous and ongoing for more years than I care to admit.  My divorce has had a devastating effect on me as a woman. It has created a sense of inadequacy when around other Church couples to the point that I have largely refrained from Church social life.  I have gone to great lengths to make myself irrelevant as a woman to the opposite sex so I do not run the risk of being hurt again. Raising two children alone and providing security for them when I had none for myself was a challenge I struggled with every day.  It was not just the emotional and financial security that at times seemed overwhelming but the physical one as well.  When my children were still little our home was broken into 4 times.  The third time my daughter found the intruder in her bedroom upon our arrival home.  The fourth time they came through the front door.  It was the most unnerving incident that stayed fresh in my mind all these years because this single event of my life taught me how much women need the protection of men and what it means to be without a husband. It's not what was taken from our home but it was the fear of no security that came with that broken door that paralysed me.  I called the real estate agent who told me that because it was Friday the door would not be fixed until the following Monday.  I called my Bishop who was also our home teacher and left a message for him explaining what had happened but he never called me back.  I called my sister and asked if my brother-in-law who was a very capable handy man could come over and help but he refused.  I so desperately needed to feel the presence of a man in the house at that moment even if he could not fix the door but that man was not to be found.  I felt so alone, uncared for and worthless during that experience.  I was too scared to sleep that weekend fearing the intruders would come back during the night through a poorly secured door of my making and I would be unable to protect my children.  It was one of the lowest points of my divorced life and there were many more. 

My daughters too have suffered greatly from my choice to divorce.  The absence of the father in the home is devastating to children and I believe all the statistics that come from the broken home surveys. My children are now adults but they are still resolving issues they inherited from their childhoods and lack of their father's involvement in their lives which I was largely responsible for.  The guilt I carried all those years for taking their father out of our home led me to overcompensate in ways that have led to complications I never imagined.  The list is long and too personal to recount.

I worry that the years of my solitude have made me tough, not needing a husband anymore.  I worry that I have in the process discovered and developed strengths that only a husband should provide in a marital union.  I worry that I have to attract a man now that I am in my middle age.  I worry that might never happen and I will journey through this life a wanderer belonging to no one and having no home. But most of all I worry about all the mistakes I have made during my imperfect mothering, that I haven't empowered my daughters enough, that out of guilt I have overcompensated and done too much for them sabotaging their growth.  I worry that I have made the most common mistake of single mothers by turning my children into my best friends and making them privy to too many of my hardships.  I worry that even though I have worked very hard to come to love and respect their father as a human being and to be on good terms with him, I have somehow lessened him in their eyes. I worry that my children's every problem dates back to the divorce and that I am responsible for it all.

It appears as if I am worrying all the time but it is not quite true.  The thoughts of failure in all these areas come to me from time to time but I am more and more learning to forgive my humanity and to be kinder to myself.  My intentions and the intents of my heart were always in the right place, even if my behaviour wasn't.  I hope for the Saviour's mercy because of that.  I believe I did what I could with who I was at the time.  I was told in a priesthood blessing following my divorce that the Lord would not have asked any more of me than what I had given in my marriage.  This gives me hope.  I know He knows my limitations and how much I am capable of so He will not hold me accountable for more. 

Now that I am middle aged and my children are grown, I have found myself in a really undesirable place.  I need to change everything.  At the age that most married women are starting to wind down and enjoy their grandchildren, I find that I have to re-invent myself and create a whole new life. Up to now I was so heavily invested in my children that now I have to find myself all over again.  I have no career, no financial security, no home of my own, no marriage prospects.  The task to rise above my circumstances seems overwhelming at times but rise I must.  I still have so much to do.  My mission is not complete and I want no regrets when I return home.

I am a big believer that something good always comes out of something bad, if you look for it and are willing to learn the lessons the bad situation offers.  The greatest blessing that has come to me from my divorce is that I have come to know God.  This painful situation led me to study about the Atonement and test its' power to heal us.  Even at the height of my emotional pain following the divorce, I didn't want to be a toxic ex-wife.  I had a desire to be free from resentment and blame and anger.  I wanted to be accepting of my ex-husband's new life.  I didn't want to run away and dodge him for the rest of my life.  The Atonement made this possible for me.  As I called upon its' power, it truly healed my broken heart and it took away all my negative feelings and replaced them with the ability to be the person I wanted to become because of this experience.

If I could shout from the rooftops, my message would be one of warning to all married couples to do all they can to save their marriage.  But what if you have done all that you could possibly do or you are a victim of an abusive situation or you had no choice in the matter?  Then you are unfortunately a statistic in the Church. But even statistics belong.  You just have to believe it. It might take you a while to stop feeling fractured. This feeling is more prevalent when you have little children and the absence of a father and husband is insanely evident.

It is never easy to be alone in the Church. You just have to value yourself enough so that others will too.  I have carved a place for myself in the Church where I believe people see my strengths more than my cracks which are still in the process of healing.  I found that place one day on my visit to the temple.  I used to attend with trepidation after my divorce but this one day I noticed something very significant in the temple - men and women sit separately.  They do not sit together like they do at Church projecting a picture of marriage and family.  I understood then, the temple is as much about individual salvation as it is about marriage and eternity.  The Church is about the individual as much as it is about marriage and family.  The gospel is as much about being a disciple of Jesus Christ as it is about finding someone to share your eternal destiny. The Saviour values you because he has died for you personally, irrespective of your marital status.  When he visited the Americas, He invited the multitude to come to Him one by one to feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet. (3 Nephi 11:14) Why?  Because he wanted them and us to know that the Atonement is personal and that He had atoned for each one of us individually and not for the humanity collectively.  His sheep are numbered and there is not one that is overlooked. We all belong in the fold.  There is a pew at Church with your name on it. Visualise it and own it.  You have the right to sit in it.