Exercising Faith to Achieve Balance

Sister Ashton is an impressive lady! I love the story she shared about her experience in medical school:

Sister Ashton recalled how in her first year of medical school she felt overwhelmed with the study load. Despite doing nothing but eating, sleeping, attending classes and studying, her test scores were average.

As she started her second year, her husband shared with her the experience of President Henry B. Eyring, who promised one of his sons if he would do the best he could with his studies while also devoting time to his family and Church calling, he could have faith that Jesus Christ would help him to accomplish the works that God had for him to do.

“I decided I needed to exercise more faith and make some changes in my life,” Sister Ashton recalled.

She began to ask Heavenly Father how much time she needed to spend studying to do well enough to accomplish the works He had for her. After that, once she completed her predetermined study time, she would close her books and enjoy all the other aspects of her life. Not only was she happier, but her test scores remained the same, even though she was studying less.

“The Savior did not have to bless me that way. My scores could have gone down,” Sister Ashton said. 

Even though her life path led her to be a full-time mother rather than practice medicine, Sister Ashton said she believes God was trying to teach her a lesson: “I think He wanted me to know that I could do things on my own if that is what I chose, but if I asked Him for help, He would help me. He would do part of the work.”

Turning Enemies Into Friends

I came across this BYU address by Sister Sharon Eubank (from the Relief Society general presidency and director of LDS Charities). The title stood out to me because of all the divisiveness in society right now. Here are some highlights of the talk:

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After President Thomas S. Monson’s funeral, The Monson family asked the Relief Society if we would deliver the dozens of floral arrangements that had been sent for President Monson’s funeral to different care centers and hospitals around the valley. I took one of these big, beautiful arrangements into a care center that was right by President and Sister Monson’s family home. The woman behind the desk wondered what I was doing because the arrangement was huge. But when she understood what I was delivering, she burst into a smile, because President Monson was very well known and loved at that care center. I came to understand that he had spent many hours of his leisure time visiting with people there.

I believe that the Lord often isn’t asking us for big, time-consuming gestures; He merely wants minutes of our time every day to help another person on their way.

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The big humanitarian crises that are going on right now and the ones that have happened in the past when people have been driven out of their homes and lands are, at the heart, failures to remember that we are brothers and sisters and that God is the Father of us all.

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We live in a world that is coming apart, that is being pulled apart, so that the unity of community and respect for other people’s beliefs, tolerance of differences, and protection of the minority voice are being shredded. It is extremely destructive to all of us when everyone outside of our narrow clan becomes an enemy we vilify. As those forces in our society rise up, then so must an answering strong sentiment and skill set on the opposite side.

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Overcoming Discouragement and Self-Doubt

I came across this BYU devotional because one of the stories was recently made into a video:

   

 After watching the video, I read the entire talk, and the whole thing is great. I especially love the story of Eli Pierce, because it reminds me of when I was called as a seminary teacher 4 years ago. Here is an excerpt:

As you know, the Brethren used to announce in general conference the names of those who had been called on missions. Not only was this the way friends and neighbors learned of the call, more often than not it was the way the missionary learned of it as well. One such prospect was Eli H. Pierce. A railroad man by trade, he had not been very faithful in Church meetings—“even had my inclinations led in that direction, which I frankly confess they did not,” he admitted. His mind had been given totally to what he demurely calls “temporalities.” He said he had never read more than a few pages of scripture in his life and that he had spoken to only one public gathering (an effort which he says was no credit to himself or those who heard him). He used the vernacular of the railroad and the barroom with a finesse born of long practice. He bought cigars wholesale—a thousand at a time—and he regularly lost his paycheck playing pool. Then this classic understatement: “Nature never endowed me with a superabundance of religious sentiment; my spirituality was not high and probably even a little below average.”

Well, the Lord knew what Eli Pierce was, and he knew something else. He knew what I’m pleading for today. He knew what Eli Pierce could become. When the call came that October 5 in 1875, Eli wasn’t even in the Tabernacle. He was out working on one of the railroad lines. A fellow employee, once recovered from the shock of it all, ran out to telegraph the startling news. Brother Pierce writes, “At the very moment this intelligence was being flashed over the wires, I was sitting lazily thrown back in an office rocking chair, my feet on the desk, reading a novel and simultaneously sucking on an old Dutch pipe just to vary the monotony of cigar smoking.” (For my friends in the English Department I would just hasten to add that the novel reading was probably a more serious transgression than the pipe smoking.)

He goes on. “As soon as I had been informed of what had taken place, I threw the novel in the waste basket, the pipe in a corner [and have never touched either to this hour]. I sent in my resignation . . . to take effect at once, in order that I might have time for study and preparation. I then started into town to buy [scripture].”

Then these stirring words:

Remarkable as it may seem, and has since appeared to me, a thought of disregarding the call, or of refusing to comply with the requirement, never once entered my mind. The only question I asked—and I asked it a thousand times—was: “How can I accomplish this mission? How can I, who am so shamefully ignorant and untaught in doctrine, do honor to God and justice to the souls of men, and merit the trust reposed in me by the Priesthood?”

With such genuine humility fostering resolution rather than defeating it, Eli Pierce fulfilled a remarkable mission.

Real the full talk here: "For Times of Trouble" by Jeffrey R. Holland,

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-holland/times-trouble/