DO I BELONG?

We were asked to give a fireside on baptism for the Young Women.  As I pondered the rich symbolism of being born again through baptism by immersion of water followed by baptism by immersion with the Holy Spirit, I became more aware of what it means to come out of the world and into the strait (difficult) and narrow path of the Kingdom of God.  Sometimes, instead of fellow saints, we feel like fellow foreigners, depending on what our world was like before and after we entered the "labor" of this introductory covenant.

This week and last week’s Sunday School and Relief Society lessons were on eternal families, temple marriage, and the principle of work.  So many people do not fit the “ideal” nor do they have a lot of hope in attaining it.  How does a teacher encourage members of the Church without inadvertently creating a sense of failure or estrangement or even hopelessness?    

I was reading a life story of a woman who came from a dysfunctional family.  She said, “Remember, nothing bad has happened in your future.”  Instead of diminishing or forgetting the ideal, which is designed to maximize joy and protect us from gigantic setbacks, perhaps we could embrace it for what it is and teach with power from our experience with the less-than-perfect.  If we are doing all we can do, we can go forth in faith and claim our promised blessings in due time.  In the May 2006 General Conference, President Packer said, “Christ is the Creator, the Healer.  What He made, He can fix” and I believe that includes our dreams of perfection.

And those of us who have been so privileged to marry in the temple, who have never gone through a divorce, or who have never been single with a child and had to go on welfare,--perhaps we could humbly acknowledge that "there but for the grace of God go I."  In fact, there are so many exceptions to the ideal that it makes me wonder if having to grapple and grow in the furnace of frustration is an instructive and important part of attaining the ideal for most people.  So let’s hold hands while we walk, because the road to sanctification is not predictable up close, and we might be next.