I had the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting on Easter Sunday. (For those not of my faith: sacrament meeting is the main meeting on Sunday, where all the children and adults gather for a little over an hour, to think of the Savior, take the sacrament--bread and water to represent Him, and to remind us of Him, and which He first instituted with his apostles during the Last Supper, and to hear uplifting messages from members of the local area, usually chosen by the bishop.) It was a scary privilege, speaking is always a scary privilege, but it was especially heavy, since it was on Easter Sunday: such an important day to really feel and appreciate what the Savior did. A few of my family members asked me to send them my talk (which, of course, I did not read word for word, but this is pretty close) and I thought it made sense to share it on here, which is for sharing my thoughts and feelings. So, without further ado: my Easter Talk, with a few fun added pictures, since this IS my blog and I love pictures.
Introduce self/family—include the life change of
“losing” Gideon.
I REALLY love super heroes. I love movies about them, and imagining about
how cool it would be to have super powers….
I think it would be awesome to 
walk on walls, miraculously rescue people
with super strength, hear and influence thoughts, control the weather, be super
brilliant and creative, or be tough enough to endure almost any pain and
recover quickly. I have never been able
to make up my mind about which power I’d want to have. Some days, when I’ve had a particularly
awesome day as a mother, I feel like I should have earned a cape by now.
A few years ago, in another ward, I was teaching some primary children, and it
dawned on me that I should think of Jesus Christ as a superhero. He didn’t walk on walls, but He walked on
water.. Superman was often frustrated
with his limitations on how he couldn’t save everyone, but Jesus Christ didn’t
have that problem. He saved EVERYONE. The
Bible Dictionary explains grace this way: Grace is
the help or strength given through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Through the grace of God, everyone who has lived will be resurrected—our
spirits will be reunited with our bodies, never again to be separated. Through
His grace, the Lord also enables those who live His gospel to repent and be
forgiven . Our Savior hears our prayers, our thoughts, our hearts, and
through the Holy Ghost, he is able to influence and direct ours. He calmed the raging storm, He knows when we
are telling the truth, and can help us find the truth in our lives. He had to have been immensely brilliant and
creative to come up with such an awesome planet—with deserts, rainforests,
oceans, mountains, and what seems like an infinite number of living creatures,
but to Him, they are finite. They are
numbered, He knows his creations. And He
was the toughest cookie to ever live on the Earth. He had to be tough to endure the suffering
and pain of the entire world during the Atonement. And He conquered death. Because He was resurrected, we all will
be. I am so excited to see my little son
again, to get to hold and raise him one day.
And I appreciate the gift of resurrection more than I ever did before.
But there’s a little bit of a catch. 3rd Article of Faith: We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. That means we to
choose to follow him by obeying the laws and ordinances of the gospel. Well….we have to try, anyway. We have known from the time the Plan of
Happiness was presented in Heaven that we wouldn’t be able to be perfectly
obedient, and that we would fall short.
And so Heavenly Father gave us a Savior, to make up the difference.
So sometimes I wonder, how do I know if I’m really
trying hard enough? I often wonder if I
am trying hard enough, or if I’m good enough.
I’m going to share a long portion of a talk by Elder Devn J Cornish of
the 70, who spoke last fall in General Conference. (This part
may have to be summarized if time is short.)
“Through a series of
tender mercies as a young doctor coming out of medical school, I was accepted
for pediatric residency training in a high-powered, competitive program. When I
met the other interns, I felt like the least intelligent and least prepared of
all. I thought there was no way I could measure up to the rest of the group.
Early in our third month,
I was sitting in the nurse’s station in the hospital late one night,
alternately sobbing to myself and falling asleep as I tried to write the
admission orders for a small boy with pneumonia. I had never felt so
discouraged in my life. I didn’t have any idea how to treat pneumonia in a
10-year-old. I began to wonder what I was doing there.
Just at that moment, one
of the senior residents put his hand on my shoulder. He asked me how I was
doing, and I poured out my frustrations and fears. His response changed my
life. He told me how proud he and all of the other senior residents were of me
and how they felt like I was going to be an excellent doctor. In short, he
believed in me at a time when I didn’t even believe in myself.
(I ABSOLUTELY believe that the Savior believes in us,
sees the potential in us, and believes in us, even when we don’t believe in
ourselves.)
As with my own experience,
our members often ask, “Am I good enough as a person?” or “Will I really make
it to the celestial kingdom?” Of course, there is no such thing as “being good
enough.” None of us could ever “earn” or “deserve” our salvation, but it is
normal to wonder if we are acceptable before the Lord, which is how I
understand these questions.
Sometimes when we attend
church, we become discouraged even by sincere invitations to improve ourselves.
We think silently, “I can’t do all these things” or “I will never be as good as
all these people.” Perhaps we feel much the same as I did in the hospital that
night.
Let me be direct and
clear. The answers to the questions “Am I good enough?” and “Will I make it?”
are “Yes! You are going to be good enough” and “Yes, you are going to make it
as long as you keep repenting and do not rationalize or rebel.” The God of
heaven is not a heartless referee looking for any excuse to throw us out of the
game. He is our perfectly loving Father, who yearns more than anything else to
have all of His children come back home and live with Him as families forever.
He truly gave His Only Begotten Son that we might not perish but have
everlasting life!1 Please believe, and please take hope and comfort from, this
eternal truth. Our Heavenly Father intends for us to make it! That is His work
and His glory.”
Do I believe that God knows what he is doing? Oh my goodness, I have had this faith tested
a few times in my life, but I truly do.
I know He knows what He is doing. His master plan is for us to succeed, to have
immortality and eternal life. And He
didn’t set a plan in place so that most of us would fall short. I’m sure he was confident that His plan was
going to help us all progress, but we have to choose Him over distractions. We have to REALLY TRY.
It’s HARD to always be trying our best, and to always
make great choices, but it is made easier when we love God. That leads us to love other people, and to
lose our desires to sin. And learning to
love God and Jesus Christ means we have to take the time to get to know them,
just like we have to get to know and love people. Except
we can’t literally ring a doorbell and go have a chat, we have to read, study,
listen, and ponder in order to learn about and know them. We live in a world where so many people
believe that Christianity or religion is oppressive, that it ties and binds. So many people believe taking time to study
scripture or pray is a waste. Satan has
done a FABULOUS job of tricking people into believing the exact opposite of the
truth. A true belief in Christ, a deep
testimony is one of the most liberating, enabling, empowering things a person
can ever have in their life.
I’d like to share two stories from Jesus’ life. One is when He is with his disciples on the
boat, and He was so absolutely exhausted that he was sleeping through an awful
storm. (Possibly another superpower?) The apostles woke Him, because they were
terrified, they were sure they were all going to die, and He first rebuked the
storm, and then rebuked them for their lack of faith. If they REALLY understood who He was, they
would have known that God was not going to sink that ship. 
The other is from another storm found in Matthew 14.
Jesus’ apostles were out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus approached
them via the water. At first they were
all afraid, they thought it was a ghost, but He called out to them to calm
their fears. We can learn much from
Peter in this story. He said in verse
28: Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. So Jesus did, and Peter did it. He walked on the water toward Jesus. But in verse 30, he saw the wind boisterous,
and he became afraid. And he started to
sink, and cried out to the Lord “Save me”, and Jesus grabbed his hand, and
helped him walk back to the boat.
Storms will come in our lives. They just will. People we love will die. We will get sick. Sometimes our friends and family will make
choices that lead them away from happiness.
Sometimes, Jesus may calm the storm.
Sometimes, He may simply help us walk through the storm. Sometimes, we might feel like we’ve got
everything under control, and then become distracted by the waves, and become
afraid and begin to sink. This
happens. And a belief in Jesus allows us
to call out to Him to save us, and He can help us to overcome those difficult
things. A strong testimony in the
resurrection, in Christ’s power to heal and save can make all the difference
through those storms.
I want to share some of the words from a beautiful song
called “Still Believe” written by Hilary Weeks.
This explains much of how I feel about my Savior. “I haven’t seen His face, but I have seen His
miracles. I haven’t heard His voice, but
His spirit speaks to my heart. I haven’t
felt His hands, but I have felt His peace; and blessed are those who haven’t
seen and still believe. I didn’t walk
with Him but each day he’s here by my side.
I didn’t watch as He healed, but His love has changed my life. I didn’t see the cross, but I know it was for
me, and blessed are those who haven’t seen and still believe.”
My VERY favorite scripture is Philippians 4:13 “I can
do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me.” I have relied on this promise many times, and
I know that I will need to rely on it in the future. He lends us strength, He helps us succeed, He
makes it possible to weather the storms.
Jesus Christ is the ULTIMATE hero, He is there to help ALL
of us succeed, and He helps us still today, because He lives, and He is still
invested in who we are. He has done the
Atonement part of the plan of happiness, but that plan is going on RIGHT NOW,
and we have to choose to follow it too. He
believes in us, even when we don’t believe in ourselves. And not only does He have all of these
amazing powers, but He has the power to see OUR super powers we all have hidden
underneath, and wants to encourage us to rise and reach that potential, to
become like Heavenly Father. He knows
me, and He knows you. He lives, and
because He lives, we will ALL live again.
We will see our loved ones. To
paraphrase Elder McConkie “In a coming day, we will get to feel the nail marks
in his hands and feet and wet his feet with our tears.” We will see Him, and if we have taken the
time to get to know him and feel His love, we will recognize Him.
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