Feeling Resurrected

If you are Christian, you probably have a pretty good understanding and strong belief in resurrection.  After all, it was Jesus Christ who made it possible for all of us to be resurrected, our spirit and our body reunited again after death, in a glorified form, never again subject to the sickness and pain brought about because of the Fall of Adam and Eve.

But, have you ever actually thought about how it would feel like to be resurrected? Personally, I’ve never given it much thought. But I know people who think about it quite a bit. Even long for it. I’ve heard elderly people talk about how much they look forward to having a youthful body again. I’ve heard bald men mention that they will someday have their thick wavy hair back. I’ve listened to women commiserating about their wrinkles and varicose veins say throw in a comment about the perfect body they will someday have.

So just try to imagine for a moment what it will really FEEL like to suddenly have a perfected body. You could see with perfect vision. You could walk and run with agility. You could hear things that have long been silent to you. You would feel a strength and sureness of body that you might never have experienced before.

When you are suddenly able-bodied, you might be filled with a desire to try something that you have always felt too inadequate to try in the past. You would no longer feel self-conscience because you are too fat, or thin, or short, or misshapen, or feeble.

Can you imagine those feelings? Can you imagine how good that will feel?

Well, guess what.  Just as Jesus Christ enabled us to someday feel rejuvenated about our physical bodies, Jesus Christ has also made it possible to have those very same experiences in a very real, but spiritual, sense when he atoned for our sins.

The spiritual pains and defects from which we suffer can be taken away from us through repentance and coming unto Christ, just as surely as our physical pains will disappear at resurrection.

Yes, it would be nice to have perfect eyesight. Like many people, I am beginning to know what it feels like to have my eyes grow dim with age, to not be able to focus on things that used to clear. That’s a physical thing.

Unfortunately, I also know what it’s like to have my spiritual eyes dimmed by sin. To slowly lose focus of what is right. To be blinded by what the world has to offer.

And then I’ve also felt how repentance has brought my life into focus and I’ve experienced being able to see and understand spiritual things in with a new clarity, like putting on eyeglasses for the first time.

Maybe your hearing isn’t as good as it once was. And it’s not Just that things aren’t loud enough. It’s that you just can’t hear certain tones anymore. Or some peoples’ voices sound like mumbles. Again, physical problems.

I’ve had years of pride take away my ability to hear the spirit, to hear the love and concern in the voice of my brothers and sisters who wanted to be there for me.
And I can testify of the way repentance allows me to begin hearing my Father in Heaven’s voice all around me. In acts of service, in the beauty of nature, and in answers to my prayers.

You might know what it is like to feel weak. Maybe you see others lifting things that you can’t, or opening jars that you can’t budge.

I know what it feels like to be spiritually weak. I’ve avoided the fellowship of church folk because I didn’t feel like I belonged among righteous people. I’ve felt like my prayers were bouncing off the ceiling and were never heard.

But listen to me, the Atonement has allowed me to feel spiritually strong and close to my Father in Heaven. I have felt the strength of my Priesthood as I worthily gave blessings of healing and comfort that have left me physically drained but quickened by the Holy Spirit.

You know that feeling you imagined earlier of wanting to try new and difficult things with your resurrected body? I have felt that same way when I allow the love of God into my life. I know that when I allow the atonement to work in my life, I have the desire to try things that I’ve felt inadequate to try in the past. I don’t feel as afraid to fellowship a new family at church. I feel more comfortable talking about spiritual things and blessing the lives of others.

No, I’m not any more perfect than I was when I turned my back on God. But I feel reborn. And I am learning to allow myself to feel God’s love for me. Christians aren’t perfect, but they are forgiven. And there is a change that comes over you when you feel that.

Since I’m on the subject of imperfect people, I’ll share with you an experience I had a few weeks ago. I was having lunch with a cousin who hasn’t attended church in decades. The subject of religion came up in the conversation as I was talking to him about what keeps me busy.

When he was young, he had been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He knew their standards and recognized how many of them didn’t follow them. He said, “I just can’t stand all the hypocrites in church. I remember there were people in my ward who smoked during the week. There were alcoholics. Some of them were hateful and dishonest people. If you are going to do those things, you shouldn’t go to church.”

My reply to him was the same thing I say to everyone who uses other people’s weaknesses as an excuse to not follow God. It’s a response that I’ve developed through years of my own struggles with imperfection. I said, “So by your reasoning, nobody should ever join a gym unless they are in perfect shape. Fat people shouldn’t go to the gym until they are thin. Weak people shouldn’t go to the gym until they have big muscles.”

My friends, Church is our Spiritual Gym. If you are weak and out of shape, this is the place for you. Jesus Christ has atoned for you. Don’t wait another day before you come to him and let him make you stronger.

No matter where you are in your progression, no matter if you are wallowing in the filth of the world, you can lift your dirty hand out to the Lord and he will lift you and make you clean.

In the January 2014 issue of the Ensign magazine, Deiter F. Uchtdorf wrote:

“At times in my life I have spent sleepless nights grappling with issues, worries, or personal sorrows. But no matter how dark the night, I am always encouraged by this thought: in the morning the sun will rise. With every new day, a new dawn comes—not only for the earth but also for us. And with a new day comes a new start—a chance to begin again.”

Now, There might be a few people reading this who have been working out for years in your little gym called Church. You feel like you are spiritually strong. You have made a lot of progress. You should be proud of how far you have progressed!

However, now is not the time to look around in contempt at all of us out-of-shape people, us weaklings, those of us with disabilities. It isn’t time for you to shake your head and question why we are so slow in our own progression.

Now is the time for you to become a personal trainer. Now is the time to help us, and show us, and teach us.

If nothing else, please be that voice that calls out, “you can do it!” while we struggle.

In the May 2014 issue of Ensign Magazine, David A. Bednar testified:

The Savior has suffered not just for our sins and iniquities—but also for our physical pains and anguish, our weaknesses and shortcomings, our fears and frustrations, our disappointments and discouragement, our regrets and remorse, our despair and desperation, the injustices and inequities we experience, and the emotional distresses that beset us. The Son of God can reach out, touch, succor, heal, and strengthen us to be more than we could ever be and help us to do that which we could never do relying only upon our own power.

I promise you that someday you will enjoy the blessings of a perfected body because Jesus Christ prepared the way for you to be resurrected. And I know that you look forward to the celebrating you will do that day.

But I also promise you that right now you can begin the process of becoming perfected in Christ. Following the Savior will bring a joyful celebration to your soul as you come unto him and you will feel spiritually renewed and strong in a way that transcends the physical limitations of your mortal body.

Growing in Grandpa's Garden

I learned everything I need to know about life in my grandpa’s garden. I can not look back on my childhood without picturing myself doing some sort of work on that single acre of land that seamed to be the whole of my young world. Most of the family did occasional work in the garden, but no one spent as much time at my grandfather’s side as I did. I was his buddy.

When I was nine years old, I moved into my grandparents’ home. The reasons for this move vary depending on who you ask. It boils down to two facts: my home life was terrible and my grandparents wanted me. I can say with confidence that no matter how difficult that move was for me at the time, it was absolutely necessary if I was ever going to become a stable adult. I went from an environment which consisted mostly of long periods of loneliness broken up by the sounds of my parents screaming at each other to the peaceful stability of living in a home with retired grandparents. 

Grandpa loved having me work with him in the garden. In his sly way, he made it very clear to me that nothing else was as important. I remember getting up one morning and walking across the cold, brown linoleum of the Kitchen floor and eating a breakfast of basted eggs and fried baloney with Grandpa. “How are you feeling today, Wessy?” he asked.

“Okay,” I answered as I washed down my breakfast with our traditional icy cold pepsi. It was a different time with different ideas of diet.

He mixed another hot pepper in with his runny egg yolk and then said, “You know, if you weren't feeling good and you stayed home from school today, you could help me rototill the tomato patch.”

“Would you let me run the rototiller?” I inquired.

“Sure,” came his reply.

I pondered this while staring down at my red plastic plate and stirring my egg yolks with my spoon which had the letters US stamped on the handle from WWII. (My grandmother had picked these spoons out of the garbage can in back of the USO building. Sometimes the soldiers would accidentally drop one into the garbage as they emptied their food tray. I still use these spoons every day.)  “I really don’t feel all that good,” I said.

“Well you better go tell your grandma you can’t go to school today,” he suggested. And I scampered to my grandma’s bedside to tell her how sick I felt.

To the casual observer who might have seen my grandpa and me working in the garden, it might have seemed like he was ignoring me. He didn’t talk much as we puttered the days away. We didn’t have to talk very much. We were so much a part of each other that there was no need for chit-chat. There were long periods of comfortable silence that passed between us as we dutifully worked the garden. When we did speak, it was usually about an important principle of life that I wouldn’t have recognized without his direction.

I remember how we would pound wooden stakes into the ground at either end of the field with itchy twine strung between them to guide us as we hoed the rows for irrigation. The rows had to be straight and carefully tended during each watering because even a small blockage could cause the water to back up and flood portions of the crop. Grandpa saw this as a teaching moment and he likened it to our lives. He said that sometimes a problem can seem small and unthreatening, but if left unchecked it can cause irreparable damage. He would remove the small blockage with head of his hoe and the water would flow freely again. He talked about repentance and how it can get us progressing again.

The first time I saw a diagram of the Plan of Salvation was when it was drawn with a stick in the freshly tilled soil of my grandpa’s garden while he explained why we needed a Redeemer.  It seems strange to say that one of my fondest memories of home is the dirt, but it is. Besides being the chalkboard for my grandpa’s garden classroom, it was the vital element that brought life to the garden. And Grandpa taught me how to read what it was on it, and in it. He would reach his calloused hand into the tilled ground and remove a fistful of dark, rich soil. He knew by smelling it and sifting it between his experienced fingers what ingredients needed to be added to the earth before it was ready for planting. Once the judgement was made, we would spend days adding manure from the chicken coup, or compost, or some other organic material to the soil until it was finally perfect. I learned that when the soil is right, it has a feel and smell that will ring true to the often neglected recesses of one’s soul.

Much of the bounty from our labors never made it into the house for others to enjoy. We would relish it together as we sat silently with our backs against the woodpile, glorying in what we had produced from the land. I still can hardly stand to eat store-bought tomatoes because they are only tasteless imitations of the dark red beauties that grandpa and I ate together, salting them with shaker that he kept hidden in the toolshed.

When the Summer sun would get too much for us, we would take a drink of the cold well water that would always chill our teeth. Sometimes Grandpa would pick a cantaloupe. We would rest in the tall weeds under the cool shade tree and enjoy the hot, juicy sweetness of the sun-baked melon as he cut off slices with his little pocketknife. It wasn’t always a cantaloupe; sometimes it was boysenberries gathered in his panama hat, or a handful of pea pods that we would shell together, or a pomegranate that we would slowly share, staining our fingers and leaving tiny crimson droplets on our dirty jeans that would remind me of the experience for months afterward. Even a crunchy raw turnip was a savory treat when picked and eaten with grandpa. I can remember sitting in the shade of the grape arbor, eating sweet seedless orbs and watching the trains that passed on the tracks just west of our property. And Grandpa would tell me of his experiences in the war -- tales of horror and fear that I now know he rarely shared with other people. Sometimes I wonder why he confided so freely in me.

On December 1st, 1980, Grandpa was diagnosed with cancer. Ten days later he was dead. I was 12 years old. It was a long time before I could go into our garden again. When he left, he took the garden and my world with him. 

As I got older, I found out that the things I learned in the garden didn’t matter to the world. Sure, it was a fine life for a retired old man -- it was good therapy -- but I was expected to be more productive, be ambitious, make money. But I felt out-of-step with the world around me. Everything seemed too fast when compared to the natural pace that I learned in the garden. Life rushed by me in a blur before I had time to even make sense of it.

My younger sister, who was raised by my parents in the home I escaped, is a successful accountant with her own firm. She is a go-getter who doesn’t rest. I’d never survive in her world.

For a while, I worked the garden by myself. I did it on a smaller scale, but it was still a lot of work for a kid, but it helped me feel close to Grandpa.

Over the years, the garden became smaller and smaller as I fewer family members visited and grandma and I didn’t need a big garden. As Grandma grew older and I became her caretaker, the garden became little more than a barren field. It is interesting how something that was so fruitful and beautiful with just a little dedication turns into an ugly wasteland as soon as it is neglected. I’m sure Grandpa would have found a life-lesson in that fact, too. 

For many years, the garden neglected. After I married, my wife and I spent the first few years of our marriage living in a tiny shack in the back part of that property. I cleared the land and planted tomatoes, squash, beans, corn, and peppers on a section of it. I discovered that it is impossible for me to do gardening without feeling my grandpa around me. That’s not a complain, it’s more of a boast.

My wife and I moved away and have a home of our own now. I have a small vegetable garden in the backyard. I have filled our front yard with plants and flowers that I have grown from clippings or scavenged from other sources. I have beautiful succulents growing in pots and flowers blooming in beds. I often get compliments on our yard and interesting plants. 
Grandpa is with me when I work in my own yard, too. I think about him and my childhood whenever I work in the yard. It’s funny how those simple times from so long ago have stuck with me.

My family still refers to that area as “the garden”, though anyone seeing it now for the first time would wonder why. It makes me sad to see it.

My wife and I plan to buy a few acres outside of the city in the next few years.  I can't wait to plot out my garden, raise chickens, and shake my fists at goats.  It will not be in the place I grew up, but it will feel more like home than anywhere I've ever been.

I think about those things I learned out in the garden and I am grateful for those character-building lessons. I have noticed that the things I learned while gardening with Grandpa have done nothing to help me become successful or wealthy in the eyes of the world. I suppose I shouldn't have skipped school as often as I did.

But when life becomes difficult, the things that help me make it through are not the things I learned in school, but the patience, faith, and character that I developed while working with Grandpa in the garden.  So that was the best school of all.