He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

On February 12, 2007 my friend, lost his wife in a tragic and horrific way.  A gunman open-fired at a shopping mall in downtown Salt Lake City killing five and wounding four.

So many people knew about this tragedy because it was all over the news.  Family, friends, ward members, and neighbors reached out to my friend.  Even complete strangers offered to help him.  He was overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and support he received at that time.  It truly sustained him.

In the summer of that same year, my husband and I had the privilege of going to the Holy Land with my friend.  He remarried not long after that trip and moved to Texas. He took on two step-children and had two more with his new wife. Through the next few years, we would get updates from him via the occasional Christmas card.  Everything looked picture-perfect and it seemed as if it all was going wonderful for him.

Last October, a couple of days before General Conference, my friend came into my mind.  I never thought about him and wondered why he just popped into my head like that.  Then Saturday afternoon, between Conference sessions, I got a message through Facebook from my friend asking if I would pray for him.  A second message came through immediately after the first asking if he could call me.  We never talk over the phone, so I was a little surprised by his request.  I messaged back my number and a few minutes later the phone rang.  I could hear the distress in his voice when I answered.  As he spoke, I remembered how I had thought about him just a few days before... this must have been why.

He proceeded to tell me how his wife that he had remarried had slowly stopped going to church, eventually started drinking wine, and now had rejected her Temple covenants.  He told me of all the efforts he had made to try and save their dying relationship.  I sat in stunned silence and just listened as he bawled over the phone, pouring out his soul to me.  Between deep sobs he said, "Alicia, this is far more difficult for me than I could ever have imagined, even harder than the tragedy that took my first wife."  I didn't know what to say.  I have never heard a man cry so hard as he was and it pulled on my heart.  As I continued to listen, I couldn't hold back the tears and I wept with him for nearly an hour.  I felt so helpless and it pained me that there was nothing more that I could do.  I know he didn't expect that there was anything I could say.  I think he just needed to talk to someone who knew his back-story and someone who would listen.

By the time our conversation had ended, the second session for Saturday's conference was starting.  I sat down on the couch, still stunned from everything my poor friend had told me.  Through the next few talks, I couldn't shake the feeling of wishing there was more I could have done, more I could have said... anything more than just crying with him, bearing my testimony, and promising my prayers.

.....

Then Elder Holland got up and spoke the words I truly needed to hear:

"Given the monumental challenge of addressing inequity in the world, what can one man or woman do? The Master Himself offered an answer. When, prior to His betrayal and Crucifixion, Mary anointed Jesus’s head with an expensive burial ointment, Judas Iscariot protested this extravagance and “murmured against her.”

Jesus said:

“Why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work. … “She hath done what she could.”

“She hath done what she could”! What a succinct formula! A journalist once questioned Mother Teresa of Calcutta about her hopeless task of rescuing the destitute in that city. He said that, statistically speaking, she was accomplishing absolutely nothing. This remarkable little woman shot back that her work was about love, not statistics."  - Jeffrey R. Holland 

.....

I felt as if the Lord, Himself, was telling me, "It's okay, Alicia, you have done what you could." I said a silent prayer of gratitude, that was just what I needed in the perfect moment.

Since that day, I have pondered much about that phone call with my friend and what he said about this other situation being harder to deal with than the shooting.  In the first situation, everything happened suddenly and without warning and the sorrow that accompanied it was a sadness that involved the temporary loss of physical life. There was also a large outpouring of community and family support, plenty of people who knew of his loss who reached out to him. Yet, in this other situation, it happened over a long period of time, very few people knew of his suffering and this involved a sorrow of watching someone he loved die a slow and spiritual death, one of their own choosing.

How many suffer like my friend? It's such a lonely road! How very few people realize the burdens that they carry and the losses of Life (with a capital "L") they are facing daily?  Trials like these aren't all over the news, in fact, when people experience the loss of a family member in this manner, very few if any even realize the heartaches and struggles deep beneath the surface.  Here my friend was telling me, "Alicia, this is far more difficult!"

What if we had eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand?  Would the Lord show us where "in the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can't see," If we asked Him, would he show us who needs our love and support?  I believe He would and that He does.

I have another dear friend who not only carries the burdens of his own life (which are currently some of the most heavy burdens I have ever seen) he also carries the burdens of an entire congregation. I have yet to meet anyone with a heart as big as his.  His burden is so heavy because he loves so greatly! It is an immense and heavy load he bears, one that would crush most anyone else and yet I know that "the salvation of [this] righteous [man] is of the Lord: He is [his] strength in [this] time of trouble." Psalms 37:39

Joseph Smith taught a great truth when he said, “The nearer we get to our heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on [suffering] souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their [burdens on] our backs”
I get that!  I totally get that!

I remember being a little girl and playing records on my mom's stereo. There is one particular song that I absolutely loved and still do!!  It makes me think of my dear brother and these scriptures, Psalms 55:22, Galatians 6:2, and Mosiah 18:8-9.  I think this will be my song for today. ;)

-Alicia :)

12 Things I Believe

Twelve Things I Believe

I believe in FIGHTING...

With everything I've got to keep my family together.

I believe in HATING...

The sin and not the sinner.

I believe in GIVING UP...

Trying to predict the future, and instead,

Embrace every moment I'm given here and now.

I believe in DYING...

That I might live through Christ.

I believe in FEAR...

Of God and God alone -

For fear of man only breeds cowardice, jealousy, and greed.

I believe in QUITTING...

Any habits that erode my agency & sense of self-worth,

Or anyone else's for that matter.

I believe in SURRENDERING...

My will to God's will, He sees the bigger picture.

I believe TRAGEDY...

Can lead to triumph.

I believe HEARTBREAK...

Can lead to healing.

I believe DARKNESS...

Has no power over light.

I believe in MY PAIN...

I can learn empathy and compassion for others.

I believe I AM NOTHING...

On my own and in my own strength, I am weak,

But through Christ, I can do all things.

-Alicia Rawlins

The Will of the Lord

It's funny how the Lord tutors...  how I can be having patterns of thought and begin to dismiss them as my own but then open the scriptures or text from a sermon and have it be exactly what I have been pondering already.  I say "it's funny" because it feels me with so much gratitude for how aware the Lord is of us that I can't help but laugh for joy.

I've been thinking a lot about adversity and pain and how they are the gateway to glory and beauty. You can't have one without the other. "There must be opposition in all things." Even last Friday night, I listened to a gentleman instruct a group of us on the compound nature of God, that even our Father in Heaven feels great love and great pain at the same moment. He sighted Moses 7:28-32 and noted that God wept because He loved so deeply, that it pained Him to see His children separate themselves from each other and from Him.

This last Sunday too, it seemed in every single sermon, someone said something that coincided exactly with my personal studies of these recent days.

Then this morning, I decided to open up the lessons in Young Women's for February.  I glanced over the topics lower down on the list since I would be teaching later in the month.  The heading "Why do we have adversity?" naturally stood out to me because it has been so present in my mind.
There, I opened to that topic, and low-and-behold, one of the talks was entitled, "Mountains to Climb". I couldn't help but smile because I had just written about that in my post from yesterday.

This kind of coinciding is not mere coincidence to me.  It's this very synchronizing and harmonizing that becomes solid evidence my prayers are heard and that "God is in His heaven and all's right with the world." - Browning

With that in mind, let me go back to my focus on struggle and adversity, hope and healing:
When we think of adversity, it's easy to imagine the kind that happens outwardly, in our physical lives: persecution, physical limitations, tragedies, illness, disease, loss of property, or loss of loved ones. This is the kind that most likely comes to our mind first.

I believe, though, that the greatest adversity we will ever struggle with is deep within our hearts, unseen to almost all around us and possibly even hidden to those we live with.  And what is this great struggle I speak of?  It is in the submission of our own will to our Father in Heaven that brings the greatest heartache.  It is in surrendering the thing that we are least willing to give up.  Letting go fully and completely what we want and desire so desperately to the realization that it may not be what the Lord wants for us.  The process of laying down "our will" may very well be more painful, more heart-wrenching, and more agonizing than the laying down to the grave our loved ones. This is bold for me to say but could it be possible?  Yes, and upon such realization, it may surprise us.  Christ gave the perfect example of full submission to the Father all throughout His life right up to the final test when the pain was so great that it caused him to be sore amazed .  He called out "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." Then with perfect humility He prayed, "Not my will, but thine be done."

We must remember it is in learning this kind of submission, learning meekness, laying down our will (what we most desperately want) and taking up instead what the Lord wants, trusting wholly and completely that He knows best. This sweet surrender is where we come to find rest to our souls. This is the essence of faith at its fullest.  Here we can be at peace knowing that God truly hears our heartfelt pleadings and will provide the very best outcome for us, whatever and whenever that may be.

In the grand design of things, there really is nothing to fear, for that which is of God is eternal and that which is bound eternally can never be broken. It is an irrevocable law of the universe. This temporal sphere is such a small sliver of what is to be seen. One day there will come the unveiling of a much greater and glorious picture.  We do not see what God sees or know what He knows.  Nevertheless, "He Knows" therefore, I pray with all of my heart and soul "Lead kindly Light... I do not ask to see the distant scene - one step enough for me."

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2000/10/lead-kindly-light?lang=eng

-Alicia

They That Wait

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." - Isaiah 40:31

For the last few days this scripture continues to impress upon my mind.  I've been pondering what it means to "wait upon the Lord".  Perhaps the reason I've been thinking about this is related to the two funerals I've attended in the past week.

Waiting is woven into the fabric of our daily lives.  It helps us develop the glorious virtue of patience.  But it can be oh so painful... especially when that waiting means we will be separated for a time from someone we dearly love, either in death or in the necessary paths of living.  It's a truth, "The only way to take the sorrow out of death [or parting] is to take love out of life." -Russell M. Nelson -  Hearts sewn together with threads of the purest kind are bound to feel sorely torn at parting. This pain, however, is as needful as the prize.  For we would never know the sweet if we did not taste the bitter. "Time goes by so slowly and time can do so much." - Unchained Melody

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." - Psalms 30:5
Those who wait are those who hope even despite all odds, They stay because they truly believe in what will come.

Yes, "time can do so much" for it is that channel all things must flow through in order to grow and progress. Time is the essence of mortal life but it is only to be passed through for we are not bound to it.  We are creatures of eternity.

Night must fall and trail our sky
Before the dawn of each new day.
The shadows of the eventide
Break and fade from morning ray.
A seed that's planted in the ground
Pushes through black of soil,
Through time, through love, and faith unbound,
Through sweat, and tears, and toil
Springing forth, grown to a tree,
Its branches touch the sun.
And time is now a memory
Within this story spun.
- Alicia Rawlins
 
Waiting upon the Lord means promising never to forget Him.  It means keeping Him always and forever in our hearts, always anticipating the day we will again see him face to face and feel His loving embrace.

Those who wait are those who keep hope alive, even despite all odds.  They stay the course, never drifting, because they truly believe in what will come.

"Test and trials are give to all of us.  These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His Son.  He already knows, and we have the opportunity to learn, that no matter how difficult our circumstances, 'all these things shall [be for our] experience, and... [our] good." 

Does this mean we will always understand our challenges?  Won't all of us, sometime, have reason to ask, 'O God, where art thou?' Yes!  When a spouse dies, a companion will wonder.  When financial hardship befalls a family, a father will ask.  When children wander from the path, a mother and father will cry out in sorrow." - Robert D. Hales

When I think of being carried as "on the wings of eagles", I think of the strong steady shoulders of my Father in Heaven.

This song "Shoulders" by, "For King and Country" is absolutely beautiful and gives me strength.  Its message is true and because I know this, I can humbly accept the Lord's will and timing in my life whatever it may be.

"Shoulders" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40wYfjv6yt8

"When confusion's my companion
And despair holds me for ransom
I will feel no fear
I know that You are near
When I'm caught deep in the valley
With chaos for my company
I'll find my comfort here
‘Cause I know that You are near
My help comes from You
You're right here, pulling me through
You carry my weakness, my sickness, my brokenness all on Your shoulders
Your shoulders
You mend what once was shattered
And You turn my tears to laughter
Your forgiveness is my fortress
Oh Your mercy is relentless
My help is from You
Don't have to see it to believe it
My help is from you
Don't have to see it, ‘cause I know, ‘cause I know it's true"

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." - Philippians 4:13

-Alicia

"Learn" and "Rest"

It must have been sometime in August of last year:  I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting and Brother Mann was speaking when I heard him read this quote;

"Instead of allowing yourself to be unhappy, just let your love grow as God wants it to grow. Seek goodness in others. Love more persons more -- love them more impersonally, more unselfishly, without thought of return. The return, never fear, will take care of itself."  

The words "without thought of return" struck me. In my scriptures at that time I had been focusing on overcoming pride and selfishness and this quote was in direct line with my studies.  "I've got to write this down!” I thought to myself.  I tried to remember who he said the author was and scribbled on a notepad "Henry Garamound."  

After the meeting, I rushed over to Brother Mann and inquired, "How do you spell the last name of that author you quoted from… was it G-a-r-a-m....?" 

"No", he said, “It’s Drummond.  Henry Drummond.”

"Sweet! I've never heard of him before.  I'm going to look him up, thanks!"

This led me to discover what is now one of my most favorite books, “The Greatest Thing in the World and Other Addresses” by, Henry Drummond.  It is really a short compilation of sermons, a very quick read, but packed full with truths of gold!

I sat in the back of a crowded chapel yesterday afternoon watching the funeral services for the father of my good friend.  Earlier that morning I had just read this scripture in Enos; 

"I soon go to the place of my rest, which is with my Redeemer; for I know that in him I shall rest. And I rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality, and shall stand before him; then shall I see his face with pleasure, and he will say unto me: Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father."

I pondered this verse as I watched my friend lay his father to rest. That word "Rest",  What does it mean?  I thought about it in my personal life and my mind recalled the beautiful sermon Henry Drummond gave on “Rest”. 

He expounds upon the scripture, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

Brother Drummond points out that the key to "rest" is to "learn".  And how do we most often learn things?  It is usually over a process of time, through much effort, and a lot of practice.  He says, "How novel a connection between these two words "learn" and "rest". How few of us have ever associated them -ever thought that rest was a thing to be learned.... What must one work at?  What is that which if duly learned will find the soul of man in rest?  Christ answers without the least hesitation.  He specifies two things - Meekness and Lowliness."

He goes on...

"What are the chief causes of unrest? ...Pride, Selfishness, Ambition.  As you look back upon the past years of your life, is it not true that its unhappiness has chiefly come from the succession of personal mortifications and almost trivial disappointments... it is the petty friction of our every-day life with one another, the jar of business or of work, the discord of the domestic circle, the collapse of our ambition, the crossing of our will or the taking down of our conceit, which make inward peace impossible.  Wounded vanity, then, disappointed hopes, unsatisfied selfishness - these are the old, vulgar, universal sources of man's unrest."

So, if rest is found when we learn to be humble and meek like the Savior.... 
And restlessness or unrest is most commonly a result of pride, selfishness, and conceit...
Then to truly have peace, to be calm and rest in the Lord, we must die.  I'm not speaking physically, although the righteous do find rest in Him through mortal death.  But spiritually speaking -"the natural man" inside of us must die- our will, how we want our story to unfold, our vanity, and our selfish desires must die. When we meekly and humbly let these things go, our eyes will be opened and we'll comprehend them for what they really are: shackles and fetters that chain us down to the mire of anxiousness and misery.

How much do we trust God, I mean really trust Him?  Can we let go of our stories, the things we  think we need to be happy in this life?  Or do we insist on frantically perusing things we can't control or paths that the Lord has counseled us time and time again not to take?  He knows our hearts.  He knows what is best for us.  We can be assured with a heavenly calm and inner peace when we practice and learn His life, seek every day to follow in His way, humbly and sincerely. It will all work out in the end. His promises are sure. Pray always and be believing. Give thanks in everything and be anxious about nothing. D&C 90:24, Ephesians 5:20,Philippians 4:6

"Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come 'till heaven; but for those who embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they come." - Jeffery R. Holland

-Alicia

Only One Way to Live

My heart is heavy today.  I have two funerals to attend to within this next week, one this Saturday and the other next Thursday.

Saturday is the funeral for the father of my friend, Nathan. He is no stranger to sorrow and suffering.  Eight years ago, Nathan lost his wife in a horrific and tragic way.  I'm happy to say he's remarried now but he still has many sorrows.  I pray for him.

Naturally, with these events, I've been thinking a lot about life and death.  How fragile life is and how strange death can be. We just never know when will be our last day on earth.  I hope to live past 100. But if I do die young, I hope it's quick.

Years ago, my daughter, Miriam, used to cry herself to sleep at night because she would worry so much about the vulnerability of life.  If there was a movie we would watch where someone died from cancer or a heart attack, she'd have nightmares for weeks.  One particular night, I laid by her side in her bed scratching her little back, trying to console her.  Her tiny voice stammered as she listed off all the "what if's" that plagued her mind.  "Oh Miriam," I said soothingly, "You are right.  There are so many ways we can die... so many ways that we cannot even begin to list them all.  We knew when we came to this earth it would not be forever.  Death is part of life and it has to happen to all of us in order to live again, to return to our Father in Heaven.  We just don't know when that will be and we can't really control it.  But that doesn't matter.  What matters is how we live. And, Who does life come from?" I asked her. "Jesus," she answered. "That's right. Through Him, is the only way to live." I recited to her Matthew 10:28.  I assured, "the only thing we need to concern ourselves about is if we are trying to live like Jesus." That seemed to calm her and she was finally able to sleep.  Many nights after that, I would have to reassure her of our conversation, "Remember, there are a million ways to die and only one way to live."  Since then, this phrase has become a common saying in our family.

Now, all I have to do is start off, "Remember, there are a million....."  And the kids immediately finish the sentence, "...ways to die and only one way to live."   Good. I hope my children never forget it!