All Things Witness

Thoughts on the mission and power of Jesus Christ

Tag Archives: Mormon


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Hard is OK

Exam PrepOne of my children has just finished his first set of “proper” exams at school last week.  I should explain that these exams are UK “SATS”, taken at the end of the last year of primary school.  They will be of limited immediate value to him, which is not to say there is no value – his results will be passed on to the Secondary School he will be attending which will be of some benefit for him – but the main point of them seems to me to be to measure the school’s teaching quality rather than for the students’ benefit.

It was stressful for him preparing for them, and we had tears and drama at home with his homework as we got closer to exam time.

Two discussions with my son about his recent exams have stuck with me.  The first is when I was trying to both comfort him as well as explain why his exams are valuable for him.  Yes they might help the Secondary School he will be attending get an idea of his academic abilities to enable them to better support him as he starts the next stage of his education, but there is also value in his getting experience of exam conditions, of experiencing how they work and how to prepare for them.  All of these, I explained, would help him when he was preparing for much more important exams as he gets older.

My son, understanding that what I was saying made sense, replied with tears in his eyes, “I don’t want to grow up”.  The challenge for him was that this exam preparation was hard for him – really hard.  It was a burden he didn’t feel he could face, and so he wished he could just remain a child so that he could avoid such challenges. Continue reading →


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A Mother’s Love (again)

MotherI posted this a few weeks ago when it was Mother’s Day in the UK.  I repost it today for those in the USA, where it is Mother’s Day today.

In the LDS Church we place a high value on families, and I am fortunate to have been born to two loving parents, including a mother who has taught me patience and compassion, and who I always knew throughout my growing up years would always be there for me. I know that sadly not all children can say the same. I don’t know why I was fortunate to have been born in such a loving family, but I am grateful nonetheless.

I am also very fortunate to be married to a woman who epitomises all that is wonderful about a good mother. She loves, nurtures and teaches our children (I try too, but she does it better). I can see in the way my children respond to my wife that there is nothing quite like a child’s affection for their mother. Continue reading →


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Our Trees of Comfort

Tree 2

 

 

Members of the LDS Church will be familiar with the story of Lehi and his family travelling through a desert wilderness for many years, with rebellious children Laman and Lemuel (who really would have preferred to have stayed in Jerusalem), and obedient Nephi.  In a Sunday School class I was in a couple of years ago, the teacher began by handing out slips of paper to everyone, asking people to complete an imaginary sentence spoken by the rebellious Laman and Lemuel, “I am sick and tired of…”. I was struggling to sum up what I thought they would be sick and tired of, so in the 1 or so minute that we had I quickly wrote the following:

 

I am sick and tired of wandering through hot and dusty places

I miss our home – our friends; and their happy, smiling faces

My father is a lunatic. His crazy prophecies

Have utterly – completely – made my life a misery Continue reading →


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Really? Wow!: A Discussion about Mental Illness and the Atonement

Stairs up to the lightI’ve found this a particularly difficult post to write, so I hope that a) I can do it some justice, and b) those with particular insights and experience will comment*. It is a subject we rarely discuss, but which I feel we need to gain greater insight into, so that we are better able to comfort those in need.

A few months go I posted a couple of articles on the subject of depression, one of the great plagues of our age, and how we can find relief through Christ. Those posts can be found here, and here. While depression is fortunately becoming increasingly discussed in the Church (not enough yet I think, but we’re making some positive progress), other aspects of mental illness or disability are generally discussed either rarely and on obscure internet forums, or (more likely) not at all.

But if Christ suffered for ALL of our pains, sicknesses, and afflictions, that means he suffered also for our mental illnesses and disabilities; it means that through His atoning sacrifice there is power for those suffering. Elder Joseph B Wirthlin said, “No grief is so great, no pain so profound, no burden so unbearable that it is beyond His healing touch.” (Special Witnesses of Christ, Ensign, April 2001).  That includes Continue reading →


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The Witness Cycle

I was reading through Mosiah some time ago, and read again of Alma as he first believed the words of Abinadi, and then began to teach others the gospel. As I read I was Helping man across the streetstruck by the wording used by Alma as he taught the people. The passage in chapter 18 of Mosiah is well known as it relates what we often refer to as some of the covenants we make in baptism, but two things struck me which I hadn’t noticed before Continue reading →


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A Chosen Witness

Last year I was asked to write something as part of a Church Easter programme.  My taskGethsemane was to write as if I were the Apostle James, watching Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The writing below is the outcome of that effort.  Although I tried hard to use the scriptural account from the New Testament gospels as the starting point, it is of course a work of fiction, but is how I imagine one of the Apostles might relate the events of that evening.

How grateful I am that we have witnesses both past and present. Continue reading →


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Night’s Reminders

Moon and Stars

As we start this Easter week I post the poem below, in which I do my best to sum up some of my feelings about what happened during that week so long ago. The central act of eternity began on the Thursday night, and so the poem concentrates on that evening.

As I ponder the events of that evening, I imagine the night being very still, with stars shining – the universe itself almost holding its breath Continue reading →


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When Our Preparations are not Enough

In my last post I talked about how Joseph’s brothers were given a second chance. They Sacks of Grainhad acted in the most appalling way when they sold their younger brother Joseph and then deceived their father. Having then lived with the consequences of their actions for more than 20 years, they were placed in an almost identical situation, as a test to determine whether they had changed. Continue reading →


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Of Second Chances and Forgiveness

10724789955_7762dccb22_mThe story of Joseph, son of Jacob (Israel) is one of the better-known ones from the Old Testament. Eldest son of his father’s beloved Rachel, Joseph was consequently apparently doted on, which led to resentment from his older brothers, which in turn led to his being sold into slavery and ending up in Egypt.

Joseph must have been an incredibly talented man, for everywhere he went he ended up being placed in positions of authority. Continue reading →


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A Mother’s Love

MotherToday is Mother’s Day in the UK. In the LDS Church we place a high value on families, and I am fortunate to have been born to two loving parents, including a mother who has taught me patience and compassion, and who I always knew throughout my growing up years would always be there for me. I know that sadly not all children can say the same.  I don’t know why I was fortunate to have been born in such a loving family, but I am grateful nonetheless. Continue reading →