When we moved to Little Rock, Nancy launched her traditional “meet the neighbors” campaign. One day, after I got home from work, she told me about her visit to Elizabeth Howitt who lived directly behind us. “She is the most amazing woman! She is a remarkable seamstress, a vibrant woman, and a delight to talk to. She is 80-something years old and a widow from Scotland.” Nancy had already fallen in love with her.

Nancy suggested that, since Elizabeth’s family all lived far away, we become a support system for her. I agreed.

Every week during the summer we mowed her lawn. She baked us royal biscuits. We painted her living room. She made us dinner. We made repairs around her house. She told us stories and taught us expressions from her homeland. “I looked at the yard and felt like a dog with two tails.” “My bag was packed like a dog’s breakfast.” “I lit the heater and took a bath and oh! I wouldn’t call the queen my cousin.” “Bob’s your uncle.”

She would sweep up the dust in the alleyway to add as fill dirt to her yard. She ate steel-cut oats daily for breakfast. She walked laps within her home. She read and reread hundreds of books from the library. We were amazed by her breadth of knowledge and enthusiasm for life.
What a vibrant person!

When we went out for a burger or a barbecue sandwich, we took her along. Though she was a tiny little person, she ate more than either of us.

She learned about our family and kept track of each person even though they lived across the country. We celebrated holidays together. She introduced us to her family when they visited.

What started as a service project became something quite different. We became dear friends with Elizabeth.

My beloved Nancy wanted to share the gospel with her. Elizabeth listened attentively and courteously. But, as a witness to decades of religious fighting, she was not interested.

After six years of beautiful friendship, Elizabeth became ill. She was found to have an advanced case of cancer. She died within a month of the diagnosis. It was then that we fully appreciated how much she had changed our lives. We missed her stories, her friendship, her zeal, her “biscuits.” We missed her.

Before she died she gave to us a lovely chair that she had upholstered. The chair sits proudly in our living room.

Service—heartfelt service—changes people. It enlarges hearts and enriches lives. Atop the pyramid of happiness-building recommendations of science is this one: Serve. I suppose that shouldn’t surprise us; God has been recommending service from the beginning of time. The One who washed His disciples dirty and reluctant feet commanded us to love as He loves.

Of course, there is a potential problem with serving. Some of us feel quite guilty if we do not show up for every service project, assist in every move, and visit every widow. So, we totter between exhaustion and guilt. That approach to service is not healthy.

I love the idea that we bring a willingness to every invitation to serve. We want to serve. We gladly serve. Yet we carefully follow God’s direction. For some neighbors we offer fellowship and a plate of cookies. Every once in a while, God will send an Elizabeth into our lives. We seize the blessing when it comes.

God will call us to serve many people in many ways.

We thank God for Elizabeth Howitt. We can’t wait to visit with her again and enjoy Royal Biscuits in heaven.

Invitation: As you read these words, whom do you feel God is calling you to serve? What would He have you do for them?

Recommendation:
Seligman’s Authentic Happiness reviews the great research on happiness. I heartily recommend it. (He has written a more recent book, Flourish. I believe that Authentic Happiness is a stronger book.)

“I don’t feel like I’m doing anything important. And I don’t feel connected to the ward members. In fact, I feel inferior to them. I feel pretty worthless.”

The good woman who shared these feelings with me is not alone. Joseph Smith confessed:

“I have visited a grove which is Just back of the town almost every day where I can be Secluded from the eyes of any mortal and there give vent to all the feelings of my heart in meaditation and prayr. I have called to mind all the past moments of my life and am left to morn and Shed tears of sorrow for my folly in sufering the adversary of my soul to have so much power over me as he has had in times past, but God is merciful and has forgiven my Sins and I rejoice that he Sendeth forth the Comferter unto as many as believe and humbleth themselves before him” (Joseph Smith to Emma Smith, 6 June 1832, Church Archives).

Squeaky clean Nephi also felt inadequate:

“O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities. I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me. And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins” (2 Nephi 4:17-19).

I join Nephi, Joseph Smith, and all others who grieve over their follies and failings. Several times a day a thought of a foolish moment or a stupid mistake drops on my soul, making me squirm.

“When I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins.” Often our sins and weaknesses are all mingled in a puddle of humiliation. In this world, sensitive people are likely to feel stupid and inferior.

Do you have faults that discourage you? Do you ever feel like giving up on yourself? Do you feel clueless and weak?

One of Satan’s greatest deceptions is to convince us that discouraging thoughts are from God. “He is disappointed in you.”

This truth is essential: God does not speak to His children that way. He does not chide, scold, and harass. “That which doth not edify is NOT of God” (D&C 50:23, emphasis added). He does send specific instructions, but He does not torment us.

Dark messages come from Satan. He is the father of lies and the master of misery.

How do we explain our self-disappointment? “Because of the fall, our natures have become evil continually” (Ether 3:2). When we recognize that our eternal spirits are regularly burdened by our earthly realities, we are ready for the companion truth: There is only One remedy for the Fall: Jesus.

Nephi set the example for all of us who are discouraged. After expressing his despair in his spiritual failures, he pivoted away from himself and toward God: “Nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted. My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep. He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh” (2 Nephi 4:19-21).

Melancholy is transformed in a minute if we turn from our fallenness to His redemptiveness. Alma provides a powerful example of the principle:

“There could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. . . . On the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy (Alma 36:21).

Alma’s transformation came when he cried out, “O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me” (Alma 36:18). That is not theoretical religion; that is applied faith.

When I feel assaulted by my recollection of mistakes and failings, rather than brood, I call out with Alma, “O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me.” I throw myself on the merits, mercy, and grace of Him who is mighty to save. I pray that He will forgive me of my sins and heal those I have injured. Instead of dwelling on my inadequacies, I ask that Him to use my gifts. Rather than feel defeated by my weaknesses, I pray He change my nature and make me more like Him. That is what He loves to do. And the key to accessing His power is calling on Him with full purpose of heart.

When we understand this principle, we rejoice with Paul:

“And [the Lord] said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

When God graciously reveals my inadequacy to me, He is inviting me to call on heavenly power. For that reason, every awareness of my imperfection is a blessing.

I am not recommending tired resignation. Quite the contrary. I recommend that we humbly acknowledge our weakness and throw ourselves on the merits, mercy, and grace of the only one who can fix us. It is surprisingly liberating. We stop expecting ourselves to do the impossible—to make ourselves virtuous. And we turn to the one who loves to heal broken things. What are the steps in the process?

1. We transform nagging feelings of spiritual inadequacy into active faith: “O Jesus, thou son of God, have mercy on me.”

2. We cheerfully do those things we are able to do (See D&C 123:17). We repent. We make amends. We try to act on Divine invitations to change for the better.

3. We show our trust in Him by pushing away Satan’s attempts to discourage us. We choose peace.

This process works because we understand His process. We know that Only He can make us holy.

Invitation: The next time you feel burdened by weakness or assaulted by failings, try Alma’s words, “O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me.” Cast Satan out of your mind and heart and invite Jesus in.

Recommendation: I recommend Believing Christ by Stephen Robinson.

Thanks to Barbara Keil for her editing of this article.

Cory Hatch was a unique kid. For example, as a high school sophomore in a rural school, he often had that telltale ring in the back pocket of his jeans. A new teacher would approach him:

“Cory, give me your chewing tobacco.”

Looking innocent, he responded indignantly: “I don’t have any tobacco.”

“C’mon, Cory. You know you’re not allowed to have tobacco at school.”

“I don’t have any tobacco.”

“Cory, just give me what’s in your right rear pocket.”

Cory would reach in his pocket and hand the teacher a roll of electrical tape-which just happened to be the same size and shape as a can of common chewing tobacco.

For anyone else, that might seem like a case of pure mischief-deliberately baiting teachers. For Cory it was different. He was having fun before he died.

Cory was born with cystic fibrosis. Not only was his disease a death sentence for him, it overtook his life, entailing hours of breathing treatments patiently administered by his loving mother every night. And it meant that he was the shortest and smallest student in the school. He may have weighed 80 pounds in high school. By10th grade, he had already outlived his life expectancy. Though he lived with the threat of death, he lived his life joyously.

I remember Cory joshing other kids. He didn’t have the size or strength to intimidate anyone, but he had the wits and personality to leave a lasting impression on many lives.

There was another small student at the school. The football players liked to pick him up and shove him headfirst into garbage cans. But Cory didn’t allow them to do that with him. He didn’t plead poor health. He didn’t ask for pity. Nope. If any football players came at him, he turned to face them squarely. Picture this tiny guy facing a crowd of menacing footballers two to three times his size. “Just a minute guys. You need to think about this.” When he had their undivided attention, he declared, “If you shove me in that garbage can, I will be forced to beat the hell out of every one of you.” Everyone laughed and Cory never went in a garbage can.

Cory’s IQ did not set him apart. No. It was his positivity and sense of humor. He enjoyed life and he intended to live it to the fullest.

At the end of his sophomore year, Cory wrote in my yearbook: “From one of the most kind-hearted, well-mannered, intelligent persons you have ever had in a class. Cory Hatch” He’s right. Yet I would add more. He was one of the most clever, savvy, sensitive, and vibrant people I ever knew. I love him.

When Cory left to go to college and no longer had his mother’s care, he died. As one of his teachers and his scout leader, I was asked to speak at his funeral. I realized how profoundly that little man impacted my life.

Cory defied the odds. He had the risk factors for many kinds of human misery. Yet he lived vibrantly.

Most of us assume that our level of happiness depends on our circumstances. We tell ourselves that the challenges and burdens of our lives mean we have little choice but to feel unhappy and disheartened. But research tells us that our choices have far more impact on our happiness than our circumstances. Cory’s example confirms that the people who are happier are not so because they have optimal life circumstances. They are happier because they choose to focus on whatever is positive and joyful about life.

Thank you, Cory, for your life and your example. I hope all of us will choose to live as vibrantly as you did. I can’t wait to see you again.

Invitation: Who are the people you know who have lived vibrantly? What can you learn from them to live your life more fully?

Thanks to Barbara Keil for her helpful suggestions on this article.

The requirements for a successful date include having bathed within the previous 24 hours and being agreeable (naturally or artificially). Usually some amount of cash is also required. It’s really not too hard. When two freshly-washed and agreeable people spend a few hours together in some recreational activity, they will probably have fun. Dating is a nice way to pass time.

Marriage requires more. A successful companionship requires not only patience, hard work, commitment, compassion, and unselfishness but continued stretching. So when Father says that “marriage is ordained of God,” He has something loftier in mind than a pleasant evening or even a lifetime of pleasant evenings.

God has never varied in His commitment to the development of our character. He wants to stretch us toward godliness and that will often require discomfort and inconvenience. It is not enough to take a shower and put on a smile. We must be patient in affliction. We must be willing to grow. We must be willing to put aside our preferences and enter our partners’ worlds.

The problem is that most of us like the fun of dating far more than we like having our characters developed. We chafe when our spouses favor different foods and activities. We get defensive when our partners accuse us of selfishness. We feel indignant when they tell us we are wrong. We become insulting when they don’t meet our needs. We are filled with resentment when they expect us to set aside our priorities in order to meet the family’s needs.

The problem isn’t that marriage is challenging. God always intended it that way. The problem is that we expected it to be like those vacuous dates that began our relationships. We can become quite indignant when our expectations are upended.

President Hinckley quoted Jenkin Lloyd Jones: “There seems to be a superstition among many thousands of our young [men and women] who hold hands and smooch in the drive-ins that marriage is a cottage surrounded by perpetual hollyhocks to which a perpetually young and handsome husband comes home to a perpetually young and [beautiful] wife. When the hollyhocks wither and boredom and bills appear the divorce courts are jammed. . . .
“Anyone who imagines that bliss [in marriage] is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed.
[The fact is] “most putts don’t drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. . . .
“Life is like an old time rail journey–delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.
“The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride”
(“A Conversation with Single Adults,” Ensign, Mar. 1997, 60)

Of course Jones is right that marriage is challenging. But why is it so? Does God merely want to annoy us? Does He want to test us? Or is He providing us a gym in which to stretch and enlarge our Christian goodness?

That great marital therapist, King Benjamin, counseled us: “For the natural [spouse] is an enemy to [their partner], and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever . . .”

Forever and ever. That is pretty definitive. Fortunately, there is an escape close for those of us who are fallen partners:

“unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19).

When we understand God’s purposes for marriage, we cherish every moment of connection and joy. We also recognize irritation as an invitation to grow in our discipleship.

C. S. Lewis provided a glorious metaphor: “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently, He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.” (Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan, 1960], p. 174.)

Yes. Marriage is ordained of God because He is quite determined to teach us to get beyond our petty preferences and on to greater goodness. He wants to make us into Kings and Queens.

Invitation: Think about some of the things that currently irritate you in your marriage. Now, rather than find fault with your partner, consider what holy purpose God may have in that irritation. Is He trying to help you develop humility, compassion, patience, or kindness? If Heavenly Father sat down with you right now to guide you, how do you think He would counsel you to respond to those irritations?

Recommendation: For a spiritual perspective on marriage, read my Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage.

Stephen Robinson was the person who awakened me to the new LDS understanding of grace. He replaced my spiritual do-it-yourself attitude with an understanding of the infinite and eternal atonement. His book, Believing Christ, has changed my life—and the lives of thousands of Latter-day Saints.

Maybe Hafen, Wilcox, or Givens or someone else awakened you. Thank heaven that the light has dawned! We understand now better than ever that we cannot save ourselves. We can allow ourselves to be humbled. We can throw ourselves on His merits, mercy, and grace. But we are saved through His redemption. His is the only name under heaven whereby we can be saved (See Acts 4:12).

That doctrine is central to the Book of Mormon message. And the Bible’s message. Yet it required a new generation of messengers to break down our cultural resistance.

It seems to me that there is one thing still missing even after this remarkable revolution. It is a great first step to recognize that Jesus is a Savior who saves. It is quite another thing to fully accept that His saving can reach through my weakness, my contrariness, my fallenness and encircle me in the arms of His love (See Lehi’s words in 2 Nephi 1:15).

It is great to know that Jesus and His plan are so amazing. But it doesn’t change anything for me or any of us until we accept that He loves and fully intends to save us. The plan must become personal to be meaningful.

For years I believed and taught that Jesus loves us with an incomprehensible love. But I did not accept that He loved me because I knew that I often acted foolishly, selfishly, and wickedly. I often made bad choices while knowing better. As a result, I did not truly believe that He could love me or rescue me. I felt that His love could not reach past my badness.

I wish I could say that I matured into a wiser view of His redemptiveness. That’s not what happened. No. He tricked me into accepting His love.

When I was serving as a bishop, He sent a deeply troubled woman to visit with me. She described a life that was filled with the wreckage of bad choices and regrettable behaviors. I saw little hope for her. When she asked for counsel I was worried. What hope could I offer to someone whose life was in total shambles.

But then something astonishing happened. God reached to one of His troubled children through a weak messenger. I found myself telling this troubled woman that there were three things the Lord wanted her to do. I had no idea what they were. But the Lord told me there were three things. When I wrote the number “1” on a piece of paper, a clear, wise, loving, and encouraging message came. We discussed the idea. When I wrote the number “2” on the paper, another wise and loving bit of counsel came; likewise, with #3. God loved her, taught her, and sent her forth with hope and a plan.

I was dumbfounded. I was astonished by His love for even His most troubled children. I knelt on the floor and shook my head: “I had no idea how much You love your children! I just didn’t know.” If He could and did love her despite all that she had described to me, then He must also love me the same way.

Ever since that day, I have rejoiced in His love. I still grieve at my mistakes. But I repent more gladly and live more fully because I know that His love extends to me.

Dozens of readings of Believing Christ helped me understand the plan. I grew in my love and appreciation for Him. But His message did not become fully personal until God broke through my defenses and surprised me with His love!

I suspect that there are many saints who are committed appreciators of Jesus but not yet surrendered disciples. How do we move from appreciators to disciples? What are the steps?

I don’t know. He had to trick me. And the way He breaks through your defenses will be different from the way He broke through mine.

I suppose that we can lower our defenses. We can learn of His magnificent plan. But the experience of His love will always be a miracle. Maybe the best we can do is pray for it and embrace it when it comes. And we must trust that, because of His love, He does stand ready to save and redeem us. He carries each of us to glory.

As the years go by, I become more and more aware of “His relentless redemptiveness.” Story after story in scripture deliver the same message: God is faithful. He presides in our messy learning process. When we are foolish and contrary, He offers a fresh start through the atonement of Jesus Christ. With infinite patience, He oversees our development toward godliness, line upon line.

If you haven’t already felt that life-changing love, I wish I could tell you how to find it. I pray that you will persist in seeking it until you are swamped by the personal good news: Jesus loves YOU and intends to teach and bless you until you are ready to go to your Heavenly Home and join Him in the work of redemption.