A friend asked “How are you?” and wanted an answer beyond the superficial. After writing my answer, it struck me that this little slice of our history is typical of mortality—filled with challenges AND happy purpose.
How was my day? … Read more
Author: H. Wallace Goddard
Wally Goddard is a retired professor of Family Life having served in Arkansas and Alabama. He developed programs on personal well-being, marriage, and parenting. He is well known for his many creative family programs, including The Marriage Garden, The Parenting Journey, and Blueprint for Happiness. Wally has authored or co-authored several books including Between Parent and Child, The Soft-Spoken Parent, and Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage. He has been recognized by his colleagues with several awards including the Outstanding Family Life Educator Award. Wally and his wife, Nancy, have three adult children, fourteen grandchildren, and have cared for many foster children over the years. Wally describes Nancy as the finest human being he has ever known.
Nephi’s Psalm
It seems to me that great rejoicing in the Atonement is often evoked by great challenges in life. And Nephi’s Psalm in 2 Nephi 4 is a great case in point.
When we consider this chapter in perspective, … Read more
Lehi’s Farewell
Tree of Life
The Tree of Life
Commentary on the Atonement
One of the great symbols in the Book of Mormon is the Tree of Life. Lehi had a great revelation in which he saw the tree of life, a great and spacious … Read more
Lehi’s Life Summary
Lehi’s Life Summary
Hugh Nibley said that there is a single verse that best encapsulates what the Atonement is all about and gives us a visual imagery for the significance of the Atonement. That verse is 2 Nephi 1:15.… Read more
Great Atonement Passages
Blessed Are the Peacemakers
We have all experienced questions from others that left us feeling confused or humiliated. Often we are left wondering how to respond to cruelty and insensitivity. I recently read an article by a multiracial woman who had experienced several painful … Read more
We have all experienced questions from others that left us feeling confused or humiliated. Often we are left wondering how to respond to cruelty and insensitivity. I recently read an article by a multiracial woman who had experienced several painful … Read more
A Little-Known Debate in Heaven
I imagine that one of the lesser-known debates in the council in heaven was about the way we would learn in mortality. There was a prominent, scholarly faction that favored a series of classroom lectures as the essence of our … Read more
A New Robe
Sister Lyle talked about humility in sacrament meeting yesterday. She did a great job. As she tracked through passages of scripture from the Topical Guide, a new image settled into my mind.
Maybe humility is like shedding the cloak of … Read more
Jesus Wars—Then and Now
Philip Jenkins, the renowned historian, has observed that Christian orthodoxy “was hammered out in a process that was painfully slow, gradual, and often bloody” (2010, p. 17). Over the centuries of the early church councils, bishops and churchmen fought to … Read more
Philip Jenkins, the renowned historian, has observed that Christian orthodoxy “was hammered out in a process that was painfully slow, gradual, and often bloody” (2010, p. 17). Over the centuries of the early church councils, bishops and churchmen fought to … Read more