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We invite readers to submit a story from your life when you saw a tender mercy from the Lord. that time when you felt particularly noticed or loved by the Lord. Send your stories ma*****@la***************.com.
Early in December of 2004 our Redlands CA Stake presented its biennial Christmas concert. It usually consisted of numbers performed by our stake choir, with some guest artists from out of town. Our director was a long-time musician. In fact, I could remember over 40 years before when he led the Men’s Chorus at BYU. He was keyed in to the best arrangements and the accessible good voices.
This Christmas program was always something to look forward to, and the year of 2004 was no exception. The building was full of eager concert goers. My husband and I and our daughter found seats half-way in the back of the cultural hall and were comfortably settled to wait for the commencement of the program.
Suddenly a counselor in the stake presidency, a member of our ward, was shaking hands with us in greeting, and asking me if I would give the closing prayer. Stunned, I accepted the invitation, immediately thinking, “Oh dear, my worst fears realized, and I’m seated in the back. There will be that long walk up to the front, and this program I had highly anticipated will be full of nervous tension for me.” Over the years I had been known to remark that I would rather teach an hour’s lesson than have to pray in a meeting. And this was not just a simple meeting! I immediately felt my daughter’s empathy. My husband didn’t comment, but I knew by his hug that he could guess my thoughts.
For the next hour and a half I basically pled for help in this assignment. I remember saying in my head over and over again, “Heavenly Father, please help me.” My fear seemed almost unreasonable. I knew that I’d need to make my way to the front somewhere during the last number. As the program proceeded and I continued to repeat the same desperate plea , feeling foolish over the intensity of my concern, I also felt real amazement that I was at the same time thoroughly enjoying the wonderful concert music and the sterling performances by the choir and the guest singers. How could both of those feelings exist simultaneously?
“Joy to the World” was the final number of the evening. As the choir stood to sing, I slipped from my seat and walked out of the cultural hall door to our right and made my way along the hall up to the side door by the choir loft. Then I stood there listening and waiting. This particular carol had not been my favorite, though I certainly knew it well. But this time the words were registering with me, coming together with the moment in real meaning.
Three years earlier in our ward’s testimony meeting, the counselor who had just asked me to pray had followed me up to the stand, probably because of something I had mentioned in my own testimony. My non-member cousin who lived in his boyhood home ward up the CA coast from us had e-mailed me to say that that very morning she was going “to visit my church.” I was overwhelmed at this news; it seemed to be too good to be real. Though I had hoped for such a thing to happen with my father’s family, I’d been a little slow in my faith that it would actually occur. In my testimony I had expressed the hope that “the ward there would welcome her visit.” Then Pres. Haws. had followed me with a reassuring testimony about his home ward.. But we hadn’t ever had a detailed discussion about what happened to Laurie next, after she visited his ward. He may have known the story from his family..
Subsequent events fit together for my cousin, like pieces in a puzzle begun years before but just now uniting. I had been blessed to speak at her baptism 3 weeks after that testimony Sunday in 2002, then we had attended her husband’s baptism the following year, and that concert year we had been to the Los Angeles Temple with them for their sealing and had done family sealings in Redlands fairly recently. Maybe Pres. Haws asked me to pray because my heart was so full, and he knew that?
He would not have known that my cousin Laurie and I had discussed the meaning of Joy as a gospel principle, that she used that word in a letter to other non-member relatives when she described her conversion, or that at least one cousin later expressed an unenlightened scepticism about her ‘joy’.
Now I stood there listening to the words of the classic carol and thinking about what ‘Joy’ the Savior had brought into my cousin’s life. She had been searching. She had also been repenting of mistakes in her life. She was also dying of cancer, and though I did not know it then, before the next Christmas came I’d be speaking at her funeral.
Suddenly as the choir sang I felt new meaning in this popular Christmas carol. It became very personal to me. My cousin’s heart had prepared Him room…….her sins and sorrows were no more. She had described her Joy to me and to others. It was all very Real. Both the gospel in its actuality and the Christmas season were at that moment immediate in my heart, as I stood there waiting to say the closing prayer. The choir, the music and the spirit combined to make real the Savior’s love for all of
us. The Reality was that the Savior did come that first Christmas, the earth needed to receive Him, and every heart should prepare Him room. He would reign, just as the choir sang, “with Truth and
Grace.” He was born and He died so that through His Atonement we could be saved from both sin and death.
As I prayed that night in gratitude for the beautiful music and the service of those who had prepared and performed the program, I was also feeling and expressing my gratitude for the meaning of the program in my own heart and in that of my cousin’s. When I walked the hall to the choir door, I don’t think I knew what words I would use. I got up to the stand by faith. I can’t now remember exactly what I did say. I know the words came to me and my voice didn’t shake. I know my words were sincere and that I spoke about gratitude.
I testify that prayers for help are heard and that our Heavenly Father answers us in specific, personal and loving ways when we seek Him.
Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room, And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.
Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.
No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.
He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.
A GatherumDecember 17, 2018
i love this. Joy to the World every day because the Lord doth reign!