Dallin H. Oaks - Trust in His Promises: A Message for Women

Adapted from Kristen M. Oaks, The Garden of Our Faith, and Dallin H. Oaks, Choose Ye This Day to Serve the Lord, in Choose Ye This Day to Serve the Lord: Talks from the 2010 BYU Womens Conference (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), pages 18184 and 18596.

ISBN 978-1-60907-906-2

Printed in the United States of America

Artistic Printing, Salt Lake City, UT

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Trust in His Promises

Kristen M. Oaks

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have many opportunities to receive inspiration and insights about our families, relationships, happiness, and increased spirituality. I pray often that those who have heavy hearts and concerns may be enlightened and edified. But my prayer is much more than that. I pray we will become not only hearers of the word, but doers of the word (see James 1:22). I pray that our families, our friends, and our communities will be able to identify us by our attitudes and our actionsthat we will become a bit more patient, a bit more diligent, quicker to smile, less inclined to find fault, women who study the scriptures and learn sound doctrine, women of God energized to support our husbands and educate and nurture our families.

Life is so much like a gardenwe harvest the consequences of the small choices we make every day. In reality, no act is separate. Each is indelibly connected to other acts, and when we rise in the resurrection we will be a product of our choices.

In 2008, our nation was experiencing a period of extreme prosperity and indulgence. Elder Oaks and I wished our grandchildren to understand that choices we make result in consequences. We decided to plant a garden. This was meant to teach some of the necessary fundamental doctrines stated in 2 Timothy 3:15, which are to make our children wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. In a very short time the world has changed markedly, and those lessons we considered only necessary then have become lessons of necessity now.

That was a very precious summer, full of love and time together, and the zucchini was actually delicious, and so were the tomatoes. The best consequence of our teaching was that the following summer the children planted seeds and wanted a harvest of their own.

Sisters, our Church leaders have counseled us to be explicit teachers to our children, more bold in defending our religion, more loving and edifying to each other. We have been instructed to seek for an increase of the Spirit and to avoid the multiple distractions of the world.

These are big demandssometimes almost seemingly overwhelming demands, overwhelming because as women we are blessed with very tender natures and sincere desires to serve our Heavenly Father. We worry when our desires seem to exceed our ability to serve. As women, too, we set very high expectations for ourselves. At times we may feel mired down by personal inadequaciesboth real and imaginedsometimes counting calories more than counting blessings, worried more about scrapbooking than service, often too overscheduled to really listen to those around us, and caught in the thick of very thin things.

Often it is just at these moments that other mighty challenges converge to confront us: life-threatening disease, children struggling in their marriages, or friends and loved ones caught in the vise of sins. As one friend said, I have worried about my son and know what it feels like to have my heart ripped from my bosom, torn open and bleedingand then Heavenly Father hands it back to me healed and whole. I never really realized how deep and penetrating my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ could be, but through this experience I have learned.

Affliction is part of life. Single or married, young or old, the daily opportunity to choose continues. Our happiness and our very salvation hinge on our ability to choose the better part and trust in our Lord Jesus Christ. The cumulative effect of choices is real and is eternal.

In the early years of our marriage, Elder Oaks and I visited his cousins, a married couple, in Southern California. The wife, a beautiful and articulate woman, a devoted wife and mother, was struggling in the early stages of diminished mental capacity. Our husbands needed time for themselves, so we decided to go shoppingwhat I call retail therapy. All went well until our return trip home. I became disoriented and lost in a maze of California underpasses. We had no cell phone, and I drove clenching the steering wheel and on the verge of tears. This dear cousin leaned over, the haze clearing from her eyes. She placed her hand on my arm and said, Kristen, you partook of the sacrament worthily this week; Jesus Christ will protect you.

Jesus Christ will protect us, sisters. I learned that day firsthand that time and disease may ravage us, but our core beliefs and our faith are immune to such destruction. A lifetime of righteous choices will manifest itself in times of trouble. Jesus Christ will protect us. A calm filled my mind and the car; a confidence encompassed me that all would be well and we would find our way homeand we did. I had only to call upon a Heavenly Father who loved me and then have faith in the promises given in the sacramental prayers. Sisters, we are all capable of such comfort.

The time has come for us to embrace every facet of this gospel and the teachings of our Savior with all of our heart, mind, and might, and to experience the power of His love and implore Him to work His purposes through us. Paul teaches us, This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. There will be those having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:1, 5). We need to rise above form and begin to function. We need to live to receive our blessings and have faith that those blessings await us. 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).

One young mother in my ward rose to testify how the Lord lifted her burdens. Shortly after she had given birth, and with three small children under age five, her husbands work required him to leave the family for six weeks. Feeling alone and afraid, she began to pray with all the intensity of her heart. What she dreaded became instead a time of great peacean enveloping peaceas the love of the Lord surrounded her and her little ones. She described it as the easiest six weeks of parenting she had ever known.

As Robert J. Norman has said, Sometimes we forget how powerful God is and how inclusive His plan of redemption is. The Millennium is a thousand years. There is adequate time to make things right [there will be no hands that hang down, there will be no empty chairs, there will be no childless women]. We know that all will be well for those who put their trust in the Savior....

[Sisters,] no one in the Celestial kingdom will wonder why he or she is there or will say that it was easy getting there. They all stayed the course, fought the fight, and when they felt all alone, they turned to the Lord for help to accomplish what they had agreed to do from before the foundation of the world. I ask you to turn to the Lord to help you. He will answer your prayers for help.