Beverly Campbell - Eve and the Mortal Journey: Finding Wholeness, Happiness, and Strength

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Campbell, Beverly (Beverly Brough)

Eve and the mortal journey : finding wholeness, happiness, and strength /

Beverly Campbell.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-59038-397-4 (alk. paper)

1. Eve (Biblical figure) 2. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

SaintsDoctrines. 3. Mormon ChurchDoctrines. 4. Christian lifeMormon

authors. I. Title.

BX8643.E92C37 2005

248.4'89332dc22

2004026432

Printed in the United States of America 18961

R. R. Donnelley and Sons, Crawfordsville, IN

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Lenore, Dessa, Cloe, Arlene, Ursel,

Betty, Marilyn, Virginia, Vilma,

Jessie, Ann, Fay, Linda, and Ariel

sisters, sisters-in-law, and more than sisters

who have shared and enriched my life

To my myriad of nieces and grandnieces

who live with such promise

To the Janies, Alycias, Cyndis, Shauris, and Heathers

who dedicate their lives and talents

to those things of import in the kingdom

We have not been sent

to endlessly investigate the darkness

but rather to seek divine light

and to walk in that resplendent light

Preface

As work on my earlier book, Eve and the Choice Made in Eden, was coming to a close, I came to realize that the lessons of Eden provide a reality-based life text for each of us. The principles revealed in the Garden story provide syllabus, model, and map for our journey through mortality. What happened in Eden not only illuminates but also informs the daily business of living richly woven, joy-filled, purposeful liveschallenging and sorrow-etched though they may be at times. And then I realized: Of course, that is what God intended that example to be.

In the premortal councils, you and I and everyone who has lived, now lives, or will yet live on earth were taught and accepted that plan that is called the Great Plan of Happiness. Surely, with the clear vision that existed in that sphere, we must have recognized the challenges that would confront us in mortality. But the opportunity to claim a mortal body and the hope of at last obtaining eternal life made it all worthwhile.

Some, because of circumstances or lack of light, feel that they have been thrust into a lonely, dark world without rudder or compass. Yet the first recorded question God asks Adam and Eve after they have partaken of the fruit of mortality is, Where goest thou? (Moses 4:15). Quo vadis? What path take you? The Lord seems to be asking, Have you got your bearingsdo you know where you need to go, and do you know what you need to do when you get there?

Then He set this dear, tender young couple, the first of His mortal children, on a path eastward.

Biblical scholars tell us that such an eastward movement ensures that the student of scripture will perceive the Fall as the positive and divinely foreordained event that it was. for symbolically, when one moves eastward one is moving toward the face of God.

Upon our entry into mortality, the internal compass in each of us is set in that same direction, east, toward the face of God. Along with that compass setting comes an absolute and glorious promise from the Lord himself:

I will go before your face.

I will be on your right hand and on your left,

And my spirit shall be in your hearts,

And mine angels round about you, to bear you up. (D&C 84:88)

Eastward Orientation

Let us talk a little about the rich and instructive theological significance of that eastward path on which we are set as we enter mortality. A Hebrew word commonly used for east literally means the place of sunrise. In the biblical Greek, east and sunrise mean the same thing, thus the words used evoke images of a new dawn, of hope, of beginnings. The New Testament speaks of the sending forth of Gods glory like the dawn that breaks forth from the east, or as the sun that sheds light on all the inhabitants of the earth.

The scriptures are replete with these themes of resplendent light, eternal and absolute love, and assured orientation.

There Is a Plan for Your Life

It is my belief that there is not only purpose to every life but a plan for every life. Each plan is individual and encompasses the challenges, trials, and opportunities that will provide wholeness and happiness for that individual. I also believe that sufficient light and strength is provided for the journey one might embrace and for the completion of those missions agreed to in heavenly councils.

Interestingly, in those councils where we embraced all of this, we also accepted that as we entered mortality, a veil would be drawn over our eyes providing little recall of those earlier scenes, so that we might be tested while living by faith. That veil makes it difficult in the process of day-to-day living to see the purpose or the shape of ones whole life. Sometimes, however, after a long season has passed, we can look back and see a pattern. We recognize a series of directions taken, opportunities seized, and challenges embraced, and we understand that what we have been about is not really entirely of our making. Out of the mist emerges evidence of a divine and loving hand, which has generously prepared, carefully nurtured, and truly guided us along paths we would never have chosen and tutored us in ways that have required us to move beyond our perceived capacities.

In the following chapters there are examples of such occurrences in the lives of others; however, a request came to me after all was written that I describe also some of the ways my life has been so directed and used. While I find it hard to talk about myself in such personal ways, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the incredible gifts God has given me and the tutorials he prepared that I might fulfill that which I was called to do.

From the vantage point of time, I can see that my entire life encompasses a series of events that have required me to stretch in ways I might not have chosen and to develop talents and capabilities I would not have claimed, all directed by a generous and loving God who has used me in ways I would never have imagined.

To begin, I had never intended to have a career beyond the hope of being a loving partner, an excellent wife, a good mother, an imaginative homemaker, and a sure and steady daughter of God. But events pushed me out into the world in ways I hadnt anticipated, raising challenges that were at times excruciating and propelling me into positions I could not have foreseen. In the early years, my work outside the home was done out of necessity, and in the later years out of desire and dedication.

Let us fast-forward to 1979. There was a national debate raging over a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The so-called Equal Rights Amendment had stirred up great feelings pro and con, and debates on television and radio and in the newspapers were intense and divisive. On the face of it, it sounded reasonable and desirableto secure equal rights under the law for both men and women. But as I studied the amendment, I came to feel that it would codify a doctrine of