Patricia T. Holland - A Quiet Heart

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Holland, Patricia T., 1942

A quiet heart/Patricia T. Holland.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-57345-801-6

1. Mormon womenReligious life. 2. Spiritual lifeChurch of Jesus

Christ of Latter-day Saints. I. Title.

BX8641.H65 2000

248.4'89332dc21

00-040387

Printed in the United States of America

Malloy Lithographing Incorporated, Ann Arbor, MI

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

For my parents, M. W. and Marilla Terry, who loved me and gave me faith

Inside the kingdom of God is a temple.

Inside the temple is a daughter of Zion.

Inside the daughter of Zion is a quiet heart.

Inside the quiet heart is God's sanctuary.

I will be to them as a little sanctuary...

saith the Lord. (Ezekiel 11:16)

Acknowledgments

This book would never have been pursued or published if it had not been for the loving and persistent encouragement of Sheri Dew. Later Emily Watts brought skill and sensitivity to the task of editing. I am grateful for Tom Hewitson's careful and creative design. My thanks also to my friend Shari McLean for her cover photograph of a peace rose.

I especially wish to thank my husband, who has given me what every woman desireslove, strength, encouragement, and belief in my own worth. It was he who introduced me to daily scripture study. It was he who taught me that prayers are answered in a variety of ways but they are always answered. It was his unfailing faith that led me to understand true joy can only come from a rich inner life.

Above all else I wish to thank my Father in heaven for blessings beyond expression. He has given me all that I love and all that I believe. With greater and greater emphasis on simplicity, he has given me all that I need. He will be my Sanctuary forever.

"Filled with All the Fulness of God"

[Christ is] the light of the sun... the moon... the stars... and the earth also,... which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space.... The day shall come when you shall comprehend even God, being quickened in him and by him. Then shall ye know that ye have seen me, that I am, and that I am the true light that is in you, and that you are in me; otherwise ye could not abound (D&C 88:710, 12, 4950).

Every human heart desires to abound in God. That can come only through the light by which God quickens us. Illuminated hearts become filled with charityfor ourselves, for others, and for God, who perpetuates that cycle until charity fills the emptiness of any space. Therefore the Lord tells us, Above all things, clothe yourselves with the bond of charity (D&C 88:125).

We cannot give love or strength that we do not ourselves have. So if we expect to clothe ourselves with the bond of charityif we hope to bless others with God's truths and compassion and sustenancethen we must spend more time with God in a very direct way. We do not have to rely on anyone else's witness of the Father. We can have direct encounters of our own. As Paul told the Ephesians, we can literally be filled with all the fulness of God (Ephesians 3:19). Those encounters can fill and refill our cups every day of our lives.

Paul's promise seems especially relevant because more and more we live in a world that can be frighteningly empty. Those who don't have the gospel, both near home and around the globe, often create ineffective communities, work in stress-filled professions, and have declining morals, ruined health, failing families, and in the end, failing hope.

One especially troubling complaint of our time is there is no commonality among women. Across cultures and countries and even in our own neighborhoods, we women have become so diverse and so separated in our lifestyles, interests, and preoccupations that rarely do we have a friend such as our mothers had over the back fence, a neighbor to visit, to love, and to talk with. But we still need someone to listen when our joints ache, our children squabble, or (perhaps even more urgently) when we wish we had squabbling children or loved ones nearby to nurture. We must not let the modern world isolate, fragment, or distance us from those we can love and serve.

Isolation can be one of the most frightening and stressful circumstances of the human heart. We all need other people and strong, sweet relationships. The Church helps us with that. Relief Society offers us a sisterhood that we can cherish, an association with others who believe what we believe, who hope what we hope, and who love the things of God.

To receive the fulness God has intended for us, to offset the emptiness of isolation or hurt or sorrow, to clothe ourselves with the bond of charity, as with a mantle (D&C 88:125), we are all going to have to reach out with our hearts and let down some barriers. Most of us protect ourselves from painhurtful experiences and words that come from our friends, our enemies, and sometimes from within usby building walls, emotional defenses around our hearts.

But the same walls we build to protect ourselves can also isolate us, and that isolation leads to the problems we see so many others struggling with. Can we let down a few walls and find that we are in the embrace of God? Let's receive the spirit of holiness and let our cups be filled with living water. Let us receive in order to give.

One of my foundation stones for trusting that this can happen is a powerful statement from President George Q. Cannon: No matter how serious the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, [God] will never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It is not His character. He is an unchangeable being; the same yesterday, the same today, and He will be the same throughout the eternal ages to come. We have found that God. We have made Him our friend, obeying His gospel; and He will stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties the better and purer for them, if we only trust in our God and keep His commandments (Collected Discourses, comp. Brian H. Stuy [B. H. S. Publishing, 1988], 2:185).

I would place that theology right at the heart of the gospel. We have every right to be hopeful. We have every right to have faith. God lives and loves us. He will not desert us. We can let down a few of our defenses against a faithless world.

Paul wrote, Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God (Romans 12:2; emphasis added). To connect with God and be filled with his fulness, to resist conforming to the world, and to discover that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God