On Resurrection....

Brothers, and sisters, I am very happy today to have this opportunity to share some thoughts with you about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  My portion of this subject is the resurrection. 

I want everyone to look at my face as best you can from where you are sitting.  Look at my smile.  I can assure you that it is very hard for me to have the nerve to do this because I am very conscious of my lopsided face.  In 1986, just two weeks after my 25^th birthday, I underwent a 10-hour long surgery on my brain to remove a benign tumor.  I had absolutely no symptoms of this tumor before it was discovered.  I have had headaches since I was about 11 years old, and when I got medical insurance, I arranged a full physical to determine whether there were any other problems and to get a prescription for some of the new medications that had recently been in the news.  At the end of the physical, my doctor said, “Well, it looks like it’s just tension headaches, but just to make sure, let’s order an EEG and a CT scan.” I know we have several medical professionals in our ward, so I’ve either just said something to you that you remember with fondness from the early days of your career, or you probably think I’m making this up.

A few days after the tests, my doctor called me personally (no, really, I’m still not making this up), and said, “We received your test results back, and you need to make an appointment to come in with your husband to discuss them.”  Remember, I was 25 and fully expected to live forever.  In his office he said, “You have a tumor.  First, we know it’s not cancer, and second, it has nothing to do with your headaches,” to which I can attest because I STILL have those headaches four to five times every week.  In fact, today I had a really bad one.

The tumor was about the size of a golf ball, and who knew how long it had been growing, jutting up against my facial nerve. I was referred to a neurosurgeon who told me that, while I had no symptom other than the actual tumor itself, after the surgery I would likely experience a bit of hearing loss in my right ear and paralysis on the right side of my face.  

I was not yet a court reporter, but I was working as a transcriptionist for other reporters and lawyers.  One reporter had given me several tapes to transcribe, which would have netted me the huge sum of $400 when I was done.  I decided that I needed to get that job done because I had committed to the reporter and because my family really needed the money.  That led my grandmother, who is now 92 years old, to start calling me and threatening me if I didn’t get to the hospital to get this tumor removed.  Let me just say that I was always a little scared of my grandma.  I’m still scared of her, but since she now uses a walker, I know I can just keep out of her way, so it’s all good.

I finally had the surgery which was much more invasive then than it is today.  In the recovery room, the first people I remember were my parents.  My father asked me how I felt.  I felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my head, so I said, “I’d give you a piece of my mind, but the doctor already took it.”  My father later told me that this little divot under my nose was pulled all the way to the side and that the entire right side of my face seemed to be pulled all the way to the side, so hearing me crack a joke was all they needed to be assured that I was still me and that I would be okay.  So the next time my kids or husband complain about my fantastic sense of humor, I will remind them that I once used it to bring peace to the souls of my parents.

The past 26 years have been interesting. I later pursued my plans to study to become a court reporter and have, indeed, enjoyed 20 years doing various things, including in my job now in the district court here in Twin. While I did, indeed, experience some diminished hearing, my poor husband can attest to the fact that I can hear amazingly well most of the time, even when he doesn’t WANT me to hear, but I will remind him that the reason we just celebrated our 16^th wedding anniversary is because he sleeps on my right side, and at night I just roll over to the left and enjoy a blissfully quiet night’s sleep for me.  And because I know people in this room know my judge, my new boss, I can assure you that I have NEVER had any issue with being able to hear what is being said and reporting it accurately, including several very strong accents that I have even had to “translate” for the uninitiated.

All of that pales in comparison, though, to how hard my facial paralysis hit me personally.  I was very self-conscious about my looks then, and I didn’t even know how much my own smile meant to me until one day it was totally gone on the right side.  People thought I looked angry because if I didn’t smile, my whole face frowned. I had to tape my right eye shut for four months because I couldn’t get it to close on its own.  Believe me, I’ve had seven children, and I would gladly have one more rather than experience even one day without being able to close my eye.  I had to use a little electric stimulator on the right side of my face to stimulate the facial nerve.  What you see today is the result of my hard work in physical therapy, the fact that I was very young at the time, and my excellent medical care.

So with all of this, you probably think that I am going to tell you that I can’t wait until I am resurrected, because my hearing will be fully restored, and I can once again smile with both sides of my face and be able to raise both of my eyebrows instead of just one.

No, I would gladly give up those blessings simply for the opportunity to live this life fully, pass away, and then have my body and my spirit restored.  My father-in-law spoke about this last week, as he and my mother-in-law are going on their fourth mission next month.  He said that many of us don’t realize that we have the blessing of resurrection not simply to return to be WITH our Heavenly Father but so that we can return to His presence and be ready to become LIKE Him.

I would give up the blessings of having my hearing and facial movement restored so that I can be reunited with my father, who died in 1999, and my brother, who died as an infant in 1963.  I would give up those blessings in exchange for being able to sit at the feet of the prophets of the Book of Mormon to hear their voices as they tell their stories.  I will have to apologize to Abinadi for telling more than one of my youth Sunday School classes that he was one hot guy.

But I don’t have to give up any of those blessings.  As part of our Heavenly Father’s great Plan of Salvation, we are ALL entitled to the blessing of resurrection through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The prophet Amulek taught:

“The death of Christ shall loose the bands of this temporal death, that all shall be raised from this temporal death.

“The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame, even as we now are at this time; …

“Now, this restoration shall come to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and even there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost; but every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame” (Alma 11:42–44).

As we were driving back home last week, Darryl and I were discussing our thoughts on the Gospel.  I told him that when my father died unexpectedly, I went from hoping that we will all be together again to knowing it.  It suddenly made no sense to me that we would live through this life with all its struggles only to fade off into memory when we die. And I can no more think that my father’s huge personality would simply cease to exist than I can imagine my consciousness just ending.  As Elder Oaks said, “The ‘lively hope’ we are given by the resurrection is our conviction that death is not the conclusion of our identity but merely a necessary step in the destined transition from mortality to immortality. This hope changes the whole perspective of mortal life. The assurance of resurrection and immortality affects how we look on the physical challenges of mortality, how we live our mortal lives, and how we relate to those around us.”

Knowing that through Jesus Christ we are all entitled to be resurrected should be a great motivator to us.  First, the sorrows we experience in our lives are placed into proper perspective as we realize that we are merely traveling through a necessary part of the Plan of Salvation and that all things “will be for [our] good.”  But another way for the promise of resurrection to motivate us is the knowledge that we will be restored in the same condition spiritually that we have attained at our deaths, thus this life truly is the time for us to exercise the gift and blessing of repentance every single day, to renew our covenants joyfully each week, improving our efforts at obedience, expressing our love for our Father in Heaven by submitting to His will and putting one foot after the other in this journey.

Last Saturday we were honored to sit in a sealing room at the Timpanogos temple with my husband’s parents, four of his seven living siblings, and two of their spouses.  We were there to perform the sealing work for four generations of Darryl’s maternal ancestors.  There was joy in that room on many levels.  Many of the people in our group reflected on the feeling that those ancestors were attending with us in that sacred ceremony.  I personally have a great-great-great-grandmother who had six children before dying at the age of 28 who has nagged my spirit ever since I was “introduced” to her, so I have been diligently entering her information and preparing to ensure that she receives all of her temple blessings.  Because one of the gifts for us to look forward to is the embrace of our passed loved ones who could not do the work for themselves and were blessed by our attending the temple for them.

I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that this Church is His.  I know that we are children of Heavenly Father and that we will have the opportunity to be like Him.  I know that Jesus Christ came to the Earth at the time designated by our Father in Heaven to serve in the capacity for which he volunteered, knowing that all of us would be blessed by his incredible sacrifice.  And I know that he died in our behalf and was resurrected so that we would also one day be resurrected. 

I will end with this quote from The Living Christ, adding my testimony to those of the apostles of Jesus Christ:

“We solemnly testify that His life, which is central to all human history, neither began in Bethlehem nor concluded on Calvary. …

“We bear testimony, as His duly ordained Apostles—that Jesus is the Living Christ, the immortal Son of God. He is the great King Immanuel, who stands today on the right hand of His Father. He is the light, the life, and the hope of the world. His way is the path that leads to happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come.”

May we all strive to do in this life all of the growing we possibly can so that when we have passed to the next stage of our existence, we will be able to continue our upward momentum, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.