I don't know if any of you watch the
tv show "House" on a regular basis, but this past Monday they had one of their main characters commit suicide. In reality, the character had been offered a job in President
Obama's administration and suddenly left, but as you can imagine, having him leave the show in this way was quite controversial and emotionally charged. To both the viewers and the characters alike there had been no signs that this character was depressed or in trouble. It was the fact that there were no warnings to the suicide that made it so hard to deal with. Each person was wondering what they missed or what they could have done.
When I was a senior in high school, there was a boy that was a year older than me that I knew, not extremely well, but that I knew that committed suicide. Even though we weren't close friends, I took it really hard. I don't have many people in my life that I have died and this was the first that was my age. I remember feeling so sad, then so angry. I found out at an honor choir rehearsal and I ran into the school hallway and just started crying and screaming. How could he be so selfish? How could he leave us all here to worry and wonder what we could have done? How could he do this to his parents? For days I cried and tried to make sense of it all, but it just didn't make any sense. He was always happy. Except the last time I saw him. It was in the commons area at school and he had come back to the school for a visit and I thought it was weird. I asked him about college and life and we chatted for a minute, but I had to go. I didn't realize it at the time, but he didn't smile the whole time we talked. It was his funeral where I gained a testimony about the body and the spirit being two separate pieces and death is just dividing them. He didn't even look like himself in the casket. It took a long time to get closure, but a friend helped me realize, that I couldn't have done anything and none of it was my fault.
A few years later, though, I had a completely different experience which is really what I wanted to talk about today. I don't want to go into a lot of details, but I do want to share the experience so please forgive me for being vague. My second year of college I had started becoming friends with someone who was having a rough spot in their life and, at the time, I had no idea just how
desperate they had become. There was one night where they had decided to take their own life. No one in my group of friends had suspected it. This person seemed happy despite their hard times. To make a long story short without any of the details, some choices that myself and another of my friends had made on that particular week put in motion events that stopped this suicide, although neither of us knew it until months after the fact. And as I was thinking about this today, I was filled with gratitude that what could have led to a lifetime of "what ifs" or "what could I have done"s, instead has led to a "Thank you God for saving my friend."
Today, I am grateful for so many things, but especially that week. I know that God had a special purpose and plan for my friend and I know that the choices I made that week were led by the Spirit because they were not choices I would have normally made. In fact, there were things that had been put in motion for almost a year before that fateful week that led me to be humble enough to make those choices because they were so much out of character for me. And it saved a life. I am not saying that all suicides or deaths can be prevented if we follow the Spirit, because that's just not true. Things like that have to do with agency and an understanding of life that we do not have yet. But I am indescribably blessed that I have an experience where instead of wondering what I could have done, I was able to actually do what could have been done.
The more I think about these things the more I know that God loves each and every one of His children, and we are ALL His children. If there is one thing I want to teach every one of the people I ever have the opportunity to come in contact with it is the
FACT that God is a loving Heavenly Father. If we all knew and remembered that all of the time, we would be different. The world would be different. We would treat each other differently, as brothers and sisters who need compassion and love. We would focus more on communicating with our Heavenly Father and following His counsel than on money, or clothes, or
tv shows which give us no love in return. We would learn that repentance is a merciful and joyful thing, not a process to
embarrass us. And the Atonement is real and will save us from our mistakes and make right all that is unfair in life.
And now, years after this happened, I find myself also learning why our God is an unchangeable god. He knows us. He knows us so well that He has made specific and purposeful plans for each and every one of us. Plans that reflect our eternal selves. I'm not talking about
predestination. C.S. Lewis in
Mere Christianity explained that it is like a father who knows his wayward son. He can see what choices his son will make, not because he is forcing him to make them, but because he knows his son and his behavior so well that he can predict it. God, knowing us as well as any good father knows his children, has put people and situations in our lives that fall into some greater plan that we do not always understand. Sometimes we get to see the immediate results of these plans, but most often we do not. What makes us human is that we often have to weigh what we want most in the end for what we want right now. What makes God God is that what He wants most in the end always aligns with what He wants for us now. It is now and forever to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. He wants for us to be in His presence as His family for rest of time. And that is why His plan for us is so specific and so precious. It is this knowledge that helps me stay sane because so many things which I think matter right now, don't really matter. What matters is God loves me and, as I live His gospel, He will lead me to where I need to be.
That's right, ladies. I'm under the 60 day mark as far as the wedding goes and that means shopping around for flowers and decor. Yay-er? I have no idea how to decorate for a wedding, so I've been talking to people that do. I'll let you know when things get finalized, but let's just say colored Japanese lanterns and tropical flowers. I pretty much just said lots of color.
