Each Life That Touches Ours For Good!

Jump to Comments

I went to a funeral today for our Stake Patriarch.  He was an amazing man – you know -  the kind of man you want to find for a husband (only in my case not 87 years old.)  He gave me my patriarchal blessing when I was 14.  Seven years later he was the Stake President and set me apart as a missionary.  Then a few years ago I served with his wife in the Stake Relief Society Presidency — we called him the 3rd counselor.

Today as I sat in the chapel and listened to “Canon in D” I thought back to the day I received my patriarchal blessing.  I was so nervous as I went to his house.  He asked my parents to sit in the living room while he talked to me for a minute.  I walked back to his office and sat down.  I only remember one thing he said.  He looked at me and smiled and said “you have the most beautiful smile.”  I know this sounds like a trite comment that any kindly church leader would say to a teenage girl, but the truth was that my teeth were horrible.  This was before braces.  I had 2 BIG front teeth that stood out because the other teeth kind of fell behind them all crooked.  But this was not bad enough for a self conscious teenage girl — one of those huge teeth was yellow.  When I was 10 my brother pushed me out the door (that’s another story) and I broke my front tooth.  The dentist knew I would need braces eventually so he didn’t crown it – he kind of made me this fake tooth that I swear turned yellow instantly.  So here was this short, bald, kindly man telling me I had a beautiful smile.  The miracle was – I knew he meant it.  I felt it through my whole soul that he meant it.  Somehow he had the ability to see past all the ugliness I saw in what I thought was my greatest physical flaw at the time and told me it was beautiful.  For a minute it was like he could see me the way Heavenly Father saw me.  I think I’ll always remember how I felt.

This made me think of other people who had an impact on my life.  Not the close friends and family members that so obviously have made an impact – but the minor characters in the sitcom of my life.  The ones that maybe were only in a few scenes.  Like Mr. Gill my 8th grade science teacher.

I wasn’t particularly good at science and I didn’t particularly like it.  One day Mr. Gill called me to his desk after class and simply said “are you okay?”  I said I was fine and he asked if I was sure because it looked like something was bothering me.  I told him that I really was okay.  But I wasn’t okay.  I just didn’t know how to tell him that I was depressed and that I had all kinds of crazy thoughts in my head I couldn’t get rid of.  That I prayed for hours trying to be righteous and it was never enough.  How do you explain that to anyone?  But he asked.  He was in tune enough with an insignificant B-Minus student to ask.

There are more people too.  Like Grover my Oakcrest counselor who showed me that being good was okay – in fact it was cool.  And my Mia Maid teacher, Janeen DeMille, who was 8 months pregnant and stayed up one night making all her Mia Maid girls heart shaped pillows.  Then there was Mr. Hathaway, my track coach who told me that I had to believe in myself because he knew I was a child of God and he knew that I knew it too.    And Kristy who told me through tears last week after my lesson that she wanted to fast for me.

Sister Camilla Kimball said once “never suppress a generous thought.”  I need to remember this every day.  After all – these people touched my life with small gestures that meant the world to me even years later.

5 Comments

Filed under Bless-ed by Friends, Epiphanies, Random Thoughts