Addictive Sites for Studying God's Word

 I may have unexpectedly come across two of the most addictive sites on the internet.

First is the Scripture Citation Index. https://scriptures.byu.edu/

This search engine allows for inputting a word or phrase, which the creators have indexed--taking from all the standard works, plus General Conference talks, plus the Journal of Discourses, plus the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. 

For a while now, I have been wanting to study better! And this could be just the tool! 

Today, for instance, I chose the word "name" because I have been curious about how the name of God has power, and how calling on His name works and what that might mean, and what it looks like, and why it's incredible that He would even reveal His name to us. 

I typed it into the search bar, selected "scriptures" (instead of talks) and it generated hundreds of usages in the scriptures of the word "name." So far, in a separate document, I've collected about twenty pages of relevant references--chunks of scripture that I can already feel patterns emerging and understanding beginning to dawn.

It's amazing to me! Years ago, I tried using the Topical Guide, as President Nelson suggested, to search up all the references to the Savior. It was a long process (close to nine months) in all, and it was life-changing. I loved the process, the light that came to me, the results of transformation in my life.

Since then, I have craved those same types of results, but I wasn't sure if the TG felt complete (it isn't--it can't be), and now there's an electronic version that makes it so quick and simple, and I can collect all the references for myself and my own use, all in a handy place. 

I'm loving this!

To go along with my search for the word "name" in the Scripture Citation Index (which is an app, too, in case you like to study on your phone, by the way), I found this great site called Abarim, where they have created a page of meanings and references for all the proper names in the Hebrew Bible. 

It's AMAZING. 

Here's the link for searching for all MALE names, but you can also search for female names, place names, and more. https://www.abarim-publications.com/NaLi/A-MaleBig.html

As I discover insights, I hope I can share them and maybe they'll be of value to someone at some point. 

Milestones

My friend Brad has a fun question he posts every Sunday night on his Facebook page, inviting others to comment with the single best thing they experienced that Sabbath day.

After I added mine, I thought about how it's time for me to focus more on gratitude and looking for the good things in life. 2019 has been a fallin'-down-the-mountain kind of year for me, with several unprecedented and nearly crushing challenges. Some have not ended. Some might not ever abate. It's been hard to see the bright lights through the fog, but thanks to Brad's request, I have two I am focusing on and will share here.

What was your best thing on Sunday?

Sacrament meeting! And it was great for two reasons. One, my son reported his mission to Alabama, and hearing his mature and deep explanation of a doctrinal topic was amazing. He's grown a lot. I love these milestones. They're years of preparation and hundreds of hours of struggle and study in the making. 

Second, my daughter substituted as the organist for the congregation. First time ever. I could barely breathe, thinking how terrified I'd be if I were the one on that bench (especially because our building's organ seems haunted and sometimes just blasts loud chords out of nowhere.) But she handled it perfectly, kept the tempo, didn't miss notes. It was a pure thrill for me--and I kept thinking, everyone is singing along, but maybe they don't realize this moment was nine years of lessons and however many hundreds of hours of practice in the making. I loved that milestone as well.

It makes me stop and ponder what moment is yet to come in my other children's futures where I'll think wow, this moment was decades in the making! Also, for myself. What lies ahead, and what am I really working toward? Most of all, I want it to be that moment when I present myself, as well as the record of my life, my love, my relationships, my experiences, my study and struggles and suffering and repentance and dependence on Him at the feet of the Lord. I'm praying He will receive it all and tell me He accepts the growth and progress as my offering.

A Letter to My Son

My son is a missionary. I wrote to him this morning, and I included this experience I had while reading the scriptures this week in the Book of Mormon. So many life-lessons to take, even from the smallest phrases. I hope I can internalize this information I stumbled across--or which, more accurately, the Spirit impressed on my mind as I read.

This week I was reading in Alma where Alma and Amulek are teaching the poor people.

In chapters 32-33 Alma teaches about the seed and faith. Then he turns the time to Amulek for chapter 34.

What struck me is the beginning of the chapter. "...after Alma had spoken these words unto them, he sat down upon the ground, and Amulek arose and began to teach them."

For Amulek's part, Alma stepped back. He was the senior companion--way senior. He was the prophet, and Amulek was a newly reactivated member on extended splits/exchanges.

But Amulek gets to teach the most poignant part, about the Savior's atonement. And he does it beautifully. And about prayer and charity. It's so lovely. Some of my most motivating verses in all scripture.

I'm not really sending you this info because I think you need to know it. It's because I need to, but I thought you might be interested. As a missionary, sometimes it's time to stand up, while sometimes it's time to sit on the ground and let the other guy take the teaching lead. He might surprise you.

New View

For my birthday this week, my husband and kids gave me a pair of binoculars.

A little backstory:

I grew up sleeping out under the stars on our back lawn of my parents' farm. I was familiar with the Milky Way, the Big Dipper, Orion. The regularity of the movement around Polaris. I loved it as a girl, and I missed it during times when I lived in cities like Tokyo and Washington and the light pollution kept me from seeing the sky.

Many years ago, a family friend handed me his binoculars one night while Gary and I were standing in his yard. He helped me aim them at Jupiter. There--with my own eyes--I could see Jupiter's moons! Not all of them--aren't there 30 or something?--but the Galilean moons, so four or so.

I have thought of that moment countless times.

Between the ages of 36 and 45 I ran six mornings a week. Had to quit due to a bum knee, and now I bike or lift weights instead. I miss it so much! Not the running. I never once got it about a runner's high. Pretty sure it's a myth.

No, the thing I miss dearly is the experience of watching the full moon set at 5:45 a.m. behind our mountain each month, seeing its phases' progress, and just letting my soul experience nature as the moon disappears behind the horizon.

I could still go watch it, but I don't. It's my own choice, I know this.

However... the binoculars!

My birthday was Thursday. The full moon was Friday, date night. We took the binoculars and went to the duck ponds at about 6:00 and waited as the sky on the dark horizon went from charcoal to light gray, to brilliant yellow-orange as the moon crested. (There are fires in a neighboring state changing the color of all sunsets and sunrises.)

But this time, I was watching through the binoculars. And it didn't look like I expected or had seen it look so many hundreds of times in the past. It's not easy to describe, but I did burst out with, "Gary! It's bumpy!" The craters and topography were clearly visible, and stunning. And it didn't seem round, at least definitely not a smooth surface anywhere.

The experience struck me. We traded turns with the binoculars, going back and forth, making comments as to our surprise and delight.

It was a spiritual experience. A lot of analogies could be drawn--like a closer look gives us a better understanding of people, or being in focus, or that kind of thing. But the thing I took from it was that God created something incredibly beautiful, and even MORE beautiful than I had previously known. And I had the blessing and opportunity to see it.

Then we turned our eyes to other places in the sky. Using a phone app, we located Mars, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and looked at all of them through the telescopic lenses.

I. Saw. Neptune.

I never once dreamed that would be something I could do. Maybe that's just not a very big deal to other people, but for me, it felt like this huge gift. A day I wouldn't forget.

The next night, we took our kids on a night hike after 5:15 sunset and before the 7:10 moonrise. We sat on top of a desert mesa. I couldn't imagine not sharing the experience with them. It was sweet and fun and exciting and amazing to see it together.

Jupiter set with the sun. This is the wrong time of year to see its moons, even with the binoculars. But maybe I'll be able to.

Whether it makes me feel like a tiny nothing, or like I'm a small part of something incredibly vast--I'm thankful for God's incredible creation and in awe at his mastery of all things large and small.

It's Not How He Looks That Matters

I recently read an article with speculation about the appearance of Jesus Christ. It was based on studies of the average appearance of the men of His era, and the article suggested that if He was of average height and appearance, He would have had dark hair, fair-to-medium skin, a beard, and reached a height of 5'1".

For people of our day, that might be unimpressive. I know this, at least about the height, because that's exactly how tall I am.

However, Isaiah prophesied that the Savior would have "no beauty that man should desire Him," and "no form nor comeliness." (Isaiah 53:2) It fits the prophecy.

(However, none of this takes into account His glorified state, which came later.)

It was interesting, if unimportant.

Regardless, the point I took from this article and the feelings I had after reading it, that it isn't how the Savior appeared. In spite of that, crowds thronged Him. Why? Because of how He made them feel. When we look to Him, rather than at Him, that's when we find Him.

He lifted, built, and taught. He accepted the socially unacceptable. He reached into hearts. He healed the untouchable. He loved without fear.

Reading about His incomparable life, I begin to feel a measure of that love. Through prayer, I feel it even more. By trying to change myself to follow--in some small way--the example of how He lived (by loving people around me), that love begins to take root. Through repentance, coming back to Him, asking for His pardon and help, that love and acceptance fills my heart and life.

As must be obvious to everyone, it isn't how He looked or looks. It's how He makes me and each of us feel as we look to Him.

He is love.

He invites us to receive His image in our countenances. I'm fairly sure we've seen Him and His love in someone's face somewhere, sometime. Someone who has emulated His love so long, he or she has become more beautiful for it.

Helping someone feel a portion of that love--shouldn't that be my goal every day? To make someone feel noticed, to remind them that they're loved?

This is a rambling set of thoughts. Noticed and loved. That's how I want to make people around me feel. I might not be a 5-star writer, a 10 on the beauty scale, or of impressive height or skill of any kind. But I hope people I meet feel noticed and loved.

That is all.

A Theology of Suffering

Recently I discovered a discourse given over 20 years ago by a woman named Frances Bennion. Since the time I read it, I have pondered it daily. It has changed my outlook on suffering and the whole question of "why do bad things happen to good people?"

I started this blog, partly, with a mind to explore the topic of suffering, and how understanding the scriptures and the teachings of doctrine can help us through difficulty, as well as how we can have soft hearts for God to write His teachings upon them. (Hence, the Tables of the Heart moniker.)

Here is the link to the entire discourse. It is long. But it absolutely blew my mind, and I invite anyone who is suffering, has suffered, or anticipates future suffering to give it a look.

I'll include one quote (of many) that I found thought-provoking:

"One of my prayers to my Father is that my children will be healed of my ignorance and will not bear forever the difficulties caused by things I have mistakenly done or not done as a parent. As I think of the atonement of Christ, it seems to me that if our sins are to be forgiven, the results of them must be erased. If my mistakes are to be forgiven, other persons must be healed from any effects of them. In the same way, if other persons are to be released by the atonement, then we must be healed from their mistakes. I think that is an essential part of understanding God’s gift: He did not make a plan whereby we simply prove ourselves already right or wrong. Rather, we must make sense of the fact that who we are and who we become is not wholly dependent on where we are now, and on never having made a mistake. Christ’s atonement makes it possible for us to go through the meeting of reality, the falling, the hungering, the screaming, the crawling on the floor, the being disfigured and scarred for life psychologically or physically, and still survive and transcend it. If that were not true, then our whole universe would have no meaning."

One Thing I Learned By Driving 6500 Miles in 7 Weeks

Between July 9 and September 1, I needed to drive over 6,500 miles. Honestly, that number could have been higher, but I opted to take a flight for one of the 2,000-mile roundtrip trips. So. Much. Traveling!

On all these trips, as you can imagine, innumerable road signs came into view. Yesterday, on another 800-mile drive, one jumped out at me.

KEEP RIGHT

This sign has many applications, beyond traffic. I can imagine my grandpa telling us it had political applications. (If you'd known my Grandpa Boyd, you'd understand.)

As a mom of five kids in decades where their decisions determine their destiny, I'm fervently praying my kids will KEEP RIGHT.

Life is a risk. Every day we have the chance to make choices. I have seen tiny errors in my life lead to need for massive correction. Attitudes need adjusting, I need humbling, etc. It's kind of hard to Keep Right sometimes, and if I didn't have the constant flow of daily scripture study, and weekly sacrament meetings, as well as the gentle (sometimes pointed) correction of the Holy Ghost, I'd be in even more dire straits.

But how? How can we do it? One way is to always remember our divine identity. I found this quote from Boyd K. Packer, another Boyd with a strong opinion on how we can KEEP RIGHT.

“You are a child of God. He is the father of your spirit. Spiritually you are of noble birth, the offspring of the King of Heaven. Fix that truth in your mind and hold to it. However many generations in your mortal ancestry, no matter what race or people you represent, the pedigree of your spirit can be written on a single line. You are a child of God!”4

If there's any other statement more powerfully effective in helping me KEEP RIGHT, I can't think of it. My identity as His child is the most important knowledge I have and the best incentive to strive, even when it's hard.