God's Grace. I want it.

The following is a transcript of a talk I gave in Parley's 3rd today, April 26, 2014.  The ward is filled with an amazing and devout group of men and women and I felt honored to be asked as well as intimidated to publically bear so much of myself... My honesty was well received. 

I was asked to pick a conference talk to speak on today, the one I was most drawn to was President Dieter Uchtdorf's talk on “The Gift of Grace”.

I've been pondering the topic of Grace lately… the Term has several definitions, but in its most widely used form in our language is defined in Webster's as follows:

: a way of moving that is smooth and attractive and that is not stiff or awkward.

: a controlled, polite and pleasant way of behaving

: skills that are needed for behaving in a polite way in social situations…

Ask my children or anyone close to me and they would likely say that I possess none of these definitions of Grace. I was not an ice skater or a dancer….to my parent's dismay, I was a ski racer and later a professional Downhill mountain bike racer. The kind that wears the full face helmets. The kind of sports you might briefly catch on TV and think: yeah – those women eat their cornflakes out of skulls. Graceful is not something I am familiar with in a physical way.

In social situations – I suppose I could be graceful when necessary. But it's not my default modus operandi. Particularly in this season in my life...

After all…. According to Harvard women's studies and history professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich,

“Well behaved women seldom make (or change) history” Isn't that right?

I feel like I slid into this ward and neighborhood last summer mach 2 with all of our hair on fire. With five kids - including an infant - and just a U-Haul trailer. We came with essentially some clothes – enough to get through fall – and the most important things - ski gear and mountain bikes. That's it. I was fleeing a difficult domestic situation back in Vermont. Initially, I thought the move might be temporary. Enough time for my other half to make some productive decisions about our marriage and family. This never occurred. Or it didn't go as the children and I had hoped and prayed. It was me who had to make some dramatic decisions regarding my marital status and make our stay in Utah more permanent.

What has emerged in this very difficult season in my life is my inner FIVE YEAR OLD.  Maybe FIVE is too generous. I have a 15 month old and that's precisely what I'm referring to. We all have one. Do you know what I'm talking about? The kind of inner toddler who has outbursts and tantrums when things don't go exactly our way? Well mine has had center stage.  

Last week, some of our belongings arrived via truck from Vermont. As the children and I sat staring at the broken items, and pondering the missing items – a representation of all that has occurred in our family over the past year - my toddler-self best let her expression fly through my thumbs in a flurry of angry, spiteful texts…. This was not graceful. The things I said were downright unkind. I've just never experienced this magnitude of hurt before and I can't seem to get a grip on and censor my inner toddler. After all, divorce was not supposed to be my story. Or my kids' story. Just the other night, I was at a social event - the end of the season Park City Ski Team banquet and for the first time, someone introduced me socially as the “Ex wife" of my children's father. I wasn't ever supposed to have an Ex-husband. Or be someone's Ex-wife. This disparity between reality and my hopes and expectations has definitely caused a lack of grace. In every form.

As I spend time with amazing women of our ward family, I recognize that they have an aire of Grace to them. I don't pretend to think they don't have their own difficulties. And they haven't walked in mine… but I am so grateful for the women who have taken me on walks or had me over for a soda who sit full of grace while my inner toddler whines and wails and makes complaint of the situation I'm in. I leave saying “Amidst my challenges, I want more of what they have.” So while pondering a talk, it was no surprise I was drawn to President Uchtdorf's talk on the Gift of Grace.

Grace is one of the most frequently used terms in the scriptures and is almost always in reference to God's Grace. It turns out, that Webster has an alternate definition of Grace that applies here - totally different from the others…

: an unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration of sanctification.

It is this Grace that President Uchtdorf speaks of in his imploring that we get clear on our understanding of God's grace. His talk explains what God's grace is exactly, and how we obtain it.

It has become a task of mine to reconcile my lack of grace with God's grace.

President Uchtdorf begins with the reminder….

The Savior's Atonement cannot become commonplace in our teaching, in our conversation, or in our hearts...God loves us deeply, perfectly, and everlastingly. I cannot even begin to estimate “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height...[of] the love of Christ.” (Ephesians 3:18-19)...A powerful expression of that love is what the scriptures often call the grace of God...It is a most wondrous thing, this grace of God. Yet it is often misunderstood. (D&C 78:17)...We cannot earn our way into heaven; the demands of justice stand as a barrier, which we are powerless to overcome on our own….Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the plan of mercy appeases the demands of justice (Alma 42:14) and [brings] about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance (Alma 34:15).

I interpret this to indicate that repentance is the key that unlocks the grace.

President Uchtdorf goes on to say, “ With the gift of God's grace, the path of discipleship does not lead backward; it leads upward.”

I understand this to mean that rather than return us to our state of innocence as children, God's grace accompanies us through our walks in trial and lack of our own grace - back to Him. More like Him. So we might ask, “Why bother to be obedient and how do we access this gift of God's grace?”

President Uchtdorf states, “...we must enter through this gate with a heart's desire to be changed – a change so dramatic that as Mosiah 27:25 describes as being “born again; yea, born of God, changed from [our wordly] and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters. (Mosiah 27:25) God pours out blessings of power and strength, enabling us to achieve things that otherwise would be far beyond our reach. It is by God's amazing grace that His children can overcome the undercurrents and quicksands of the deceiver, rise above sin, and “be perfect[ed] in Christ.” (Moroni 10:32) ..His grace refines us. His grace helps us become our best selves.

President Uchtdorf reminds us of Christ's visit to the home of Simon the Pharisee. Outwardly, Simon seemed to be a good and upright man. He regularly checked off his to-do list of religious obligations: he kept the law, paid his tithing, observed the Sabbath, prayed daily, and went to synagogue. But while Jesus was with Simon, a woman approached, washed the Savior's feet with her tears, and anointed His feet with fine oil. Simon was not pleased with this display of worship, for he knew that this woman was a sinner. Simon thought that if Jesus didn't know this, He must not be a prophet or He would not have let the woman touch him.

President Uchtdorf challenges us: Which of these two people are we most like? Are we like Simon? Are we confident and comfortable in our good deeds, trusting in our own righteousness? Are we perhaps a little impatient with those who are not living up to our standards? Are we on autopilot, going through the motions, attending our meetings, yawning through Gospel Doctrine class, and perhaps checking our cell phones during sacrament service? Or are we like this woman, who thought she was completely and hopelessly lost because of sin?

For me...I'm both people. Here in Utah, as a convert, as someone who has undergone the formal repentance process...I'm that woman..the sinner. But when I turn my head eastward and look upon all that I left behind and fled with my children from, I become Simon the Pharisee. I can roll both ways.

You see, eight years ago my family was baptized and sealed in the Palmyra temple. My husband and I felt it was right for the children but our testimonies were fragile, at best. We loved our microbrew beer, our dark coffee and wine with dinner. I was adjusting to a new dress code and had just given birth. Tithing was near impossible with a bleak economic environment the northeast experienced in 2009. It was a lot to undertake for a young family. We had an hour drive to a tiny branch where my children were half of primary and there was intense pressure to attend. Everyone in a tiny branch has a calling and I had one despite having an infant. My husband paced the halls with a noisy toddler, missing priesthood for a couple of years and I was a counselor in primary and a teacher in Relief society. It was not long before we succumbed to the exhaustion of an entirely new culture and ceased attending…

The adversary had designs on destroying our newly sealed family and took advantage of our inactive status. Our marriage began to crumble for the first time in 12 years. After about a year of inactivity, I knocked hard on the door of my bishop and when he was found to be in the hospital, I made a frantic call to my stake President with a sense of urgency for me to start the repentance process. It was this repentance process that I had a bonified “Come to Jesus” moment – a spiritual experience so powerful that I cannot ever turn my back on. I had drifted from my sacred covenants. I needed help. My heart was broken. I recall about a 24 hour period that was so dark, I contemplated taking my own life. Imagine the mother of what was then these four beautiful children, in such a dark place, that the voices inside my head were suggesting my children would be better off without me.

It reminded me of the scene in the Joseph Smith History – where the darkness was so terrifying right before God appeared to Joseph. “I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such as astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.” (Joseph Smith History)

Such was my spiritual experience as I finally came to Christ for the first time.

I found the repentance process humbling yet loving and I could not wait to be able to take the sacrament again after a long hiatus. I understood it to be a sacred privilege to take and when the young men bless and pass it, it almost brings tears my eyes, especially now that my eldest son has this honor and responsibility to pass this sacred ordinance.

I understand well the phrase “broken heart and contrite spirit”. Because I can still feel it so close to the surface. It is so painful, that it is difficult to comprehend that God would prefer us to walk in that state constantly, but that's precisely what He wants. Most of us walk around trying to avoid that kind of pain of a broken heart. We go on anti-depressants, turn to addictions, absorb ourselves in our own self-righteousness – anything to prevent that feeling of FEELING HEARTBROKEN over things we have done or our own shortcomings. Yet this is precisely what He asks us to do. It takes tremendous courage to walk around with our hearts dangling outside our bodies every moment of every day. Yet this is what he asks of us.

President Uchtdorf goes on to say, “Do we understand our indebtedness to Heavenly Father and plead with all our souls for the grace of God? When we kneel to pray, is it to replay the greatest hits of our own righteousness, or is it to confess our faults, plead for God's mercy, and shed tears of gratitude for the amazing plan of redemption? (Luke 18:9-14)

Why then do we have to be obedient to any of this? President Uchtdorf reminds us “Brothers and sisters, we obey the commandments of God – out of love for Him!"

But it is not this obedience that earns God's grace. “The Spirit of the Lord [our God]” brings about such “a mighty change in us, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually,” (Mosiah 5:2)

I think I have answered my own question on how to bridge the gap between the deficiency in my own grace and God's grace. Every day I must ask myself if my heart is properly affixed to the outside of my body in the most vulnerable way.

President Uchtdorf concludes with “Today and forevermore God's grace is available to all whose hearts are broken and whose spirits are contrite.” (3 Nephi 9:19-20)

I bear my testimony that if we keep the commandments and walk continually with broken hearts and contrite spirits (reminder that 'contrite' means: regret for bad behavior) that our good works and obedience will merge with God's grace leading to greater possibilities in our lives. Thank you all for being examples of this in our community, and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.