You have seen the miracle of conversion in Thailand. You have watched people change and witnessed a light brought into a willing soul and shining through his countenance. But I wonder if you remember witnessing my conversion in your youth.
I was raised a member of the church. I have good parents who lived well the precepts and teaching of our faith. They served and listened to the Spirit and taught in word and deed what it is to be a disciple of Christ. I followed their lead and stepped on milestones of faith throughout my youth.
More than this, I desired to believe. I read and received confirmation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon at an early age. I continued to read it daily from that point on. I attended seminary and read the scriptures, I went to church, I served in callings, I married Dad in the temple. And my faith in all the good things I had been taught and had been given was confirmed and added upon and there was no reason to suspect that there were corners of my heart which had not yet yielded to the enlightenment of Jesus Christ. But I was to come to that understanding through some painful searching.
A dear sister confided in me her brokenness in dealing with an episode in her past. This was debilitating to her and was causing a faith crisis. I suppose that I finally felt safe and strong enough to simultaneously open and conquer a similar moment in my own history. Whatever the trigger, indeed I was made to confront a moment of abuse in my childhood. I finally told Dad and my parents and verbalizing released a wave of pain that had been walled up in my heart. I was overcome by the sorrow and the loss I could understand as an adult which I had not the maturity to grasp as a child.
But understanding that moment overwhelmed my current self. I was depressed and broken and uncertain. I wanted pain and justice called down upon the perpetrator. I felt wicked and ugly and coupable. Kind of crazy, huh? Yet, that’s what I felt.
I got some counseling which was a great boon. I did a sand play and the moral of my scene was that in fearing things that were mostly imagined, I was ignoring the faith which makes everything right. My spirit knew the truth I had filled my being with. I had only to choose to believe it.
I poured over scriptures. I prayed constantly, but on my knees three times a day, tears streaming down grateful cheeks. I cried through all the hymns in church as I understood doctrine personally. I attended the temple and participated in all the ordinances there as proxy. And my broken heart was finally able to yield entirely to the influence of the Spirit, holding no corners in reserve.
And that Spirit healed me. My nature changed. I wanted to cry with the trump of angels. I wished I could yell from the rooftops to share with everyone a message of hope and redemption. I wanted everyone to know that their pain and their suffering could be wiped out of their lives and their hearts. I had tasted living waters and I wanted to be a well others could draw from. I abounded in faith, hope, and charity. For weeks I was soft as putty (Dad even recalls feeling a little irritated with me because I could not be offended for anything.) I apologized sincerely and often. I saw the good in others and felt no condemnation for my fellowmen who were equally important to my Savior. I saw them all in a state of potential redemption, believing that there was not one thing that made Christ’s Atonement less accessible to them than it had become to me.
This was a Pentecostal time in my life. It is a treasure I carry in my heart still. I marvel that this painful snippet which once felt so dreary is now a bright ornament (1 Nephi 21:18), a sparkling souvenir of the moment that precipitated the miracle of conversion.
Aren’t you happy that you have this time set aside to share this joy with brothers and sisters in Thailand? I surely am.
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