Broken

There is a song by Kenneth Cope called Broken that I have been thinking about lately, it goes:  

Broken clouds give rain

Broken soil grows grain

Broken bread feeds man for one more day

Broken storms yield light

The break of day heals night

Broken pride turns blindness into sight

Broken souls that need His mending

Broken hearts for offering

Could it be that God loves broken things?

Broken chains set free

Broken swords bring peace

Broken walls make friends of you and me

To break the ranks of sin

To break the news of Him

To put on Christ till His name feels broken in

Broken souls that need His mending

Broken hearts for offering

I believe that God loves broken things

And yet our broken faith, our broken promises

Sent love to the cross

And still, that broken flesh, that broken heart of His

Offers us such grace and mercy

Covers us with love undeserving

This broken soul that cries for mending

This broken heart for offering

I'm convinced that God loves broken me

Praise His name, my God loves broken things.

Elder Holland also loves this subject.  He has talked a lot about mending broken things and broken vessels.  Big surprise, I’m reading a 3 book bundle by him right now.  There’s some good stuff that I will use later.  I guess it has become my favorite theme as well.  The worst thing you could do if you are feeling broken is to give up.  

What I have been thinking about most recently is how this theme of God loving broken things relates to Family History....most specifically mine.  I’m not sure how closely this will start to look like something I’ve already written about called “Carpenters.”  What I am doing for this specific writing is going back and looking at 2 videos I made where I talked about this and then add in a little extra goodness.  

In doing my family history I found some new family members that I never knew but how I somehow love and cherish now.  They come from my Dad’s Dad’s line.  My grandfather left the family when my father was 10.  He remarried and had 4 daughters and was never in my dad’s life again.  My dad resented him and ultimately hated him.  He was never able to forgive him.  Even when his mother passed away he found a reason to interpret his fathers actions as a lack of love towards him.  It was the one and only time I met my grandfather and I remember wishing I knew him more.  Especially now that my favorite person on the planet was no longer around to help me navigate this life.  I wanted that connection.  

Through the amazing gift we’ve been given we have the opportunity to participate in - the sealing of families together- my heart has been turned to my family and in turn theirs to me.  Actually I think it was the other way around.  This family that  I never got to know in this life.  They have been blessing my life beyond measure and those seeds they planted in my heart finally turned mine to them.  It is really beyond anything I deserve.  I’ll explain:

My family is broken.

Through this broken family I have received so much insight and inspiration.  My whole world has changed.  My eyesight has been made more clear.  My ears have been able to hear more clearly and my heart has been changed.  I have experienced growth that I didn’t know was possible.  I thought it was only possible for the very elect even though I have always been taught otherwise, I still somehow didn’t think it achievable.  Now, am I saying I’m some kind of awesome spiritual giant on the same level as a general authority?  Not even close, but I feel like I could be in the same room without shrinking.  I would seriously love to be in the same room.  We got tickets to go to general conference in April.  Yet again, there is a conflict getting the entire family there.  You would think there is some kind of force preventing it.  But we came up with a plan and just me and the 2 oldest are going to fly out and go.  I teased my husband to watch for me on tv when I rush the stage to try and touch the coat of Elder Bednar....or any of the 12 and get tackled and get tased by the jack bauer agents guarding them.  lol  We all had a good laugh thinking about that.  Bummer for them I’m not really that crazy.  But, it would be nice to see if by touching their coat some of their spirituality would transfer to me.  You know, like the woman that touched the Saviors garment and was healed.  :0)

I mentioned before that I come from a very long line of carpenters.  I have 2 brothers, 1 is an engineer who also loves building and remodeling the other one is a carpenter by trade.  My dad is a carpenter.  His dad cut some fingers off in woodshop as a teen and ended up in a silk mill and then later in a steel mill.  He had some other ailments in addition that my dad thinks probably contributed to the demise of the marriage to my Nana.  My grandfather’s dad was a weaver in a silk mill and his dad was a carpenter and his dad was a casket maker and ship builder- who was my 3rd great grandfather Francis Witman.  All of these men had sons who were carpenters and had daughters who married carpenters.  Because of the break of the family ties between my father and his father he had no idea that he came from such a long line of carpenters.  It wasn’t his own father that indroduced him to the trade because he wasn’t building anything because of his hands.  It wasn’t until my Nana’s 4th husband that my father got into building houses.  Before that he was a lumberjack and then he went to the vietnam war.  When he got back he gained confidence by working with the man my dad claims to be his Dad (Lloyd, my Nana’s 4th husband) and bluffed his way into his first paying job as a carpenter and the rest is history.  It was cool for him to learn that this skill is deep in his DNA and he didn’t even know it and he’s passed it down to his own children.  

All this thinking of carpenters got me thinking about Jesus Christ and his ministry while he was here upon the earth.  His dad was a carpenter.  I’m not sure how much carpentry work the savior did but he is often described as being one.  When you think about what a carpenter does, they build, they repair, they tear down, they remodel, they fix.  

There are lots of great talks by Elder Holland about vessels, but I’m not going to use one.  A different way of describing the workings of our vessels that struck me at just the right time while I was thinking about fixing things was by S Michael Wilcox.  He was talking about our vessels  being full of hurt, anger, resentment, failure etc... and how we have to pour all of that out to make room for the Savior to pour in to change and heal us.  The entire talk was fantastic and it got me thinking about my real willingness to change.  For me, if you take this pouring out analogy and apply that to a carpenter - go back to what a carpenter does.  There is nothing that isn’t fixable to a carpenter.  Sometimes you have to tear things down to the studs and sometimes it involves tearing things back to the foundation to rebuild and start again.  You have to make room for something new.  

Elder Holland quoted CS Lewis saying something similar “I do not think that all who choose the wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road.  A mathematical sum incorrectly worked can be put right; but only by going back till you find the error and then working it fresh from that point.  It will never be corrected by simply going on.  Evil can be undone, but it cannot develop into good.  Time does not heal, the spell must be unwound.”

Something else that we need to remember is that every single one of us is operating with the need to course correct.  To pour out so the Lord can pour in.  To fix our broken vessels that don’t have the capacity to hold goodness.  He said: 

“ when a battered, weary swimmer tries valiantly to get back to shore after having fought strong winds and rough waves that he should never have challenged in the first place, those of us who might have had better judgment (or perhaps just better luck) ought not to row out to his side, beat him with our oars, and shove his head back underwater.  That’s not what boats were made for.  But some of us do that to each other.”

That one has had me thinking for days.  How often am I beating someone over the head with an oar to a lifeboat?  I probably do it more to my own family than I do to strangers.  I told my husband that I couldn’t stop thinking about the analogy and he smiled that knowing smile and asked me why?  I then beat him with an oar! ;0)

Me doing family history is repairing my family lines or taking that life boat out.  Not just connecting them through ordinances  but connecting their hearts.  Connecting my heart to theirs.  By participating in the Lord’s work and glory I too now can become a carpenter.  I can be a savior.  You may say, “how is this possible?”  or something like “isn’t that blasphemous to think you could be a savior?”  Joseph Smith said: 

“But how are they to become saviors on Mount Zion?  By building their temples, erecting their baptismal fonts, and going forth and receiving all the ordinances, baptisms, confirmations, washings, anointings, ordinations and sealing powers upon their heads, in behalf of all their progenitors who are dead, and redeem them that they may come forth in the first resurrection and be exalted to thrones of glory with them; and herein is the chain that binds the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, which fulfills the mission of Elijah..”

This fulfilling of the mission of Elijah is so important that it is mentioned in all the standard works.  The Bible in Malachi 4:5-6.  The Book of Mormon 3 Nephi 25:5-6.  The Doctrine and Covenants 2; 27:9; 128:37-39.  The Pearl of Great Price: JSH 1:37-39.  

ElRay L Christiansen said this in a conference report in 1960:  “‘The beginning and the end of the gospel is written in section two of the Doctrine and Covenants. It is the keystone of the wonderful gospel arch; and if that center stone should weaken and fall out, the whole gospel structure would topple down in unorganized doctrinal blocks.’” Section 2 is only 3 verses but it is all about the sealing powers of the priesthood being revealed by Elijah and what would happen if we weren’t given this power.  

John A. Widtsoe explained the significance of these promises and the Latter-day Saints’ part in them: “In our preexistent state, in the day of the great council, we made a certain agreement with the Almighty. The Lord proposed a plan, conceived by him. We accepted it. Since the plan is intended for all men, we become parties to the salvation of every person under that plan. We agreed, right then and there, to be not only saviors for ourselves but measurably, saviors for the whole human family. We went into a partnership with the Lord. The working out of the plan became then not merely the Father’s work, and the Savior’s work, but also our work. The least of us, the humblest, is in partnership with the Almighty in achieving the purpose of the eternal plan of salvation”

A step that I took towards this promise I made and the remodeling of family lines - and ultimately my own heart- was calling my parents to get permission to do the work of my grandparents.  It was a way to reach out, to testify, to show respect, to build a bridge of understanding one towards another.  To hopefully turn our hearts toward each other because of all tension that was created in our relationship due to my joining the LDS church.  A couple of months before we made the call to my parents I realized that I didn’t know my father the way I wanted to.  I decided that I would start emailing him questions about his childhood and see how much I could learn.  It has been an eye opening process and really great.  I get a little deeper with the questions each time.  I really haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with everything.  It’s times like these that I  wish I were born with a different skill set than I posses. I would love to make it into a biography to give to him and have for my posterity and for my brothers, but every time I sit down to start making the emails into something like that it makes my head hurt.  I don’t know where to start or how to pull more information out to fill the gaps in better.  One day it will reveal itself to me what I’m to do with all the information.  In the meantime I just keep collecting it.  It is another opportunity for the turning of my heart.  

Something I equate to carpenters in general is that they aren’t a quitting kind of people.  There’s always a solution even if you have to tear everything down.  Through this experience exchanging emails with my dad I can see how the soul aches and hurts when you feel like you’ve given up on something.  I’m hoping that thru this process he can maybe have his heart turn towards his own father and realize that he had many of the same struggles and heart ache that he had.  The ripple effect of changing hearts is endless.  I haven’t even mentioned the effect this has had on my own children. 

This process has also helped me to understand more fully the parable of the 10 virgins.  If you’re eyes have not yet been opened it can seem cruel for the 5 with oil in their lamps to not give to the 5 that squandered their opportunity and had none.  Our compassion gene wants them to not get shut outside the door.  We want to give excuses and say it’s ok and show our love by giving some of ours to them.  Problem is, it doesn’t work that way.  It’s not cruel, it’s impossible to give that oil to someone else.  The only way you can get it is if you work for it and earn it and put it in there yourself.  The words to the knowledge you have learned have the same words they always did, they just mean something different to you now.  There is a deeper understanding.  Elder Bednar talks extensively about this process.  I can say now that I have experienced it for myself.  There are no words to adequately express how it is that I feel .  What that oil feels like in my lamp or what it has done to me.  How it has changed my relationship with God.  How it has given me new eyes.  I can’t convince anyone of anything because I don’t have any words to do that.  All I can do is kinda be like Paul when he was talking to the corinthians.  He told the people that he was their example and to follow him and they would be fine.  The only thing I can do is be and example of the believers, be a model, be a carpenter and hope that others will see the fruits of that labor and want that for themselves.  

Blessings and miracles and everything that the Lord has to give you is waiting there and ready for you if you want to be a carpenter in His kingdom.  

I talked a bit in my post about “carpenters” of the experience of taking my grandparents names to the temple to do baptisms with my 2 oldest kids and 2 nieces.  It was another opportunity for me to be a carpenter.  To repair family relationships that were broken and bring as many as I can along for the ride in this life changing process.  As we are carpenters working on our past, present and future- we are working to fix those breaks in our family chains.  Working on our past- is our ancestors and doing the work for them to receive exultation.  The present - is working on our family relationships and our stewardships and repairing things that need to be repaired.  Taking that life boat out and not hitting them over the head with the oar.  The future - for what all this work means to future posterity and generations.  While we are working on our past we are healing our future. Part of that future healing was a blessing born out of my connecting my heart to my ancestors and they in turn helped me to connect my heart to my family today and hopefully that made an impression that will be seen throughout generations.

When I think of healing and why we’re here, I realize that nothing is irreparable, everything is fixable.  Fixing our relationships and ourselves is why we are here.  There is no miracle to big to receive.  This repair work is what we came to do.  We are here to become even as God is.  We want to return to live with him.  We want to recognize our name when he calls us by his because we have become like him.  We want all of our loved ones there with us.  As you do more of this work you being to realize just how many people you begin to place in your “loved ones” category.  

We can be encouraging and convincing if we have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.  We have to be worthy of it.  We have to have the oil in our lamps.  We have to learn how to “use the force, luke.”  :0)  We cannot sanctify ourselves - or set apart ourselves for sacred use if we aren’t in tune and humble and repentant AND sanctified by the Holy Ghost.  We cannot sanctify ourselves.  (more on that subject later)  My favorite example as to how vital the role of the Holy Ghost is - is found in Luke 24.  It’s the “did not our hearts burn” story.  The men didn’t know who they were walking with, it had to be revealed to them and it wasn’t until the savior left that they realized who he was because they were doubting and lost.  We have to be in tune because our eyes will not know, only our hearts will.  We are told over and over we must have a change of heart.  

This journey that I have been on has been a life changer, a heart changer and an eyesight changer.  If you feel a long way off from having oil in your lamp.

 10 ¶aFear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. ~Isaiah 41:10

Because this isn’t a church talk, I have a lot more freedom, so I will end with another lyric found in the song “Compass.” 

you wanna give up cause it’s dark (like mists of darkness dark)

we’re really not that far apart (we're all on the path together)

so let your heart sweet heart be your compass when you’re lost (let the Holy spirit guide)

and you should follow it where ever you may go

when its all said and done you can walk instead of run

cause no matter what you’ll never be alone

Sometimes we may feel we are running- my husband teases me that I’m at a sprint right now and leaving them all in the dust.  Sometimes all we can do is walk and sometimes while we are holding tightly with both hands to the iron rod all we’ve got the strength to do is crawl.  We need to be more loving and more supportive and help each other along the path.  The only way to accomplish this is to have a mighty change of heart.  One way to do this is by doing your family history and then doing their work in the temple.  There is no greater house of learning than the temple.  When I started attending regularly my eyesight changed.  When that change begins we are more likely to hold the oar out for our fellow man to grab hold and be pulled into the safety of the boat instead of using it to further drown them.  

I will end with a couple more quotes from Holland: “change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as they did for Alma and the sons of Mosiah.”  I wouldn’t say mine came that instantaneously but change, real change has occurred in me and changed my very nature.  Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t change, it’s not true - but it is hard work- sometimes excruciatingly hard!  This next quote is in my house “If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart.  So it has been with the best people who ever lived.”

I can say for myself that broken pride really does change blindness into sight.  God really does love broken things because I am in awe at the inspiration I have been able to receive when I have put my efforts to mending broken family lines and relationships and it helped me mend my own broken soul and catch a small glimpse of what work the Lord wants me to accomplish while I’m here.  If we want to know why we are here, he will tell us if we are willing to do the work.