I gave this talk in my ward recently on the day that I was set apart as the Relief Society President. It is rooted in my hope that we can help all people to feel welcome in this Gospel, and especially in my hope that we can help each other to see the good that is already in us.
Good afternoon, friends.
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Chloe. I moved into the ward almost exactly 4 years ago for my freshman year at Stanford, thinking that this place would just be “where I went to college.” Instead, this place has become my home, and that is due in large part to the relationships that I have formed with members of this ward. The friendships I have made here have carried me through times of fear and doubt, and lifted me into times of faith, hope, and improvement. For this and about a hundred rides to the airport, I feel indebted to this ward.
Several weeks ago, I sat in my pew and looked at [our previous RSP] on the stand. I remember the day that she was called two years ago. She had just moved into the ward, and the bishopric barely knew her. Our Bishop had been thinking about who to call to Relief Society for a while, with no answers. When she moved into the ward, it became clear that the answer hadn’t come previously because the answer hadn’t arrived yet. Our ward needed [RSP]. She was the answer.
Although our Bishop bore a powerful witness of his surety that [RSP] was who we needed, I admit I felt confused. I didn’t understand how such a powerful answer could come about someone who had only just arrived in the ward. We didn’t even know her yet, and I was apprehensive about the decision.
As I watched her several weeks ago, I realized how grateful I am for our Bishop's inspiration and willingness to trust his prompting, however unexpected. [RSP] has been a gift to me individually, and to this ward. She has served diligently at every level, ministering to the one and the many. Whenever I look at her, I find myself wondering what it is like to be 3 inches from heaven all the time. And several weeks ago as I wondered that, I also thought about how it would be a steep ask to replace her.
I don’t remember if that was one week or two before the Bishopric asked to meet with me. And, while I could never say no to a request to serve in this ward, I cannot pretend to feel qualified for this calling. Luckily, I know I don’t have to do this alone. Each of you has so much to give, and I know that we will be able to continue increasing our faith and love for the Savior together. I also believe that as we strive to create goodness in our Relief Society and ward, God will magnify those efforts. He will fill in the gaps. And I am incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to take part in that process.
With my remaining time, I’d like to speak about the way God fills in those gaps; the ways He speaks to us and then works through us.
I’d like to dive into what it means for God to “speak” to us, because I find it to be an area full of terminology that we don’t often step back and analyze. Turning to the scriptures, we have several different examples of how prophets describe hearing from God. Nephi explained that the Lord “did visit [him] and did soften [his] heart” such that he could believe the words of his father (Nephi 2:16). Alma taught that as we allow the word of God to be planted in our heart we will begin to “say within ourselves—it must needs be that this is a good seed… for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me” (Alma 32:28). Joseph Smith explained that upon reading James 1:5 the passage came “with more power to [his] heart” than any other scripture had ever come to any other person’s heart (JSH 1:12).
These moments they describe, no doubt moments of revelation for each of them, are hard for me to understand academically. What does it mean to have your heart softened? What would that feel like? How about soul-enlargening, or thoughts becoming delicious? And what does it mean for words to hit the blood pumping organ with more power than words have ever hit any other person’s blood-pumping organ?
I don’t mean to be pedantic, but I do want to drive home a point: revelation is a fairly intangible experience. And even when it is strong enough to feel tangible to an individual, it becomes difficult to describe that experience in a way that would make sense and carry meaning to others. It’s like describing the taste of chocolate to someone who has never had it. Wouldn’t it be more effective and more fun if we all just tried chocolate for ourselves?
This lesson brings context to something I have heard from several sources throughout my life: that the most important skill any of us can learn is how the Spirit speaks to us, individually. No description anyone else ever offers will be sufficient to build our testimonies: only we can do that.
And beyond that, I’m not convinced that anyone else’s description of inspiration will ever match our own experience. Our thoughts and feelings are unique to each of us, and revelation must then be equally unique. Learning to understand personal revelation is necessarily an individual journey.
As I have pondered this idea, I have found it to be empowering. Before, I would often ask myself how I should feel in my moments of seeking revelation, based upon what I understood from what others had said they felt. Now, I am trying to replace that with a different question: how do I feel? Let me give you an example of what I mean from my recent experience:
A couple of weeks ago at Stake Conference as I watched one of the speakers, I could see that he spoke with undeniable conviction. His words were truth to him, and I knew that. At first, I asked myself how I should feel, and thought that because someone was bearing their testimony of truth, that there should be a warm, burning feeling in my chest region.
But I didn’t have that experience that day at conference. I wondered: Am I broken? Testimony-less?
I wasn’t sure, but I continued to sit and wonder throughout conference that weekend. I listened to the words of the speakers. Soon, I found myself making notes in my journal — partially based on the talks I heard, and partially based on the thoughts I was having then that have since led to this talk.
As I looked back on my notes from conference, I realized: I didn’t feel the spirit the way I thought I was supposed to. My emotional state was rather regular and without fire. But I was able to take on a new perspective and form a new connection. In 2 Nephi, we read: “For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” (28:30). I now realize that for me, the little nugget that God needed to teach me came through the ideas that I had that day, and that it would be rejecting truth to complain that I had not instead felt a burning in the bosom.
I don’t share this story because I believe that it is wrong to feel a strong emotional reaction to the spirit, nor because note-taking idea-formation should be the new measuring stick for feeling the spirit.
Instead, I share it because I hope you will allow yourself the same room. Please don’t box yourself in, or feel that your own experience isn’t valid because it doesn’t sound exactly like how someone else is describing their experience. In your moments of seeking answers, turn to God through scriptures, prayer, trusted friends, conference talks, the temple, time in nature, or whatever it is you need. And when you have found a safe place and you feel that you are angled toward Him, ask your question, and then listen. Listen with your ears for a whisper, with your heart for a feeling, with your mind for an idea. Give it some time, and allow yourself to see the world in new ways. Write your thoughts down, and notice how they change: do they become calmer, clearer? Do you have a next-step you can now take, even if the whole path is not yet clear?
This — all of this — is revelation. Moroni says it better than I can: “everything which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.” So please, if something is inviting you to do good — embrace it! Embrace revelation exactly as it comes to you at your particular stage in life, and don’t worry that it is different than someone else’s or even a different stage in your own life. And then remember the promise in D&C 50:24: “That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light growth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.” As we make an effort to recognize inspiration, we will be blessed with increased sensitivity to it.
It is our opportunity and responsibility in this life to learn how God speaks to us. No one can take that opportunity away, and no one can do it for us. It is our work to do. And only as we do that work can we begin to allow God to work through us.
To me, allowing God to work through us means acting on the promptings we receive. Once we learn to identify the spirit, we will be able to identify this particular kind of inspiration that asks us to reach out to serve those around us. These promptings may often feel much smaller to us than to the people we serve — but the Lord knows what is in their hearts better than we can.
To illustrate this, I’d like to share a personal experience from last December, when I was asked to conduct a Q&A fireside with Elder Bednar.
In order to understand my experience at the fireside, you have to have a little bit of context about my faith journey. For me, questions about women in the church started brewing early, but the concern that I felt associated with them peaked in the spring of my freshman year of college. I had never felt an easy, natural connection to our leaders, and in the midst of so much concern about women in the church, I got to a point where I did not trust male leaders to understand the experience of women. Conference became a very difficult weekend for me, as I entered each conference with an extreme sensitivity for references to gender. The distrust I felt did not hurt anyone but me, but it certainly did hurt me.
In the midst of that hurt, I knew I wanted to change, but I didn’t know how. My heart had been closed off, in a way, and it was difficult to open it back up. Slowly, and with the help of friends, I worked to embrace hope over fear. By the time I got to the Q&A with Elder Bednar, I was not too scared of leaving the event feeling hurt, but I also had no real expectation of leaving the event feeling loved. Though this statement of neutrality may sound a little bit absurd, it was a victory for me in comparison to the negativity of times prior.
During the meeting, Elder Bednar received questions anonymously on his iPad and answered a selection of his choice. Several questions into the meeting, before reading the next question, he turned to me and said, “Chloe, would you do me a favor?” After a moment of confusion, and then a recognition of the fact that I was, indeed, the only Chloe one the stand, I found myself standing next to him at the podium. He then read a question that I later learned was posed by a dear friend of mine: “How can we, as disciples of Christ, make sure women feel valued and important in our wards and with church callings?”
He finished the question, looked to me, and backed up to sit on the side of the stand, leaving me alone at the microphone.
My first thought was: How did he know? How could he possibly have known how much I wanted my voice to be heard in this church? How much I worried that women’s voices weren’t heard? How often I wanted to hear a woman’s voice? And how did he know to trust me — know that I wouldn’t take a political twist on this moment at the pulpit, or express feelings of anger?
I think the answer must be: he didn’t know. But he felt a prompting that he should select that question to answer, and that he should ask me to take the first stab at answering it. And in that moment, I knew that God knew me, and had known me. He knew my fears, and he knew my efforts to overcome them. In a blog post I wrote soon after the fact, I wrote that it had been as though Heavenly Father said to me: “Chloe, I hear you. I love you. I know what you need. Through me, these leaders can hear you, and love you, and know what you need, too.”
Elder Bednar took a prompting he received and turned it into a moment that I will always remember as having felt God’s love for me. Because he knew how to recognize when the Lord spoke to him, the Lord was able to reach me and show me His love through Elder Bednar. I am forever grateful that he acted on that prompting.
I am also reminded of the importance of acting on promptings by the story of the woman who anoints Christ with expensive oils just before his death. His disciples ask why he would ever allow such gifts to be wasted on him, when they could instead be sold to give money to the poor. Christ replies: “Why trouble ye the woman? For she hath wrought a good work upon me… Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.”
This is one of those moments in the scriptures that I feel I can see Christ in a new way. Even this perfect, endlessly-serving Savior could not anoint himself with oil. He needed the service of someone else. And while there are not many details about her expressed in the scriptures, I don’t think she gave this gift as an assignment, or because someone told her to, or because it was her job. No, I believe she was a woman who knew what it felt like when God spoke to her, and who had the faith and determination to act on those promptings, however challenging. God knew he could access His only begotten son through this woman, and Christ demonstrated gratitude and praise unmeasured for the woman who acted on His father’s loving request.
Just as Elder Bednar did for me, and just as this woman did for Christ, we can all be Christ’s hands on this earth as we learn to recognize and act on the promptings we receive to serve others.
And so, this is what I hope for our Relief Society and our ward: First, that we may support each other on our individual journeys to learning how the spirit speaks to us by openly sharing our own experiences and by embracing the diversity of others’ experiences. Second, that as we come to hear God’s voice in our lives, we become increasingly able to let him work through us as we act on our promptings to serve those around us; both within this ward and those without.
