"Remember Lot's Wife"

Dear Michael,

Almost a month ago I was invited to see your "good buddy" speak at his mission farewell in our Ogden ward.  Hunter Draper is a "great kid," as you would often say.  You two connected in a special way.  I remember him coming over and spending a lot of time with you in our home.  You exchanged music, you talked "Dave Ramsey," you worked on furnaces together.  It was a good relationship. 

It was unfortunate but appropriate that he was one of the last people you spent your earthly minutes with.  He was there when you got caught in the undertow, and he dealt with the harsh realities that followed. 



This is Hunter Draper amongst his friends.  Perfect picture to describe his personality.  :)

 

As time has passed, he has been so kind in continually reaching out and staying in touch with me and the fam.  When he invited me to his farewell last month, I knew I couldn't miss it, even though I knew that going back to that ward was going to be a difficult thing for me.  I probably sound overly-dramatic, but when you left us, it was all I could do to step foot in our house, our neighborhood, and it was most certainly all I could do to go back to our church.  The people in that ward are so wonderful and were such a large part of the life we spent together.  But again, I knew Hunter's farewell was an event I couldn't miss, in spite of my own difficulty in being there.  So I took Andi with me and we were able to see Isaac, Daniel, Laura, and Maelee as well.  I was so glad to go and support and see the people I love and miss there in that ward.  And at the same time, it was heart wrenching to be so fully reminded of what I'm missing and of all the time that continually passes since you left.

I came home that day with a heavy heart, which isn't perhaps an uncommon circumstance for the past few years.  But it gave me cause to stop and try to catch my breath a bit...once again.  Being that it's been the beginning of a new year and all, I was thinking about how to keep moving forward in spite of this grief I've so uncomfortably become accustomed to.  

After several days of these thoughts, I came across a talk entitled, "Remember Lot's Wife," by Jeffrey R. Holland.  Some of the words in that talk were hard to read, but they were a good slap in the face that reminded me of my duties to continue forward.  It was a talk given at the beginning of a new year, which was appropriate. 

In the talk, Elder Holland refers to a scriptural story about Lot, who was told by the Lord to get his family and flee their home. "Escape for thy life and look not behind thee."  He talks about how Lot's wife repeatedly did, in fact, "look behind her" and grieve what she had to leave behind.  Elder Holland says that "It is possible that Lot's wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking her to leave behind.  We certainly know that Laman and Lemuel were resentful when Lehi and his family were commanded to leave Jerusalem.  So it isn't just that she looked back; she looked back longingly.  In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future.  That, apparently, was at least part of her sin." 

He continues to say, "So, as a new year starts and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you  not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been.  The past is to be learned from but not lived in.  We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes.  And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future.  Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives.....So a more theological way to talk about Lot's wife is to say that she did not have faith.  She doubted the Lord's ability to give her something better than she already had.  Apparently she thought--fatally, as it turned out--that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind."

At the end of the talk, Elder Holland then says, "Faith is for the future.  Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there.  Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the high priest of good things to come."
The whole talk is full of quotes I love.  I was grateful to have read it and to be reminded of the things I already know, but needed to remember.

And just for the record, I don't say these things to portray the whole idea that I hate my life right now.  I most certainly don't and I know I am so very, very wonderfully blessed in my life.  I love my life now, and I feel the Lord has guided me to this point.  But that doesn't mean I don't feel much sorrow for the life left behind.  Reading this talk was just a stepping stone to help get me out of another of those sorrowful moments and to remind me of the importance of faith.  Faith in the future.  Faith that there are great things now and great things to come.  Fulfillment of dreams and hopes.  And faith for an eventual peace from the sorrow, that things will somehow be made aright. 

I love you, Michael, and I am so very grateful for forever families.  Here's to another new year!