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TheDiscipleMD

Many years ago I was invited to visit with my Bishop. He asked if I would accept a calling that was very challenging. A week earlier I had received a call from the executive secretary asking for the appointment. When I hung up the phone, I knew instantly what the Bishop was going to request.  From that moment on I pondered the impending request by my Bishop. As I sat across from the Bishop and he extended the call, the words of a hymn echoed in my mind:

The flesh was weak; my blood ran chill,

But my free spirit cried, “I will!”

Then in a moment to my view

The stranger started from disguise.

The tokens in his hands I knew;

The Savior stood before mine eyes.

He spake, and my poor name he named,

“Of me thou hast not been ashamed.

These deeds shall thy memorial be;

Fear not, thou didst them unto me.”

( A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, no. 29)

And so, even though I knew the calling would be hard, I was in hopes that somehow I could be of some good.  If not, I thought, at least I will have done my duty to the Lord. That calling came and went and so have many others since then. What I have come to find out, is that if I went forward with faith, the Lord would enhance my abilities and give me the strength to fulfill whatever came my way. Truly, I found out what Nephi taught so many years ago:

“…I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.” (1 Nephi 3:7)

I’ve never been sorry for accepting “the call.”