Caught In My Web Of Words

TheDiscipleMD

During our first few years of marriage my wife and I resided in a predominantly military ward. Since we were not military we felt somewhat out of things socially. A few years and moves later we had the opportunity to move to Maryland.  There were two wards in the county in which we were going to live  and I found out that one had a heavy military influence. Not wanting to replicate our past experience my wife and I studied not only the school boundaries, but the church boundaries. We made our decision and started our new life in the ward and school district we chose. We felt very happy. After about three years I was called to serve on the High Council. At the first meeting I attended the Stake Presidency announced that they had made some boundary changes to the wards in our county.  You guessed it, we ended up in the other ward.

I was somewhat dismayed about the change, although I didn’t express it out loud. Heavy of heart I went home to see my wife. As I entered the door she could tell that I seemed upset and asked me what was wrong. I told her of the change and the both of us felt depressed about the change. The next Sunday the stake presidency made the change and that night both my wife and I cried a few tears as we lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Several months later we went on vacation and visited a small university town in Idaho where we had lived for a number of years. Friends of ours put together a little open house and we had the chance to visit with a number of the members of our old ward. During the course of our conversations with old friends I bitterly complained about the recent change in the ward boundaries and how I didn’t want to support the change.

Much later that evening a group of us were talking about the growth of the church throughout the world. While conversing I made this bold statement; “I think the brethren should do what they did in the old days. Call on families to move throughout the world so as to strengthen the church wherever it is weak. Many faithful members would respond to the call to pick up and move to whatever country the church called them to reside in. I for one would be willing to do so!” No sooner had the bold faithful statement passed my lips did I hear one of the sisters in the room respond, “Weren’t you the one who was just complaining about the brethren moving the boundaries of your ward and now having to attend a different ward?” I smiled, then slowly I laughed out loud. “Good one”, I replied. I had been caught in my web of words!

And so, there I was caught in my own words. It is so easy to say we will give our life for the building up of the kingdom but so hard to give an hour for home teaching, visiting the sick and needy, or fulfilling an assignment given by our quorum leader.  As a footnote to the above story, my wife and I ended up having the fondest memories of being in that ward. Once again, a testimony to me that the Lord knows best.

And so it seems that sometimes we fool ourselves into a false security by saying we would die for the gospel of Jesus Christ, but we struggle to live for it. There is nothing wrong with struggling, that is the way of this life, but we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking we are stronger than we really are.

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