Putting on the Whole Armor of God
Brothers and Sisters, my name is Christy Anderson. I am from the Arlington 3rd Ward and I have been asked to speak about Putting On the Whole Armor of God. I am specifically going to address having faith during sore trials.
I have spent the last three weeks preparing for this talk and feel to rejoice in the Love of God for his children, in particular you and me. I read many conference talks and many scriptures, I have written and re-written this talk, and am convinced more than ever that the reason the Lord wants us to Put on the Whole Armor of God or gives us any commandment is that He loves us and wants to bless us. He wants to protect us and give us as many opportunities to Come Unto Him that he can that we may feel his love and ultimately receive all the blessings He has.
When we fight against his love and commandments we misunderstand what we are fighting against. But I too have resisted his protecting love when life offered more difficulties than I felt like I could bear. My journey to being able to truly rejoice in his love is a long and painful one. Those of you who are much older than me might be saying to yourselves, what could this young mother have to offer? And I may agree with you except that for the past eighteen years I have lived in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy that has taken me to the depths of despair and back again. I have not idly accepted the pain of that event and have spent all my energy facing my pain, taking it to the Lord, and allowing the power of the Atonement to heal my soul. It has been beyond difficult but I have grown close to the Lord and My Heavenly Father in the process. Some days I feel like a worn out war horse put out to pasture with little to give, but the Lord is my strength and as I continue to rely on Him I am sustained in fulfilling my roles and responsibilities in this life.
I’d like to share a special story about my 5 year old son from a few years ago when he was about 3 years old. Every night I would go into his room to say prayers with him. He said sweet and significant prayers until one day he refused. I asked him why. He had no answer for me but no matter what I said, he wouldn’t consent. So I felt that I should say his prayer for him that night, which he asked me to do. Every night I would ask him to say the prayer, he would refuse and not give me a reason and I would say his prayer for him. This went on for weeks, maybe even a few months. There were some days where he didn’t even want me to say the prayer but after we would talk about it for awhile, he would usually agree. I was concerned and praying to know how to help my young son desire to pray. Finally, one night, my son told me that he didn’t want to pray because prayers didn’t work. As we talked about it he told me that he had been praying for his bad dreams to go away and whether he prayed or not he still had bad dreams. I was amazed that a three year old would come to such an adult conclusion. But I was equally overwhelmed about how I was to answer his question.
I said a prayer and waited for the Lord to fill my mind. I began by asking my son if the prayers worked some nights. He said that some nights they did work. Then I asked him if he wanted Heavenly Father’s help on the nights when the bad dreams came. He said “but he doesn’t help me, the dreams still come.” I then tried to explain to him in three year old terms how sometimes we have tough things happen to teach us and that if we trusted in the Lord, he would help us through those tough times until we learned what we needed to learn. After a few nights of discussions, my son began saying prayers again and I noticed they were deeper more thoughtful prayers, even for a three year old.
A year or so after that event, we were at a family reunion on the Puget Sound where my now four year old son was carrying a very large piece of driftwood up and down a steep embankment. He had been told to stop more than once but it was too much fun and before long, he tripped and fell on top of the log, trapping his hand beneath the weight of the log and the weight of his body. We dusted him off and examined his hand. It looked like at least one bone had been broken and had poked through the skin. While my husband got our car, I and my brother checked the pad of his thumb where the injury had occurred and agreed that it was broken. When asked if he wanted a blessing, my son said he did and my dad, brothers and husband gave him a blessing where he was blessed to be completely healed and that the Lord is aware of him and loves him for his faith. On the way to the hospital, my son fell to sleep and by the time we got to the hospital he woke up and seemed to be doing fine. He was playing with things and was in very little pain. By the time we got in with the doctor, my son was back to normal. The doctor distracted my son and began doing a physical examination that made my husband, father and I feel sick to our stomachs. The doctor was kneading the muscle in the pad of my son’s hand… without any reaction from my son. The doctor didn’t need to x-ray my son’s hand, there was no break or even any bruising. We went away rejoicing in the miracle that had occurred.
Are there times in our lives when the Lord withholds blessings from our lives? Does he say no to some of the deepest desires of our hearts? I know he has in my life. During those times, do we, like my son did, pull away from the Lord because maybe it seems like prayer doesn’t work or miracles that we want don’t come or are taking too long? Does the pain and difficulties we face sometimes make us think that the Lord isn’t aware of us or that He doesn’t love us? I believe that sometimes we don’t understand. I like the statement from Ralph Waldo Emerson to his spiritual mentor, Aunt Mary Moody Emerson when he said, “He has seen but half the Universe who has never been shown the house of pain.” A half life is what we all desire because none of us wants to experience pain. We avoid it at all costs. But when deep trials come to us, despite our most valiant efforts to avoid them, sometimes we wonder what the Lord is up to. Experiencing the other half of life can seem cruel and maybe even like we aren’t loved.
I am here to testify to you that miracles do come. I am here to testify to you that the trials are for our good, and even if the very jaws of hell gape open the mouth wide after us, that it will be for our good…if we are faithful.
During one of my family’s most difficult trials, my sister was in a coma for 81/2 months following a horrific car crash that I alluded to at the beginning of my talk. As a Senior in High School, I was driving my 15 year old sister, my 14 year old brother and two 16 year old less active friends to early morning seminary. We were doing everything right. Trying to do all the Lord wanted us to do and everything went wrong. One day, four or five months into our Gethsemane, A wicked nurse said to me, “If you and your family had faith, your sister wouldn’t be lying there in a coma.”
I was so shocked and upset by her comment, that seemed to abuse all the faith, good works and really our whole lives that we were trying to put towards the recovery of my sister, and all I could do was cry. After catching my breath and thinking about it for a couple of days, I came up with a good comeback and over the years have refined that comeback to be something like, “So you’re saying that Job didn’t have enough faith. And what about Paul? Peter must have been a slouch to have been crucified upside-down and what about my Beloved Savior, his faith must have been sorely lacking.” That would’ve put her in her place!
As ignorant as her statement was, is it any different from ours when we feel that when the Lord withholds blessings from us, that it is because we lack faith or because He maybe doesn’t love us. I have come to understand faith in a different light than my younger faith. I used to believe that faith brought about the miracles we wanted, and sometimes it does, if it is the will of the Lord. But Faith, real faith, powerful faith like the faith of Enoch, is faith simply in Jesus Christ; Faith in His love for us, Faith in the Atonement, Faith that we are in His hands, Faith that His Will will be done, and Faith in Him regardless of the outcome.
After 81/2 months in a coma, a week before my High School Graduation, my sister died, despite our faith and prayers, her name in temples throughout the world, prayer circles of members and many other denominations, priesthood blessings that said she would walk and be whole. But my brothers and sisters, my sister is whole and walks just fine where she is. As Paul says, “we see through the glass darkly” and as the Lord himself has said, “His ways are not our ways, they are higher than our ways.” But as we humble ourselves, Put on the Whole Armor of God and do all we can to follow him, we will learn more and more of His ways, understand more clearly why our trials are what they are and be blessed with all the miracles and blessings we can handle, according to His Will. Just like my son, who struggled with nightmares as he learned to be faithful to the Lord, we too can learn to continue to pray in faith believing that the Lord loves us and wants the best for us, even if it is tough for a time. And just like my son’s hand, Miracles will come! Miracles happen all the time! Broken hands do heal as well as broken hearts. And even if we are called to pass through sorrow that lasts nearly two decades or more, we can be faithful and learn all we came here to learn and be blessed beyond measure, all the time becoming the people we came here to become and doing the things we came here to do.
I know my Savior lives and know He loves us. I feel to rejoice in His goodness. I know that if we Put on the Whole Armor of God and are faithful, we will overcome the world and live with our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, all the faithful saints who have gone before and many dear and cherished friends and loved ones and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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