I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I joined back in 1964 after a long struggle with faith. I had loved the Savior ever since I could remember, but the church of my youth deserted me as it moved into the intellect movement of the 60's. Without spiritual guidance, I fell away. The Lord distinguished between the words of my mouth and the longing of my heart. He knew that I wanted to believe and so he sent a young woman who told me the story of the Restored Gospel. She bore her testimony of Jesus Christ and promised me that I could know for myself and have my own testimony.

Now forty-six years later I can only thank her from the bottom of my heart for introducing me to the church. Indeed I do have my own testimony. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, called to restore Christ's church to the earth. We have a prophet today who leads and guides us. I am so grateful for Latter-day scriptures that bear testimony of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon is the Word of God. It stands as another witness of the Savior and it's truths have touched my life in very personal ways.

I hope that my poetry reflects the growth of my testimony and my love for Jesus Christ.

School Photo

We all have incidents in our lives that we never forget.  I had one such incident when I was in the 6th Grade. My school was a small one.  There was one classroom for each grade K-6 so the teachers knew us all.  It was a nice way to do school.

Even back when I was a child there was the annual school photo.  As a parent I loved those photos.  They were my annual update on how each child had grown and changed. Looking back at those photos now, I love each one.

But back in 1956 I wasn't the mom.  I was the kid and I had acne.  It was horrible.  I wanted to crawl into a hole that year.  I knew everyone was staring at me.  I was embarrassed beyond belief!  And then came the day of the school pictures.  I wasn't smart enough to be sick that day.  And so the pictures were taken as they were every year.  But I made sure that my parents understood the great humiliation associated with this particular year's photo and so we didn't purchase them.

It was my teacher who was the problem.  The photographers didn't do a group class photo back then or even a compilation.  The only way the teacher got your photo was if you gave her one.  And my teacher wanted my photo so she purchased them.  Can you believe a teacher would do that!  She said she needed this photo so she would be able to remember me. I don't know if she remembers me but I remember her and always will.  In spite of acne, I had a teacher who cared about me.  She was an amazing teacher.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)