So That It Continues to Matter

Really brief explanation: Every year, BYU hosts an essay contest. It’s called the Brimhall essay contest, and it follows this pattern:

• Founder picked for the year
• Homecoming theme
• Personal reflection essay
• 750 word limit

I’ll link the website here in case you want to check it out.

This year the founder was Spencer W. Kimball and the theme was “Light the Way Forward.”

I decided to enter, and while I didn’t place, I wanted to share with you!

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So That It Continues to Matter

When you’re falling from eight feet in the air, time slows down. Although I am sure I fell quickly, there was enough time for me to send up a silent plea for Divine help.

“Please help everything be okay. Please help me jump up and laugh that something terrible didn’t just happen.”

My right leg swung on the highest bar, my left leg caught the lowest bar, and then I collided with the ground.

For a split second, I thought, “Everything is okay!”

And then I looked down, picked up my double-compound-fractured arm, and thought, “Everything is not okay.” 

After six surgeries, a myriad of tears, bouts of depression and despair, and moments of confusion, anguish, and sorrow, I was able to use my arm again. 

Spencer W. Kimball had health challenges too. He had typhoid fever in his youth, boils and infectious sores in his late 30s, cancer in his throat in his mid 50s, and heart failure in his late 70s. At times he felt overwhelmed, confused, and disheartened, but he didn’t let his physical limitations stop him from ministering to and comforting others.

In fact, Spencer W. Kimball was known to be a listening ear, and he fulfilled his priesthood duties as a representative of the Savior to the best of his ability. He consistently strived to serve and uplift wherever he went. At President Kimball’s funeral, Gordon B. Hinckley said, “On one occasion I tried to slow [President Kimball] down a little, and he said, ‘Gordon, my life is like my shoes—to be worn out in service’” (Hinckley, 1985). President Kimball consecrated his experiences, his pain and all he learned from it, to helping and strengthening others. 

He lit the way forward for many individuals, who all felt loved by him, one by one. He chose each day to give purpose to his suffering and to use what he had learned to speak to the one. He understood that Heavenly Father has a greater purpose for our suffering than what we understand. He said, “Is there not wisdom in his giving us trials that we might rise above them…work to harden our muscles, sorrows to try our souls?” (Kimball, 1982, p. 59). As someone who lost his mom at age 11, President Kimball was no stranger to suffering, yet he testified powerfully of the wisdom of God’s plan.

I have found divine wisdom in my suffering too: breaking my arm in half, struggling with anxiety and depression, navigating complicated family issues, and not getting into graduate school. All I have ever wanted was for my experiences to have purpose, to mean something, to matter—for the moments where my heart broke, and I felt like the strings holding me together were snapping, one at a time—when the depression was so severe that I wondered if God had abandoned me—for the times where I cried out and asked for help, desperate for understanding and meaning.

I’ve wanted the pain to matter.

And it has. It’s transformed me into someone new. Someone more caring, more tender-hearted, more thoughtful. It’s helped light my way forward by making life more meaningful and purposeful.

When people have come to me for love, understanding, and support, it’s mattered. I’ve been able to speak from personal experience and promise that God has not abandoned them, and He never will.

Recently, my sister texted me this segment from her journal about our brother during a moment of despair, “I felt his need for someone to understand his agony. I knew just who to call. I knew she would have just the words to say.”

He called me, and we talked for 45 minutes. Slowly, his sobs eased, and he began breathing normally. He told me he felt better. Connecting to my brother meant everything to me, and I’m so grateful for that experience.

Like Spencer W. Kimball, I want to consecrate my life to helping others. To be known as someone who “loves [her] brothers and sisters” (Kimball, 1980). To be more meek, understanding, and patient. Like President Kimball was. Like the Savior was.

So that it matters.

So that it continues to matter.

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References

Hinckley, G. B. (1985, December). He is at peace. Ensign.

Kimball, S.W. (1980, October). Do not be weary by the way. [Address]. 150th Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, UT.

Kimball, S. W. (1982). The teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, Twelfth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Deseret Book Company.