Last week I saw a movie with huge impact: The Cokeville Miracle about how a small elementary school coped with a mad man holding over 100 students and teachers hostage with a bomb and guns – every parents’ and teachers’ worst nightmare. It happened for real in 1986 and details of how this all played out are based on fact. This is an LDS produced movie, not widely available, but if you can find it, I highly recommend it.
In today’s world, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by bad news and anxiety about the future. It’s easy to feel small, powerless, and vulnerable in the face of big business, big government and a sense of evil growing in the world. It’s also easy to think that the only way to protect ourselves is with a similar strength and worldly power. This movie, however, suggests another way, and one rarely, if ever, talked about in mainstream media: the way of faith and spiritual protection.
Pardon the spoiler! Innocent teachers and children were protected by angelic beings, some of whom they recognized as ancestors, after uttering many simple prayers for help. The bomber’s wife accidentally triggered the bomb while the bomber was in the restroom. He shot himself when he realized his plan was failing, and she was the only other casualty. The bomb set off ammunition that shot all over the room but no one else was killed or even seriously injured. Why?
A teacher had previously taped off a line around the bomber and his wife to keep the kids at a distance. Several children reported seeing beings that looked like “light bulbs lit up” standing all along that line protecting them. Their power kept the bomb blast from radiating outwards which could have killed everyone in the room. Instead the blast only went upward through the ceiling.
What brought the angels? The whole class had been praying silently, then aloud. I believe the faith of children is especially powerful. In any case, it worked. Read an account in LDS Living magazine remembering the actual event or watch the movie on Amazon Prime Video.
The Book of Mormon teaches us about faith and miracles. Here’s my favorite scripture:
For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith. (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 27:23)
I believe we can all seek after miracles when we need them. We can exercise faith “like a little child” and, God willing, we will receive divine help. Sometimes accident, disease, and death are part of His plan for us, with all suffering and losses made up in the next life. That’s the rub, and it requires a huge amount of faith to not become bitter or depressed.
But when you’re feeling particularly powerless or vulnerable, remember the Old Testament story of Elisha and his servant in 2 Kings 6:8-23. The vast armies of Syria gather against little Israel. The Israelite servant turns to Elisha, the prophet, in fear: Alas, my master! how shall we do?
Elisha replies with this famous statement: “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.“
The children of Cokeville saw the unseen powers of heaven marshalled in their defense. I testify that we too can call upon angels and “chariots of fire” to protect us when we need them. They are greater than any evil that surrounds us.
Right after celebrating an early Thanksgiving with my children and grandson on Monday last week, I woke up at 4 am Tuesday morning with violent chills and body aches. Thinking I had picked up a flu bug the week before on my visit to Idaho where two of my friends were either getting sick or getting over a nasty flu, I settled in with the usual: Vit C, lots of water, and Motrin for the pain. But later in the day as I only got more miserable and also experiencing both a dry cough and creeping lung congestion, I said to myself, Really, really!I’ve been brave enough – where’s the relief? I don’t suffer illness readily and was complaining to the universe about the unfairness of this illness.
Then I remembered a workshop several years ago taught by Claudia Orgillwhere she gave us a list of her top anti-viral herbs. The three I have tried in the past: Olive Leaf, Chinese Skullcap (not American), and Dyer’s Woad (from the Indigo plant). About 8 years ago, I came down with a nasty flu that was going around, about a week before Thanksgiving. I hated the thought of missing the get-together with my brother’s family, so I quickly ordered both Chinese Skullcap and Dyer’s Woad (Woad Supreme brand) from Amazon. The Skullcap came first and quickly. Taking a capsule about every 4 hours brought little relief.
The next day, the Dyer’s Woad arrived and I took that every 4 hours also, along with the usual Vit C, liquids, etc., and very shortly I started feeling better. Within 3 days, I felt perfectly well and stayed that way another 2-3 so I had an extra reason to be thankful: I didn’t miss any of the fun or wonderful food that year.
So I dug out my Woad Supreme, taking it every four hours, and added my homemade Respiratory Salve (1/4 lobellia, 3/4 mullein) and slavered it on my neck and face. Plus I had just gone to a Homeopathy Workshop by Angie Christensen, bought her kit of remedies and added Sepia (1 drop on the tongue, about 4x daily), reportedly helpful for infections. Plus I took 1 – 200 mg Motrin with each dose too.
On Wednesday, I saw real improvement, but was still noticeably sick. On Thursday most symptoms were gone, I was just tired, so I spent most of the day in bed. By Friday, I felt normal enough to tackle my neglected cooking and household tasks. Sadly, I overdid it and had a minor relapse of symptoms.
So yesterday (Saturday) I finally went to Urgent Care and tested positive for COVID – no surprise. The doctor was very pleasantly surprised at how good my numbers were: 96% blood oxygen (a high for me), perfect blood pressure, normal pulse, good skin color and obvious close-to-normal energy level. I told her about my remedies and she wrote down Dyers Woad/Woad Supreme – hopefully she at least tries it personally. Here it is Sunday and it’s too soon to attend church safely, plus I still feel a little weak and light headed, but other symptoms are reduced by 90%. I call it a victory for the lowly Indigo plant.
This is only an account of what’s worked for me, and it’s not intended as medical advice. Consult your own medical professionals, do your research, and decide for yourself. But the links above will provide a start to your study – be safe and well this beautiful Christmas season as we celebrate the gift of life, both here and in the eternities.
I bought a house in Middleton, Idaho, in 2016 and could at last fulfill my dream of having a rose garden. My five bushes flourished, and I had roses from June to early November. I gave them away to neighbors, friends, and to the darling boy who mowed my lawn – to give to his deserving single mother.
The Last Bouquet, Author’s Photo
One fall I took a photo of the last bouquet, noting the frost damage on the petal edges. I posted it on Facebook with this message: The “Last Rose of Summer” from my front garden. We’ve had several nights of frost and my roses are showing its damage along the edges of the petals. Just like their owner, they are past their prime. But I’ve discovered over the summer that roses smell their sweetest as they ripen and wilt. I hope I can share the fragrant fruits of a long life with those around me before the last petal drops from my soul….
My granddaughter and I couldn’t bear to toss these blooms when they were finally dead “as a doornail” so we didn’t! They live on in my kitchen completely dry and many petals gone. But there’s still a macabre beauty in what remains, and the Fallen Petals speak poignantly of summer days gone by and hopefully life well lived.
Dead Roses, Fallen Petals, Author’s Photo
As I reflect on this life-and-death cycle, I see that people are a lot like roses. We emerge as buds, bloom while sending out wonderful scent, only to finally drop our petals and die as all mortal creation must. Those petals are the scent of what we leave behind, the legacy for others to build on.
My parents left a rich heritage of talent, deep integrity, and great love for their six children, many grandchildren and now great grandchildren. After my mother’s funeral in 2005, I saw her vibrant energy flowing through all of us in various ways. My Dad’s solid work ethic and absolute honesty lives on in both my children and their other descendants.
Mom and Dad, Family Photo
Many others have left petals of legacy in my life. Here are two:
Helen Scriabina, Family Photo
Helen was my parents’ neighbor in Iowa City and was a Professor of Russian at the University of Iowa. Here she is sitting on their patio in a characteristic pose of peace and attention turned outward, but eyes tinged with sadness. Her father was ousted from his university position during the Bolshevik Revolution. She was lucky to escape the Siege of Leningrad with her two sons during WWII. (Her books, including Siege and Survival, are well worth reading.) After working as a waitress in Paris, she finally emigrated to America, teaching Russian to American servicemen, then finally landing a stable faculty position in Iowa. Her youngest son was later killed in an earthquake while traveling in Eastern Europe, and she told us she had been reduced to what she could take in one suitcase four times in her life. But carrying on, she took in boarders, kept in touch with former students all her life, and made continual lemonade from the lemons life handed her. She loved people, and oh, how we loved her!
Alma Sewing, Family Photo
Alma was a wonderful Menonite woman who came to work for my mother to cook large batches of food about once a month. I loved to come home after school and banter with her. She didn’t brook any nonsense but always had a twinkle in her eye and love in her voice. My mother later told me she was the child the family designated to stay home and take care of their aging parents, denying her a family of her own. She never complained and just got on with it. Far more than the tasty cookies she made is the lingering taste of her good humor, devotion, and service.
The petals of memory from these treasured people have never lost their fragrance. The longer I live, the more indebted I feel to those who’ve gone before but aren’t really gone. I can hardly wait for the great reunion beyond the veil, but until then I’m tending my own petals, nurturing their scent, and hope it falls on many souls.
I wrote this in 2019 and am updating it here for my current audience who, with me, are preparing for “The End Times” when Christ returns to rule and reign during a thousand years of peace. To help bolster our courage and faith for the trials ahead, I’d like to quote from Elder Bruce R. McConkie, an apostle in my church who passed on some years ago. He comments about who will be at the glorious appearance of Adam/Michael, then all the heads of dispensations from him until now, and then capped by an appearance of our Savior at Adam-ondi-Ahman:
. . . . before all these [Second Comings], there is to be a secret appearance to selected members of his Church. He will come in private to his prophet and to the apostles then living. Those who have held keys and powers and authorities in all ages from Adam to the present will also be present.
And further, all the faithful members of the Church then living and all the faithful saints of all ages past will be present. It will be the greatest congregation of faithful saints ever assembled on planet earth. And it will take place in Daviess County, Missouri, at a place called Adam-ondi-Ahman. (Elder Bruce R. McConkie, The Millennial Messiah, p. 578-579.
All my dear ones described above have had their temple work done, and I know they are among the faithful. What a great goal: to be worthy to reunite with them there, and it’s a hope we all have if we just remain faithful!
I don’t know how many of you know the backstory of the House of Israel. You’ll know something if you’ve seen Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat where Pharaoh is portrayed by an Elvis look-alike. The show takes off from there: It’s imaginative, hilarious, and energetic but it’s also based on the true story of the 12 sons of the ancient Patriarch Jacob (from multiple wives). The older sons were jealous of the younger, favored one, Joseph. They conspired to throw him into a pit and kill him but in the end chose to sell him into slavery in Egypt. There he makes lemonade out of those nasty lemons, but you’ll have to read the Old Testament for the rest of his story.
Sadly, the sibling rivalry doesn’t end there. Later the nation of Israel is ruled by the greedy king Rehoboam who discovered, as many have since, the great wealth to be had through heavy taxation. The tribe of Ephraim took great offense, picked up their marbles and huffed off to Samaria, just northwest of their homelands around Jerusalem. Nine other tribes went with them and formed a new nation specifically called Israel (as opposed to the more general use of the term). They ultimately became the Lost Ten Tribes as they were scattered by the idolatrous kingdom of Assyria because of their apostasy and wickedness.
Remaining in their first homeland were the tribes of Judah and much smaller Benjamin, presided over mostly by Judah’s priestly class. Christ was born there, launched His three-year ministry, then was condemned for blasphemy, and executed by the people He had come to save from sin and death. Why did the priests not recognize the Messiah they had long prayed and sought for? The short answer is pride in their own learning and expecting Him to come as a great warrior and free them from the oppressive rule of Rome, but Christ brought spiritual salvation, not political, at least not then.
Christ left behind many dedicated converts and so was born Christianity whose followers hid and scattered. Another great schism began between blood brothers: Christianity and Judaism, really just more sibling rivalry in ecclesiastical garb.
Fast forward almost 2000 years. Those same divisions exist today: Judah is increasingly centered in Israel with Jerusalem at its head and Joseph’s son Ephraim’s descendants making up a large portion of the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Book of Isaiah says:
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: forout of Zion shall go forth the law, andthe word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Isaiah 2:3 (also Micah 4:2, and Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 12:3)
This scripture refers to revelation given to our LDS prophets that Zion (Ephraim as leader) will be built in America and be one of two spiritual capitals in the world during the prophesied Millennium of 1000 years of peace and goodness – the other being in Jerusalem headed by Judah. Many people are still watching for the Messiah to return and for the Restoration of the Ten Tribes “from the land of the north”:
In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel [Ephraim], and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers. (Jeremiah 3:18)
Jeremiah goes on to describe the greatness of this event–so great it will eclipse the miracles of the Exodus from Egypt:
Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers. (Jeremiah 16:14-15)
Many of us in the Christian world are awaiting the return of our Messiah to unite these two tribes with the 10 others, but I’m here to testify that, on a small scale, it has already begun. My introduction to this came by listening to some great gospel scholars who have discovered the connections between events of my church’s history and the Hebrew “Feast Days.” Two articles in our church magazine started them on this journey, entitled:
(1) Symbols of the Harvest: Old Testament Holy Days and the Lord’s Ministry, by Lenet H. Read. Read it HERE, but be aware that other scholars align the Passover Feasts with the last week of Christ’s life somewhat differently. (2) The Golden Plates and the Feast of Trumpets, by Lenet Hadley Read, HERE.
Many Jewish people are beginning to accept that Jesus Christ is their long-awaited Messiah. Many Christians are recognizing the tribe of Judah as brothers with a common heritage and are also mindful of the greatness of this particular tribe of Israel, long leaders in religion, business, the arts, and more. They have laboriously climbed out of the deep pit of the condemnation they incurred because of their role in the death of their Messiah, and have embraced growing goodness and devotion to God which, I believe, will be crowned by reclaiming their leadership position in the House of Israel, once restored.
So, the title of this blog originally comes from my summer in Ocean City, Maryland where I worked as a waitress and enjoyed leaning to swim in the ocean. It was salty, no mystery there, but the big learning experience was being knocked down by breaking waves and ground into the sandy beach, an experience I wanted to learn from quickly! I then learned to watch a wave approach and dive right into the middle of it as it broke over my head. Cowabunga–success! In the blink of an eye, I was on the other side and feeling more like a dolphin than a human volley ball. Next I started to look farther out to sea and watch the slight swells on the water’s surface–waves in their infancy. Often, one would be bigger and more powerful looking than the others. I would wait for that one and it never disappointed–it was extra big and extra thrilling to dive into.
Courtesy Pixabay.com Image 3070142
I liken this to the small swell of interest building between Christians and Jews with those long ago oceans swells, and I have the same confidence that this will be even more thrilling to dive into someday as it breaks upon an amazed people. Just like a fractured family, old wounds will be discussed, grieved over, then healed by the overarching love of God–the same God for all! And do we want to be like the girl above, not seeing the wave breaking out of our immediate sight or do we want to turn around and watch this wonderful time unfold?
We can then enter the glorious world of the promised Millennium, working together for the good of all mankind and not just a privileged few. It will be a wholesome world where love and fairness reign, and creation steps into endless fulfillment, “worlds without number.”
Billions of Stars in a Single Galaxy Courtesy Pixabay.com Image 10995
For some quick inspiration listen to the Tabernacle Choir sing Jerusalem, the Holy City and imagine singing that with our Jewish siblings, from both “Jerusalems”! Stanford Olsen could hardly keep it together as he sang and neither can I, although a later version with the Choir was more “performance perfect”! Pick your fav . . .
