The wintry doctrines

I bought the audio version of Visions of Glory and gifted it to a few friends through Audible. I always try to be selective in who might be receptive.  My daughter, yes. And a friend from high school – yes. And recently I gave it to my brother-in-law, Ron to listen to while he drove down from Utah with my sister.

Ron has been working with my husband on a gasification project at UC Riverside in California. They’ve enjoyed working together in the 90 + degree heat with burners and feeders and shredders and long 14 hour days. Both of our families have had money problems and lost businesses — the work has been a blessing.

Ron loved the book and said he was ready to help build Zion —  he had no fear of the approaching calamities. Little did he know that in five days he would join the ranks of the fellowship of  the suffering of Christ. He doesn’t have the best health (diabetes, high blood pressure), but still, he is in his early 50’s — that’s young 🙂

My mom called me last Thursday evening, worried that Ron could not remember the names of the golfers on television, or for that matter, his grandkid’s names. Or the name of his daughter-in-law. He had worked that day with my husband, in the glaring sun, hot temps, — securing the flare. Everyone thought he might have had heat stroke. He didn’t want to go to the ER. So they called the paramedics — who were nice (and handsome according to my mom)  but they didn’t take him in for further testing. His only symptom was not remembering names.

The next day my sister called their family doctor and they decided she should drive him home — 12 hours back to northern Utah. That day the suffering began with pain, barfing, and uncertainty of what was causing this memory loss. It looked like he was getting worse. My sister imagined the worse. But sometimes what we see happening is not a series of misfortunes, but divine blessings and interventions.

All of this led to many disguised miracles as Ron was moved from  a small hospital in Logan, denied at Ogden Hospital, and quickly moved to the University of Utah Medical at the demands of a young ER doc that just came on duty at Logan. I kept my iPhone by my bed, and my niece and nephews kept me updated throughout the night.

At University of Utah Medical, The MRI was aborted due to complications when Ron was barfing and his arm began to hurt. The team of doctors tried to unweave the mystery of a myriad of unrelated symptoms as they pitched their ideas — stroke or brain tumor. My sister suffered along too. Because of course, the spouse joins the fellowship of the suffering. This must be part of the proxy savior role.

The next day an anesthesiologist got him asleep long enough to perform the MRI. And they discovered that Ron had a small stroke, of which he would fully recover. We are all grateful. Money problems remain, but health has been preserved and will be improved over the coming weeks. And blessings abound. Every step of the way, we acknowledge divine intervention.

Neal Maxwell explains the blessings of suffering. That through this fellowship, God gifts you with charity. But it’s always up to us — we choose to advance in this seemingly paradoxical way.

“There are in the gospel warm and cuddly doctrines, and then there are some that are just outright wintry doctrines. One of them, frankly, is that we cannot approach [real] consecration without passing through appropriate clinical experiences, [because we don’t achieve consecration] in the abstract. Sometimes [therefore,] the best people have the worst experiences, because they are the most ready to learn.” (The Story of a Disciple’s Life, Bruce Hafen)

And C.S. Lewis tells the story about God having bigger plans for you than you may have supposed. You thought you were going to be a nice little cottage, and now God is doing a little demolish to start building an extra wing.

“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself.”  (The Problem of Pain)

John Pontius shared his journey to the veil in his writings. We have a spiritual journey that involves our physical life. All of which gives us opportunity to become more like Christ in humility and obtain the gift of charity through the things we suffer.

This is why every righteous journey includes sacrifice, struggle, pain and thousands of blows by the hammer in the Refiner’s loving hand. Because, this is the journey, not getting from point A to point B, but coming to Christ and submitting ourselves to the journey He lays before us.

This is the virtue of the journey of our lives, that it not only takes us to the places, but that through the atonement and grace of Christ all along the way, it purifies and sanctifies us so that as the veil begins to part, or as the New Jerusalem appears on the next hill, we are worthy to enter in. (Unblog My Soul, John Pontius)