Church Without Church Clothes

I learned an important lesson about the love of Christ as I attended Church without church clothes.

Transcript

Hello, Hello I’m here, I’m back, and I feel good, the way that I should. 

Confucius said: “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop”.

Here I am again, not stopping, even though I’ve taken a long, long break.  Despite this little hiatus, I think the reason I can't seem to quit is that this work is just too stinking important to me.  

You know the story, I started this podcast for my family and my posterity, but somewhere along the way, it became more, and I feel like the admonition in D &C 88:81 calls to me “It becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor.” 

I recently received a new calling, one that I feel completely inadequate to serve in, and one day it hit me, as I looked back at a conversation I had with my sweet husband before the calling was extended.  We were making plans for the day, and with some exasperation, I said, I really really need to make an episode.  At that point I had already been MIA for about a month, well, because he cares about my emotional well-being, and he could see I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to resume weekly episodes after, he said, but do you really?  I mean, no one is pushing you except you.  And I told him I was afraid that if I didn’t find a way to continue to testify, He would just open another door to another opportunity for me to share my heart and the things that were so important to me.    Ba Ha Ha Ha this is exactly how we know that God has a sense of humor.  Because life got in the way of all my good intentions and I didn’t make that episode then, and now I get to add one more way that I get to testify.  I should have known.  The Lord works in mysterious ways, right? 

 Today I want to share something that I experienced on a beautiful, in fact, it was a glorious Sunday morning in Island Park Idaho.  And I already shared this with my kids, but I’m sharing it again.

 I made a voice recording on my phone on the drive home from this experience, so I would never ever forget the powerful impact it had on me.

 If I knew how to record from that recording, I would consider just using it, but quite honestly, I was crying through the whole thing, and some of it was hard to understand.  

 We were vacationing at my husband's family cabin, on Henry's lake in late June, and incidentally, every one of us had forgotten our Sunday clothes.  Because of this new calling, I felt like I desperately needed the sacrament this particular Sunday, as you do when you're vacationing everyone went to sleep really late, morning came, and I woke up and there were 3 or 4 bodies strewn over the cabin living room.  A few kids had migrated from their beds to the floor in the living room which indicated no one had had enough sleep, so I quietly just drove the truck to Island Park which is about 35 minutes away.

  I've never seen so many cars at one building. The parking lot had to be 3 to 4 acres and people parked in the field adjacent to the parking lot and all up and down the streets heading to and from the church house.  And I was late. As I drove through the parking lot, I didn't see a single place to park, and I knew I was going to miss the passing of the bread so I double parked, just so that I could get out and run, with the intent of running right back to the truck immediately following the Sacrament, so that it wouldn’t block anyone in. 

 So… I didn't have my church clothes in fact I was wearing my only clean clothes, a pair of clean sweatpants and my cleanest camp T-shirt, the last clean camp T-shirt I had with me. Any of you who have visited the Island Park Ward has surely seen this sight. As I walked toward the church there were a lot of people sitting outside on the lawn and lined up all along the curb of the parking lot, many in their finest church clothes, men in suits and ties, and some like me who hadn't well enough, others who maybe hadn’t expected to be there in vacation clothes.  There were shorts, T-shirts, and ball caps, some bringing their dogs on leashes. 

 As I walked from the parking lot toward the extension building, another building that acted as an overflow to the chapel, I guess it could be considered an overflow, from the overflow that was overflowing, a beautifully dressed woman was standing just outside the doors said welcome! You're welcome to these chairs I brought out from my daughters, they aren't here yet, but you can sit with me. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and say thank you, she didn't know who I was or where I was coming from, the way I was dressed she could have guessed anything about me, but I was grateful for her outstretched hand and her kindness. 

 The sacrament took 35 minutes to administer, they had to bless more bread to have enough. As the handsome young priesthood holders with their clean white shirts and ties ministered from these beautiful sparkling clean trays they walked through the parking lot, grabbing every person that was coming in late like me. They made two passes among the giant entire congregation to make sure no one was missed, and as I watched those trays go out to every single person walking in from the parking lot it suddenly occurred to me that this was the perfect example of Christ's love, reaching out to take in every single person as they were coming in late and underdressed and not prepared and not their best. 

 He wants to save every single one of us. He has saved every single one of us, but I saw ever so clearly through this bread offered by those worthy to administer in Christ’s stead that He wants desperately to accept His Saving Grace.  And I am so grateful that he wants to save me. 

 This Sunday the sacrament felt very different to me. It tasted different to me.  As a tall, dark young man handed me the tray with the water, he smiled at me with a genuine, warm smile, me in my sweats and t-shirt..  I felt like I was truly taking into myself, that bread of life, and living water.  The words from the Hymn entered my mind.  Oh, it is wonderful that for me a sinner He suffered, He bled and died, oh it is wonderful.  I am so profoundly grateful that he is willing to forgive me and allow me and encourage me to do better. I felt like he was leaning in saying it's OK honey you've got another week, let me help you! And I know he does when we turn to him and when we covenant with him. 

 I'm just so grateful for the experience I had that Sunday, I felt truly humbled and unworthy to receive the sacred emblems of his infinite sacrifice, but He loves me anyway and just the way I am with all my imperfections. 

 Hopefully, the lessons learned that day will better prepare me for every vacation with my Sunday best, but I will never ever forget the Sunday that I was so incredibly blessed to be in Church without Church clothes.