Testimony

Today in our fifth Sunday combined meeting, the topic was testimony. I've already been thinking about what makes a testimony after recently rereading Elder Oak's talk from the April 2008 General Conference on the topic. Brother Heck, our first counselor in the bishopric, expanded on Elder Oak's counsel from what a testimony is in a testimony meeting to what a testimony is in our everyday lives. He taught that people, places, trouble, and progress make a story. Or in other words, a testimony.

As a reader, I love a well-written story. I love slipping into the shoes of a character and walking around for a day or a week. Well-written stories have a way of holding on to me after I put the book down. The other day I finished rereading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn--a book I read long enough ago that I didn't remember most of the stories in it. But what I love about it is just that, it is merely a collection of stories of the young life of Francie Nolan and those around her. I find myself waking up at night and wondering just what happened to her now that I have finished reading, and how the rest of her life worked itself it. In those four hundred pages or so there were people, places (mostly Brooklyn NY at the turn of the century), trouble (poverty, drunkenness, hurt, loneliness, and pain), and progress. Like the umbrella trees that grew out of the Brooklyn cement sidewalks, Francie grew out of her trouble. Her stories became a testimony of why life is worth living, why life is meaningful.

Yesterday I started reading Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frakl for the first time. I am only in the first chapter, but again I have found a master storyteller. He is not simply going to give the facts of a WWII concentration camp--the "trouble" he found himself in, in that place and with those people--but the purpose and progress that came from such suffering.

Brother Heck's thoughts have lead me to think of my own stories. Do I write about the "trouble" and the progress in my life enough? For therein lies the testimony. Do I write about the experiences that have built and created and fostered my testimony of the meaning and purpose of life? For therein lies the reason to write.

Then this afternoon I read Elder Ballard's article in the July 2008 Ensign, "Sharing the Gospel Using the Internet," and determined anew to write about the experiences in my life that build my testimony, whether directly or indirectly. I want my life to be a living testimony. So living--experiencing joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, happiness and heartache--should all ring with testimony of the power of the atonement, the richness and truth of gospel principles, the peace of the spirit, and the hope of Eternal Life.

And so I hope that the stories and thought and tidbits of life that I write about here will always ring of such testimony and conviction. I hope that it will be the fibers with which I weave my words. And I hope that as you read my stories--as simple and unadorned as they may be--that your testimonies will be strengthened.