Recent Thoughts by Bethany

I am usually not one to share my deep thoughts about certain things except with Scott, but recent events have pulled me to express myself. 

On October 1, 2017, in Las Vegas, NV a man opened fire from a hotel with a machine gun on a group of 20,000 people who were attending a country concert. From this act of violence there has been a call of better gun laws, better security, better this, better that, bitter words toward the shooter (or shooters???), rejoicings in the heroes of the night.

From this act my mind has been in deep thought and pondering over my own feelings of this act and many, many others that have preceded it. I have had thoughts of "why did this happen?", "why did 59 good people have to die because of this man's action?", "what could have happened in this shooter's life to drive him to commit such massacre?"

So many ifs, so many unanswered questions. But, my thoughts have turned to our Heavenly Father as he watches one of His children become so blind to hate that he chose to hurt so many of his own brothers and sisters. This happens all over the world in all the turmoil and wars occurring. This doesn't happen because God told that man to do this . . . it was allowed because if God stopped this man, He would be taking away that man's agency no matter how horrible the choice was.

What could have prevented this? Hate begets hate, but love begets love. 

People are so quick to judge, quick to anger, quick to rationalize the truth. I know this because I see even myself do this with my own children. I can get frustrated easily, but what stops me from acting in a hateful way is my love for them and the understanding that we are all children of God.

If that man could have remembered who he was, would he have acted so horribly? If we all treated each other as equals, even though we have differences, we would react a whole lot differently.

We need a call around the world to love and serve. Everyone has their right to their own opinions, but if that opinion begets hate, deceitfulness, and pride, it is not of God and causes all the crimes, violence, and wars. 

Life can be simple. Sure, there are still difficulties, like natural disasters, health problems, disease, death, and accidents. But, if people acted with love, service and embracing each other for who we are; a monumental support system can be built and no one would be left behind.

Thus, in response to this recent act of cruelty, let us love a little more, serve a little more, and bring back kindness. In doing this, we can prevent the hurt that leads to such malicious destruction. I don't know why this man chose to do this, but I do know that somewhere in his life he chose that hurting people is the best way to overcome his pain and confusion. So let us love!

>>>>>>>>

Recently at church, I was asked to speak on being a Child of God . . . if you're interested in reading it, here it is:

Good morning Brothers and Sisters! I am Bethany Schachterle. We moved into this ward about 3 years ago. My husband, Scott, and I have been married 11 years and have 4 children, Lily, Maggie, Esther and Isaac.

To begin, I will explain the basics of the Plan of Salvation:

We are all spirit children of God, our Heavenly Father. Before we came to this earth, we all lived with him in heaven, where we were taught and we learned and progressed. We had spirit bodies, but not physical bodies of flesh and bone. Like children living with their parents now, we reached a point where we had progressed all we could in our Heavenly Father's presence. He called a family council and presented a plan to help us progress and become like Him. In His plan, we would leave his presence and come to Earth, with no memories of being with Him before. We would be given a physical body, although a limited, mortal body. We would also be given agency, or the ability to make choices for ourselves. Through making choices, some good, some bad, we would learn and grow. Heavenly Father promised to provide a Savior for us, so that when we make mistakes, as he knew we would, we could become clean again. At the end of our mortal lives, we all experience death of the physical body, but our spirits go on living in a place called the spirit world. After a waiting period, we will all be resurrected, which means our spirit body will be reunited with our physical body, but in a glorified, perfected state that can never die or feel pain again! At this time, we will receive a final judgment and be assigned to a kingdom of Glory, based on our choices while in our mortal life on earth. The highest degree of Glory is called the Celestial Kingdom, and it is compared to the glory of the Sun. It is where God and Jesus dwell, and is for those who have been valiant in their commitment to Jesus Christ during their life. The second degree of glory is called the Terrestrial Kingdom, and it is compared to the glory of the moon. It is for those who rejected the gospel on earth, but then accepted it in the spirit world, or for those who received the gospel on earth, but were not faithful in their commitment to Jesus Christ. The third degree of Glory is called the Telestial Kingdom. It is compared to the glory of the stars, and it is for those who chose not to receive the gospel or the testimony of Jesus either on Earth or in the spirit world. Heavenly Father wants all of us to return to live with Him in the Celestial Kingdom, in the highest degree of glory. He has no limit on who can make it there, we each can achieve this, depending on our choices in this life.

This plan of our Heavenly Father, to take us from spirit children to glorified, perfected beings like Him is called “The Plan of Salvation”. A modern-day apostle, Boyd K. Packer, compared this to a 3-act play, the first act being our pre-earth life, the second act is mortal life on Earth, where we are now, and third is post mortal life, including the spirit world, the resurrection and judgment, and degrees of glory. Since we're in act 2, with no memory of act 1, and no visibility of act 3, sometimes things don't make sense, don't seem fair, and aren't resolved. But God promises us that in act 3, after this life, every person will receive the rewards and consequences they deserve.

I have been called upon to speak to you today about the Plan of Salvation, specifically being a Child of God. The members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often sing the hymn “I Am a Child of God”. My husband and I, often sing this song as a lullaby as we put our children to bed,

“I am a child of God,

And he has sent me here,

Has given me an earthly home

With parents kind and dear.

Lead me, guide me, walk beside me,

Help me find the way.

Teach me all that I must do

To live with him someday.”

Hymns, no. 301

If you really listen to the words of this hymn, we can truly see the simplicity of the Gospel of our Heavenly Father. We are His children, He has given us this home on Earth, we are to be taught and guided, so that we can return to our Heavenly Father again. But, He does not leave us alone, He walks beside us and helps us find the way. It is truly beautiful.

The Bible states in Psalms 82:6 “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.” This is who we truly are and are meant to become Gods and Goddesses, heirs to a kingdom.

Elder Donald L. Hallstrom of the Presidency of the Seventy explained, “Our most fundamental doctrine includes the knowledge that we are children of a living God. That is why one of His most sacred names is Father—Heavenly Father. This doctrine has been clearly taught by prophets through the ages:

• When tempted by Satan, Moses rebuffed him, saying: “Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God.”1
• Addressing Israel, the Psalmist proclaimed, “All of you are children of the most High.”2
• Paul taught the Athenians on Mars Hill that they were “offspring of God.”3
• Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon received a vision in which they saw the Father and the Son, and a heavenly voice declared that the inhabitants of the worlds “are begotten sons and daughters unto God.”4”

But, along with being royal comes responsibility, expectation, and obedience.

Elder Hallstrom continues, “A correct understanding of our heavenly heritage is essential to exaltation. It is foundational to comprehending the glorious plan of salvation and to nurturing faith in the Firstborn of the Father, Jesus the Christ, and in His merciful Atonement.7 Further, it provides continual motivation for us to make and keep our indispensable eternal covenants.

Here on earth, we identify ourselves in many different ways, including our place of birth, our nationality, and our language. Some even identify themselves by their occupation or their hobby. These earthly identities are not wrong unless they supersede or interfere with our eternal identity—that of being a son or a daughter of God.”

Everything we do comes out of being a child of God. If we all truly understood and knew who we are, then love would abound in this world and there would be a greater understanding among races, nationalities, religions, etc. It does not matter if someone is different than you because God made us all individual for a reason, it would be a rather boring place if we were all the same. But, with difference comes uncertainty, but an uncertainty that our Heavenly Father wants us to embrace and strengthen our capacity to love and be loved. We need to step out of our comfort zones and look past our judgments and serve our fellow man as our brother and Savior would have done. To quote Mother Teresa, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

I am a child of God! …..............This is something that continually resonates with me and has been the one thing that has helped me come out of those dark places that we can sometimes or often fall into . . . (tell about recent experience with depression PPD and tell how knowing about my role as a daughter of God helped me overcome those dark places).

Elder Hallstrom said, “In real life, we face actual, not imagined, hardships. There is pain—physical, emotional, and spiritual. There are heartbreaks when circumstances are very different from what we had anticipated. There is injustice when we do not seem to deserve our situation. There are disappointments when someone we trusted failed us. There are health and financial setbacks that can be disorienting. There may be times of question when a matter of doctrine or history is beyond our current understanding. When difficult things occur in our lives, what is our immediate response? Is it confusion or doubt or spiritual withdrawal? Is it a blow to our faith? Do we blame God or others for our circumstances? Or is our first response to remember who we are—that we are children of a loving God? Is that coupled with an absolute trust that He allows some earthly suffering because He knows it will bless us, like a refiner’s fire, to become like Him and to gain our eternal inheritance?9

Our hardships have eternal purpose, but we will not always understand this until further down the road. Elder Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has said, “You can have what you want, or you can have something better.”

As a child of God, we need to see that we might not always get what we want in life, but we have what we need. Do not let the things of this world distract us from remembering who we really are. The more distracted we become the easier it is for us to “ignore and then forget our connection with God.”

President Henry B. Eyring once said, “The Latter-day Saints who see themselves in all they do as children of God take naturally to making and keeping commitments. The plan of salvation is marked by covenants. We promise to obey commandments. In return, God promises blessings in this life and for eternity. He is exact in what he requires, and he is perfect in keeping his word. Because he loves us and because the purpose of the plan is to become like him, he requires exactness of us. And the promises he makes to us always include the power to grow in our capacity to keep covenants. He makes it possible for us to know his rules. When we try with all our hearts to meet his standards, he gives us the companionship of the Holy Ghost. That in turn both increases our power to keep commitments and to discern what is good and true. And that is the power to learn, both in our temporal studies and in the learning we need for eternity.”

President Eyring continued with the following story:

That is a view common to believing Latter-day Saints. You may have been blessed by a mother as I was for whom the plan of salvation was reality. More than once I complained about some difficulty in my school days. Her answer, given in a matter-of-fact tone, was, “Hal, what else did you expect? Life is a test.” Then she’d go off to something else and leave me to ponder. She knew that, because I understood the plan, her statement of the obvious would give me hope, not discouragement. I knew and she knew that to have the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob we need to face and pass comparable tests. She knew and I knew that the greater the test, the greater the compliment from a loving Heavenly Father.

She died after a decade of suffering with cancer. At her funeral President Kimball said something like this: “Some of you may wonder what great sins Mildred committed to explain her having to endure such suffering. It had nothing to do with sin. It was that her Heavenly Father wanted to polish her a little more.” I remember as I sat there at the time wondering what trials might lay ahead for me if a woman that good could be blessed by that much hard polishing.

Brothers and Sisters, we are children of a loving Heavenly Father, who has let us come down to this world to gain knowledge and experience, so that we too can become like him. We might have to go through some “hard polishing”, but if we retain the understanding of our own godliness, we can endure and become who we are meant to be . . . an heir to the kingdom.