The Sculpting of Our Souls
God is shaping us into something only He knows we can become.
I love fixing things. If there’s a knot in a shoelace or a necklace, it’s my job to untangle it. I’m also good at stain removal. I see it as a challenge; in fact, some have referred to me as “the stain whisperer.”
It’s human nature to want to fix things—and to become frustrated when something comes along that we cannot fix.
Thirteen years ago our oldest son, Ryan, woke up on a Monday morning, kissed his wife and four young children goodbye, and left for work. A few hours later, he collapsed and died from undetected hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. His heart simply stopped.
The next day was his two-year-old daughter Piper’s birthday. As we lit candles on her cake and began to sing, she was looking for her dad, and I realized this was something I would not be able to fix.
Let’s focus on a scripture that has changed the lens through which I view my life. The setting is a jail cell, where Joseph Smith is pleading with God for a reprieve—for a break from his circumstance. Instead, he was told, “All these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.”
I’ve often wondered if the Prophet had any idea when he received this revelation what these words would mean to so many of us now who are also turning to God, pleading for a break.
God’s answer implies that experience is valuable, and I’m learning the only way to get it is to go through it. Can’t we skip over it? Is there some other way? No, there isn’t another way.
It’s like we heard these lessons in a premortal classroom. We studied it there, and we’re living it here, in this laboratory of life. This is where we “put on Christ.”
C. S. Lewis explained, “God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want.” But sometimes we’re puzzled when we get what we need, aren’t we? How can our loving Father in Heaven watch as we go through heartbreaking experiences? I’ve wrestled with this, and maybe you have too.
And while I know earth life is about experience, why am I so surprised every time I experience it? Maybe it’s because I grew up hearing things like “If you keep the commandments, you’ll be blessed. Pay your tithing, and the windows of heaven will open. Follow the Word of Wisdom, and you’ll have health and protection.” True promises, right?
So the gospel felt like a big umbrella I could hold over my head to keep the rain from falling on me. But I’ve learned from experience that we’re all going to get rained on. And sometimes we’re going to get pelted!
The gospel isn’t the umbrella; it’s the solid rock we’re standing on during the storm—that “sure foundation … whereon if men build they cannot fall.”
When an angel asked Nephi, “Knowest thou the condescension of God?” he humbly answered, “I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.”
God’s love has moved me from questions that begin with “why” to reflections that begin, “I know that God loves me, so what is supposed to be happening here?”
It is precisely because He loves us that we’re having these tempering, refining experiences. God knows, and we are here to learn, that we must become like Him so we can live with Him!
And a godlike life is carved from the very things that make it hard—the gut-wrenching things that happen and the righteous desires that haven’t.
I testify that during those sanctifying experiences, when growth is taking place and God is at work, our stories may not look like success to others. In fact, on the outside it may look like things are sort of unraveling or falling apart, and it will certainly feel that way.
God is shaping us into something only He knows we can become.
Still, like Nephi, I do not know the meaning of all things.
When I spoke at Ryan’s funeral, I looked at his wife, Cari, and their four children with such a heavy heart and said, “I don’t understand why this happened. I don’t. But let me be clear: Not understanding is not the same as not believing.”
I may not understand everything, but I absolutely believe God sees you, loves you, and knows your story—a story that is both personal and purposeful!
Your story is personal. So you don’t need to look sideways and ask, “How come my life doesn’t look like theirs?”
And it’s purposeful in that it has meaning. Our suffering means something. It’s not a detour from the path; it gives purpose to our path.
God is intimately aware of your experience and has a plan for all of it—for each one of us, even if we can’t see it right now.
At Ryan’s funeral, his oldest son, seven-year-old Jaac, shared a Primary talk he and his dad had worked on just two weeks earlier. Jaac said, “I love Lego bricks, and when I get a new box, I open it up and lay out all the pieces and follow the instructions. Just like our Heavenly Father has a plan, and if we follow, it will guide us, and we can build hard things.”
Then Cari asked Jaac, “What would you do if you didn’t have the picture on the box, only the instructions? Would you still stick to the plan?”
He answered, “Yes, because you can trust the one who designed it, and it always turns out.”
But what if you had a beautiful story you thought your life was going to tell, and instead you’ve had to surrender that story? That sting is real, and that wound is wide.
It will take your finest faith in Christ to keep putting together the pieces—the ones that make sense but also the ones that don’t.
Consider this: Christ’s work in your life and His love for you are bigger than your present story. And He can fix what feels badly broken.
The day before Ryan died, he was set apart as the elders quorum president. That afternoon he visited a neighbor whose wife and children had just left him. When Ryan returned, he asked Cari to write down what he had told this man. Ryan said, “Brother, you have a choice right now, and it’s a big one. You can curse God and blame Him, or you can turn to Him and let Him heal you.”
We all have a choice right now. Let’s choose Christ, who can heal the wounds of this world while carving out room for joy!
God is saying, “Trust me,” and we are learning how to say yes.
With an earned conviction, I witness that this—all of this—is the true and only way we can grow and progress and become like our heavenly parents and Savior.
I don’t pretend to know how it works, but it feels like a sort of divine mending that changes what’s happening to you into something happening for you!
Let me leave this last visual image from a sculpting class my brother Kent took in college. He said:
“Our final assignment was to sculpt a bust of ourselves out of clay. I thought to myself, ‘This is going to be easy enough.’
“We began, and I realized it wasn’t easy at all! When I looked at the piece, the eyes were terrible. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the eyes to look lifelike.
“I observed my classmates and noticed our instructor was helping them. He was very good.
“I, however, didn’t want help. I wanted this to be my piece. I struggled alone for quite a while, until I finally humbled myself and asked for help.
“The instructor came over and deftly started carving; he did it so aggressively and abruptly that it startled me. He dug into the clay much further than I had, and within a few minutes the eyes came to life. It looked so good! There was no way I could have done it.
“As I stepped back and looked at the piece, I could see that it was uniquely me. And yet, without a doubt, a master’s hand had shaped what mine could not.”
My friends, there is sculpting taking place within each of our souls. To invite the Savior to become involved is hard. Our pride gets in the way.
He’ll lovingly chasten us to get our attention, but He waits for an invitation before He can really go to work.
Then He will start carving, sometimes surprising us with how abrupt and aggressive the work feels.
But as time goes on, we will begin to see the work of His hand. God is shaping us into something only He knows we can become.
And one day, when all the suffering and loneliness have ended and our pain is gone, we will be able to step back and look into the mirror of our own soul. Then we will “stand all amazed” and feel to fall at the Savior’s feet and thank Him. We will thank Him for all of it—the molding, the shaping, the pain, and the adversity that have helped us become more like Him.
“For we shall see him as he is,” and “we shall be like him,” I joyfully testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.