The Power of Jesus Christ

photo of the North Shore of Lake Superior because it is hoooome to me now

Twice a year, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints hold a conference for members in their geographic area or stake. Our stake is made up of 11 congregations, known as wards, in northern Minnesota, northwestern Wisconsin and one congregation in Thunder Bay, ON. I was asked to speak at our most recent stake conference. I was given a topic, 2 weeks to prepare and10 minutes of time. No other instruction was given. I enjoyed studying and preparing. Here are the thoughts I shared (in a stronger than normal Southern accent because I was nervous!). Also, I wrote a few notes at the end about what I learned from this experience.


September 15, 2019
How the power of Jesus Christ blesses my life.

Good morning brothers and sisters. I’m grateful for the opportunity I had to study and meditate on this topic the past couple of weeks. I’m beginning to understand how much I needed it and I’m excited to share with you what I have learned.

Power as electrical energy lights homes and hospitals. The power of combustion engines carries goods and people across the land, oceans and skies. For hundreds of years corrupt power enslaved millions of people. Corrupt power separates children from their parents. Here in northern Minnesota and Canada, corrupt and short-sighted power drove Dakota/Lakota and Ojibwe peoples from their ancestral homes and made a few industries rich in the fur, logging and mining trades of the backs of workers and to the detriment of our Earth. Corrupt power hurts the innocent, denies justice and sees evil as good.

What then of Godly power? What then of the power of Jesus Christ? The power of God is not about control, monetary gain or exploitation. Quite the opposite. God’s power is strength in kindness and mercy. It is unconditional love, peace, nurturing, healing, purifying, it gathers rather than separates, it is joyful, it is comforting.

Known as “the Moses of her people,” Harriet Tubman was born a slave and lived to gather her people. In her biography, she states that she was guided by God and that she spoke to God as a friend. In her own words, “I said to the Lord, I’m going to hold steady on to you, and I know you will see me through.” And at another time, “I prayed to God to make me strong” and “God’s time in always near. He set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free.” Risking her own capture and death 19 times, she went on to free 300 hundred souls and never lost one.

The power of Jesus Christ is illustrated in His unending love for us. When the Savior approached the woman at the well, He knew her sins (John 4, KJV). That did not alter His love and concern for Her. The Savior did not wait for perfect people to approach Him. As Sister Sharon Eubank explained, in almost every story, He is reaching someone who wasn’t traditionally accepted in society. The woman at the well left her water and went straightway to proclaim Him as the Christ. She had felt and knew of His power.

We might expect the power of God to be swift punishment or retribution to those who preach or work against the truth. But that is not the case. His power comes as LOVE to everyone. Everyone is capable of forgiveness through His mercy. Our Heavenly Parents are not permissive parents. We must all WORK to keep the household--the kingdom of God--going. But we do not earn their love. It is given freely. Forgiveness also, even as we fail. Our repentance and worthiness is rightly measured to gain access to temple blessings. But we never need to gain access to Their love.

Aukema Farms, photo by my brother Kacey Aukema.

I grew up on a small farm in NW Florida. I ran wild and free from milking barn to back forty to the outermost fence post and back. After seeing more of the world and now raising our 4 children, I see just how lucky I was to grow up the way I did. Many summer evenings were spent stretched out on my trampoline. With streetlamps and city lights miles and miles away, my view of the heavens was unobstructed. With my siblings, we found constellations and made up our own. We dreamed of and planned for the future. But my keenest memories of those nights involve my sheer awe at the immensity of God and His love for me. Those nights I felt the power of Jesus Christ.

In the children’s book, Just Plain Fancy by Patricia Polacco, two young Amish girls learn about the power of Jesus Christ in creation when they accidentally raise a peacock alongside their flock of chickens. When the full grown bird decides to show off his feathers at a large gathering, the girls are ashamed and worried he is too fancy to be Amish. They are comforted by one of the elders, Martha, who says: “Dry your tears child; this isn’t your doing. This be God’s handiwork. Only He could think up colors like that. This is no plain old chicken. This be one of God’s most beautiful creations. He is fancy, child, and that’s the way of it.”

In the book, Zion’s Hope, a collection of biographies of Pioneer midwives and women doctors in Utah, I was impressed with the life of Dr. Ellis Reynolds Shipp. Her story illustrates strength and foresight powered by faith in Jesus Christ. With her 5th child still an infant, she was asked by Brigham Young to go back east to Pennsylvania and become a physician to answer the incredible need for care providers, especially in obstetrics. She obtained her degree in medicine, came back home to Utah, had 5 more children of her own and trained 500 women in medicine. Her school of obstetrics and nursing ran for over 49 years. She caught over 6000 babies during her 50+ year practice. At the age of 92, she was still lecturing students. In her words:

"When called to maternal duty, pray unto God for His blessing. Pray in your soul as you hasten to your duty. I hastened through inclement storm, through blinding rain, deep snows, and muddy trails, speeding up and down the steepest hills, my inmost being pulsating with fervent prayer. I sought my Father and my God! He it was who inspired me with higher intelligence, helped me to know my duty in all of its details, enabled me to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint. And with those same principles, I tutored all who sought usefulness, enabling them to usher in a new life into this world--that life so precious to the suffering mother and most sublime in sight of God."

I am often touched that Christ is often described in the scriptures as the Great Deliverer. In Alma 58:11 it reads, Yea, and it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in him. I do not think it is a coincidence that we use the same word deliver, to describe the sacred moment in which women bring life into the world.

Just as women carry, stretch, labor, deliver and receive our babies through the veil, Christ carries, delivers and receives us.

In this story shared by Kyle S. McKay in the April 2019 General Conference, we see Jesus Christ’s power as the Great Deliverer.

"On December 27, 2013, Alicia Schroeder joyfully welcomed her dear friends Sean and Sharla Chilcote, who unexpectedly showed up on her doorstep. Sean, who was also Alicia’s bishop, handed her his cell phone and solemnly said, “Alicia, we love you. You need to take this call.”

Alicia’s husband, Mario, was on the phone. He was in a remote area with some of their children on a long-anticipated snowmobile trip. There had been a terrible accident. Mario was seriously injured, and their 10-year-old son, Kaleb, was gone. When Mario tearfully told Alicia of Kaleb’s death, she was overcome with a shock and horror few of us will ever know. It dropped her. Paralyzed with unspeakable anguish, Alicia could neither move nor speak.

Bishop and Sister Chilcote quickly lifted her up and held her. They wept and deeply grieved together for some time. Then Bishop Chilcote offered to give Alicia a blessing.

What happened next is incomprehensible without some understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the immediate goodness of God. Bishop Chilcote gently placed his hands on Alicia’s head and, with quivering voice, began to speak. Alicia heard two things as though spoken by God Himself. First, she heard her name, Alicia Susan Schroeder. Then she heard the bishop invoke the authority of Almighty God. In that instant—at the mere utterance of her name and God’s power—Alicia was filled with an indescribable peace, love, comfort, and somehow joy. And it has continued with her.

Now, of course, Alicia, Mario, and their family still mourn for and miss Kaleb. It is hard! Whenever I speak with her, Alicia’s eyes well up with tears as she tells how much she loves and misses her little boy. And her eyes remain moist as she tells how the Great Deliverer has sustained her through every bit of her ordeal, beginning with His immediate goodness during her deepest despair and continuing now with the bright hope of a sweet reunion that is “not many days hence.”

Eternal Mother via ettakay art

Feeling and knowing more of the power of Jesus Christ has led me to a closer understanding of my Heavenly Parents. As a parent, it has become clear that in order for my children to serve, love and give kindness they must see me serve, love and give kindness continuously. So it makes me wonder, who taught the Savior these things? Whose life did He model His life after? In the book, Mother’s Milk, Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother, Rachel Hunt Steenblik suggests:


As One Whom His Mother Comforteth
She showed Her Son
How to mother, so He
Could show the world.

The Good Shepherdhess
She taught her Son
to call His lambs by name,
and lead them.
When she puts forth
Her own sheep,
She goes before them,
And the sheep follow Her:
For they know Her voice.

Her Voice
Her voice is a whisper--
Still and deep.

art by J Kirk Richards

Sisters and brothers, we do not need to search blogs, social media posts, endless reviews or sponsored videos before accessing the power of Jesus Christ. His hand is outstretched still. Over and over...endlessly, He is patient for us to seek Him and His endless love. Like a patient and hopeful elder brother, He is excited for us to share in the estate of our Heavenly Parents.

I’m no scriptorian, my faith is simple. And at times I have wondered and questioned as a woman where is it that I stand in God’s plan? Those questions have shaken me. And my questions and concerns continue. But through the power of Jesus Christ--His love and mercy--have given me enough answers to help me carry on. The Atonement is real and can change our lives and the lives of our families. His power is in His love for us.

*************

Notes:
The night I completed writing this talk, I came across the article, Where We Find the Power of God from Sharon Eubank. I realized that, of course, the power of Jesus Christ is the priesthood. And I felt a bit silly that I had not made that connection while preparing. After all, I've been going to this church my whole life and I knew that. But ultimately I was grateful I did not make the connection because it would have completely changed my talk and I would not have learned so much. Part of my doubts and concerns about my faith are in regards to the fact that women in my faith are not "bearers" of the priesthood (ordained to the priesthood and do not hold priesthood office). But through the study I made for this talk, I realized that I participate in the priesthood, in God's power, much more often than I realized. I'm not just a receiver of priesthood blessings, I am actively participating in giving, receiving and creating all thanks to the power of Jesus Christ. My understanding around this will continue to evolve and I'm grateful for the learning process I'm currently in.

It should be noted that the pioneer obstetrician I mentioned was only able to do what she did because of the large household she was a part of. A polygamous household. Describing the relationship between herself and her sister wives: "She writes, 'We all lived under the same roof, ate at the same table, knelt at the same shrine, and humbly believed we were doing the will of our Father in Heaven...There still remains after many long years a most sacred bond of fellowship, a beautiful loving interest and sweet affection one for another, that is truly most akin to the divine!' Indeed, their loving service toward her proved indispensable when she left her children in their care to answer the call to attend medical school." I don't pretend to understand polygamy or its role in the history of my Church. I'm grateful I am alive at a time after it was discontinued. But Zion's Hope is full of similar examples of sister wives helping each other in ways that benefited the community at large.


Further listening:

This podcast is a great intro to women and the priesthood, especially if you are not a member of my faith.

Another great one that I listened to today and really appreciated.

And it looks like QMore just added a one today about the priesthood and I'm sure it's great but I haven't had a chance to listen.