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Meekness, Healing, and God's Will

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 18:35:34 GMT

Art by Cristall Harper. Cristall Harper lives in American Fork, UT. Her website is www.cristallharper.com and her Instagram is @cristallharper.

Revelation is available to everyone, but God guides His Church through His prophet. The Lord wants me to follow His prophet.

“Moses was very meek.”

I struggle with meekness. Not just the acquisition and practice of it, but the idea of aspiring to and emulating it. I feel a tension between wanting to follow Jesus’s examples and how I’ve come to define and experience meekness. And I think what I wrestle with is not the doctrine itself but the way we have shaped this word.
…
Meekness is not fear. It is not shame. It is not silence or self-erasure. Those are the conditions Adam and Eve felt when they hid from God in the garden, afraid to be seen. Christlike meekness is not a diminished self. It is a self in a state of readiness. We become ready to act, ready to repent, ready to speak up, ready to grow. It is the courage to be seen, the humility to be taught, and the faith to move forward

—Greg Christensen, “Vulnerability, Our Modern Day-Meekness”

Many believers and critics alike have misunderstood Christ’s call to meekness as a call to weakness, to indifference or acquiescence to injustice or to pain. This is a profound distortion of the truth. Christ does not right wrongs like a mighty knight errant, but when we turn to Him in our brokenness, He rewrites the meaning of our story. The facts of our lives do not change, but His power seems to rearrange the furniture of our minds where facts have settled, freeing them from the appearance of inevitability and of fixed meaning.

—George Handley, “Falling into Paradise”

With faith in the Lord, I can have hope for the future.

Jesus brought unfaltering hope into the world quietly. Only those who were already oriented toward Him could see it at first: the magi watching the skies; the shepherds who followed the angelic summons to witness Him in the manger; the imperfect but willing mother who risked her social standing, her marriage, and even her life to bring the Savior into the world. Hope might have felt far away to the families whose babies were killed in Herod’s decree or the followers gathered at the foot of the cross in Golgotha. It might feel far to you as you navigate the bruises and pains of mortality, tangled in situations that feel like they have no solution. But Jesus Christ keeps His promises. We can’t see the way it will all work out quite yet, but we can hope with surety and without shame. The Light has come into the world. Every one of us will fly again.

—Lorren Lemmons, “A Thrill of Hope”

As modeled by Joseph, we Latter-day Saints are called upon to be active participants in shaping the outcome of prophecies. Where prophecy speaks of disasters, we are not, like Jonah, to hope for its fulfillment; we are, rather, called to help avert those disasters, as Jonah did inadvertently. Where prophecy speaks of hopes ahead, we are called to be coworkers with God in actualizing them. Scripture is a script. Reading it actively opens us to performing its best lines and avoiding its worst.

—Don Bradley, “Hope, Fear, & Creation”

If I look to Jesus Christ in faith, He can heal me spiritually. I can look to Jesus Christ.

Sinning is a type of woundedness, like blindness or lameness. It is an infirmity, a brokenness. As a Healer, He ministers to the entire range of our afflictions: psychological, emotional, physical, and spiritual.

—Terryl and Fiona Givens, All Things New

I feel so at home in Jesus Christ’s gospel, not because he’s wiped my slate clean and made me this perfect, pristine daisy. No, I feel at home because he invites me to use my wounds to aid him in what he does best: heal others. When Jesus appeared to the Nephites in America it was his wounds that made the people shout “Hosanna!” Jesus Christ heals just as much through his wounds as he does through his perfection. He asks each of us to do the same. The vulnerability of others, when they bear their wounds to me, has made me feel welcome and whole. I know that the commission within my patriarchal blessing, the one that urged me to go out and heal, is because I have wounds of my own. This does not make our wounds desirable and we all rightly avoid fresh pain whenever we can. But it does mean that through the pain we inherit, we can better bear the wounds of others, that Christ can heal and that we can help. Connecting with Jesus through our wounds has turned a solitary bitterness to a shared joy as I’ve realized that wounds are what connect us through Christ.

—Louisa Packham, “To Hurt, Heal, and Celebrate It All”

When sin is woundedness, Atonement is radical healing, and the “radical” is very important.
Healing is an everyday, mundane part of our lives—think scraped knees, sunburns, and white blood cells fighting off the latest mutation of the latest virus. But radical healing is a grand, supernatural miracle—think Christ healing the blind man (John 9), the woman with an issue of blood (Luke 8:43–48), or the ten lepers (Luke 17:11–19).
If we used the metaphor of everyday healing to explain the Atonement, it would be very similar to the metaphor of restoration. After all, when an injury or sickness is healed, the injured party has been restored to health. But “radical healing” is about more than mere restoration in the same way that Christ healing the paralyzed man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5) is a greater miracle than the recovery I made after the cold I had last fall.

—Chanel Earl, “Atonement as Radical Healing”

I can follow God’s will, even if others try to persuade me not to.

I believe there is an innate and even sacred desire within each of us to discover our own deep wells of passion, creativity, and self-determination. When we see obedience as the path toward conformity, it remains a perpetual struggle for self-mastery. If we see it instead as the freedom to truly love him as we are loved, it becomes the path toward fuller self-realization. Obedience does not gain us more love from God, but rather more power from his love to free us to do the good in the world we were born to do.

—George B. Handley, “Obedience as Gratitude”

Sometimes in the Church we like to think of ourselves as special or different. I remember learning very early that we are a peculiar people. We are blessed with knowledge, while “the World” sits in darkness. They need us to bring them the truth, to help them change their ways. We are the ones who have something to offer Them. But when I read Christ’s story of the Good Samaritan, I see something different. I see the importance of an outsider perspective. I see an other who has something to give. Maybe we aren’t the only peculiar people. Maybe heaven and earth are both populated by scores of peculiar peoples, each treasured by God, each with special callings that have been informed by their talents, skills, and cultures.
Tribalism is important because it creates Us. It gives us places to feel that irreplaceable sense of belonging. But another paradox of tribalism is that it is just as important because it creates Them. The true lesson of the Good Samaritan story is that They exist not to just be tolerated until They change into Us. They exist separate from Us, and we need them, just as they are.

—Jeanine Bee, “Peculiar Peoples”

Work in Progress on Bookshop.org

25. Seventy helpers (Numbers 9-11)

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 17:48:37 GMT

Numbers 11:17 And I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put that Spirit on them. They will help you bear the burden of the people, so that you do not have to bear it by yourself. (Berean Standard Bible)

Camping in the desert is not easy. Sometimes the wind blows sand in your eyes. Other times poisonous snakes bite you. But mostly, it’s just really hot. And so the family of Jacob always anxiously awaited the weather report and prayed for cloudy days. Because when there are clouds, the sun doesn’t beat so tirelessly against your skin, and sweat doesn’t pour so profusely from your forehead.

But ever since building the tabernacle, every day was partly cloudy. Because even on sunny days, one cloud always remained. It hovered directly over God’s tent. So when people went to worship God, they didn’t have to do it in the sun. And that was nice.

You might think that if the days were so terribly hot, that the nights would be warm or even a little pleasant. Nope. At night, temperatures could drop like a bowling ball on your toes. And the people had to wrap themselves in blankets to stay warm. But at the temple, God kept a fire that burned all night, every night. Which helped the people stay warm.

Then in the morning, God scattered bread on the ground like dew, and the people would gather it so they’d have food to eat. And that’s how the people lived. Fed by God in the morning, shaded by God in the day, and warmed by him in the night. Until one day, the cloud started to move. “Wait!” the people yelled. “Come back, cloud! Where are you going?” But the cloud kept floating away, moving on across the wilderness. It was leading them to a mysterious Somewhere, a place they called the Promised Land. The time had come. The camping trip was almost over.

The people collapsed their tents, rolled up their mattresses, stuffed their sleeping bags, took apart their stoves, filled their water bottles, packed their bags, and buried their ashes. And finally, the trumpets were blown and the whole family of Jacob began their hike to a new home, a place they just knew would be full of fruit trees, rose gardens, water, honey, and meat.

Oh yes, they imagined a lake next to a small hill with a charcoal grill on top. They’d cook some hamburgers and hot dogs and cut up tomatoes and onions. And on the side they’d have watermelon split into wedges, dripping with juice. They could see it already, almost smell it. It was a perfect summer barbeque. And so while they walked, they salivated.

And they walked and walked and walked and drooled and drooled and drooled and got hungrier and hungrier and hungrier. It’s true, God was still sending them bread, but they didn’t want bread anymore. “We want meat,” they told Moses. “Our bodies need meat. It contains crucial proteins, macronutrients, and vitamins!”

Moses couldn’t deny that meat sounded delicious. But how would he ever secure meat for all of these people? And so he shrugged. “We just have to keep enjoying the bread God is sending us.” And the people tried. They took out forks and knives and cut the bread like it was a steak, and chewed it slowly and smacked their lips and said, “Deee-licious!” But they couldn’t trick their own bellies.

And at night they dreamt of grills and spits and charcoal pits. They wanted it. They needed it. Without meat, they grew weak and dizzy and sick. And then the sickness moved from their minds into their bodies, and people started to feel weak. And the hungrier they got, the grumpier they became. And soon enough, they were not just hungry and grumpy, they were angry. And they were angry with Moses. They yelled at him and said he should never have brought them into the wilderness if he didn’t have plans for how he was going to feed everyone. What good is freedom without survival? Slavery is better than starvation.

And Moses began to wonder if the people were right about him. He was their prophet. He had brought them here. He was the one who told them when to walk, how far to go, and where to camp. He was responsible for keeping all these thousands of people alive. Most of them he barely knew. And yet here he was, leading them.

And it was worse than that. He wasn’t just in charge of keeping them alive. He was supposed to be liberating them from slavery. And yet things had gotten so bad that they wanted to put their chains back on. Because at least in Egypt, they had enough food to eat.

And it was even worse than that. Moses wasn’t just supposed to liberate them from slavery. They weren’t just supposed to be free. They were supposed to be God’s people. They were on their way to build God’s city in God’s own Promised Land. And yet here they were, hating God’s bread and complaining about God’s plan. It seemed like everything was falling apart before it had even begun. And Moses felt like a failure.

Failure, a definition:

A failure is someone who has given up because they think they can’t succeed, even if they try. And it’s easy to be a failure. Because it often feels like the whole world is against you. And nobody wins in a fight against the entire world. But in reality, the world is not fighting against you. On the contrary, the world is giving you food and water and sunshine and air and friends and family and everything that is good and necessary and beautiful. Most of the time, if you look around, you will find that the world is blessing you so much more than it is hurting you. And do you know what I think? I think the world wants you to succeed. And so when you feel like a failure, turn to the world, turn to your friends and family, and turn to God and ask for help. And help will come.

Asking for help is exactly what Moses did. And do you know what happened? The world came to his aid. People came running. “Moses,” they all said, “you are not alone. You do not have to do this by yourself.” And it wasn’t just one or two people, or a small group, or a few friends. Seventy people came, rolled up their sleeves, and said, “How can we help?”

And Moses accepted their help. There was a lot to do, from leading to organizing to praying. And they prayed together, and God answered all of their prayers and sent a huge flock of migrating birds right over the family of Jacob’s caravan. And they captured the birds and lit fires, and started rotisseries and imagined they were already in the Promised Land. And in a way, they were. “This is the life,” the people said, filling their mouths with perfectly tender meat. And they could feel the nutrients dissolve, the vitamins distribute, and the fats and proteins fill their bodies. And they rejoiced and prayed and thanked the earth and God and Moses for providing the exact thing they needed when they needed it. And Moses thanked all the people who had come to help.

And the people picnicked together under the shade of God’s cloud, fed by God’s bread and birds, looking forward to God’s own Promised Land. And for the first time in a long time, they felt full.

To purchase a hard copy of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, visit ForLittleSaints.com

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Moral Courage in an Age of Approval: a conversation with with Fr. James Martin, SJ

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:01:52 GMT

Today, we’re honored to share a conversation with Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest, a New York Times bestselling author, and the founder of Outreach, a ministry for LGBTQ Catholics.

His new memoir is called Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest. And yes, he held every one of those jobs before he found his calling. But beneath the laughs, this book is really about the slow, unglamorous, often uncomfortable work of transformation.

In our conversation today, Father Jim talks about growing up desperate to be liked—and what it took to become someone willing to speak up and make waves when it matters. We talk about the difference between kindness and people-pleasing, about staying connected to religious institutions that can both nourish and wound us, and why he believes doubt is a natural part of a living, growing faith.

In a moment when so many public voices feel reactive and divisive, Father Jim stands in conviction without losing compassion—offering a steady, grounded wisdom that feels deeply needed right now.

Work in Progress on Amazon

Raising Little Saints: A Faith Matters Family Night

May 1, 2026 | 6-7:15pm | Kiwanis Park in Provo (the big pavilion)

Nurturing deep faith without fundamentalism.

An evening of music, storytelling, and connection designed for families—both parents and kids.

What to expect:

Live music with Emily Susan Pack
Short, inspiring reflections on faith and family from Whitney Call and Lauren Yarro
Food and community building
Simple activities for kids (movement welcome)

Bring your kids exactly as they are. No perfect behavior or faith required.

Spots are limited, so do please RSVP.

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GIVE WAYFARE ISSUE 7 FOR MOTHER’S DAY

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FAITH MATTERS BENEFIT ART AUCTION

When: Saturday, May 9th at 7:00 PM

Where: The Compass Gallery (250 W. Center St., Provo)

Highlights: Live auction of featured works, silent auction bidding, mocktails and hors d'oeuvres, live music.

LEARN MORE AND RSVP

Faith Matters needs your support for our Benefit Art Auction at The Compass Gallery. It will be an evening of art, connection, and giving, where you’ll have access to one-of-kind art we think you’ll treasure for years to come. Here at Faith Matters, we work to promote a vibrant, nourishing faith and we hope you’ll partner with us.

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What does it mean to be holy? What is the meaning of sacrifice?

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:18:58 GMT

James Rees

The Lord wants me to become holy. I can feel the Lord’s presence in holy places.

The definition of “holy” as offered by Jewish scholar Jacob Milgrom is beautiful in its piercing simplicity: Holiness means imitating God. It’s almost too simple, isn’t it? Holiness means imitating God. But as I contemplate God’s command to dress this garden, the Jewish concept of repairing the world, and the Ecclesiastes charge to do with might, I am struck with clarity of purpose: be a creator.
Milgrom says holiness is “that which humanity is commanded to emulate and approximate.” Revealing the hand of the Creator through our own acts of creation seems like a good step toward approximating this holiness. When I am making, I feel the spark of the divine in me. I feel the memory of learning to mimic my Father as I approximate His ways and seek to be like Him. I relate closely to what famed author Madeleine L’Engle says about her feelings when she listens to music by Johann Sebastian Bach: “Bach’s music points me to wholeness, a wholeness of body, mind, and spirit, which we seldom glimpse, but which we are intended to know. It is no coincidence that the root word of whole, health, heal, holy, is hale (as in hale and hearty.) If we are healed, we become whole; we are hale and hearty; we are holy.”
Creative work is holy work. It is repairing-to-make-whole work. It is sometimes the only work my hands know to do when all around me feels in chaos and despair.

—Paige Crosland Anderson, “A Careful Mending of the World”

Finding expression in creative forms becomes one of the most direct ways to connect to the divine, including to our Mother. Creative acts are pure manifestations of faith. They are the heartbeat of harmony, pleas for holiness to flow in the land, in our bodies, and through our transformation paths. We weave ideas into new patterns, breathe life into the seemingly lifeless, and live into being stronger and more tender threads of connection. Creative expressions open the mind and spirit to the possibility of transcendent (revelatory) experiences. … In very real ways, we participate in the re-creation of the universe through our individual transformations of intelligence, faith, and presence in the world. Our personal transformations lead ultimately to a shift in collective consciousness, bringing us all closer to wholeness and holiness.

—Kathryn Knight Sonntag, The Mother Tree

The words “heal” and “whole” come from the same ancient root, heilig. That same root gives us our word “holy.” That which is healed and made whole is also made holy. To make something holy is to set it in its proper order, devoted to its highest purpose, to make it most enduringly and intensely real and alive. … So when we read the scriptures and learn about holiness and unholiness, about being poor in spirit, about hungering and thirsting after righteousness, about making peace and giving others grace, about eternal life, about feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, these phrases aren’t just meaningless religious jargon. These are deeply practical and very real things that lead to life or death. To say that Christ’s spirit is holy, and that you can receive that spirit, is to say that you can learn the sacred art of binding up all broken things, to set things within you and around you on the path toward their highest and most beautiful purpose. This is real.

—Bob Sonntag, “The Sacrifice of All Things”

The Restoration, with its sacralization of the joy of embodied sociality, should give us a feel for the holiness of this humor and the way it promotes faith in a new age of joyous, healing atonement. It should help us see how the Jesus of the Gospels looks forward to a new age of celebration—a miraculous, but also somehow mundane, feast with friends.

—James Egan, “Laughing with Jesus”

If I were to boil down the meaning of Joseph Smith’s restoration to a single aphorism, This is where everything happens might be my best try. This idea was the engine of the early church’s first migrations. As revelation began to flow, the earth under Joseph’s feet became holy ground in widening circles of sacred geography. The remnant of the house of Israel? They’re here, just down the river. New Jerusalem, site of the second coming? Watch this space, coming soon. The garden of Eden, primordial belly button of the world? It’s here too, in Missouri. Eve ate the apple on the same Ozark highland where my robin ate the inchworm.
If you find a touch of the absurd in this, I agree. We’re accustomed to thinking of the sacred as something apart, exalted. And we have good reason: the roots of the word sacred contain the idea of something protected and removed from ordinary settings, everyday experience. Sacred space is an ancient land, a walled garden, or the top of a mountain, the higher the better. But the restoration introduced a low-elevation version of sacred geography. Right here, at ground level, among normal places and events, sacred things happened.
I hear a twinkle in the divine voice as it relocates the high-and-holy to its new rough-and-tumble neighborhood:
A voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca county, declaring the three witnesses to bear record of the book! The voice of Michael on the banks of the Susquehanna, detecting the devil when he appeared as an angel of light! The voice of Peter, James, and John in the wilderness between Harmony, Susquehanna county, and Colesville, Broome county, on the Susquehanna river, declaring themselves as possessing the keys of the kingdom, and of the dispensation of the fulness of times! (D&C 128:20-21)
Broome County, a holy land? Is Saul too among the prophets?
As the Restoration unfolded, these geographic circles extended outward with no apparent limit. A general principle came into view, a kind of axiom of the Restoration: the whole world is holy, because it is where we encounter God. In time, Joseph understood that these sacred circles, always widening underfoot, were both geographic and metaphysical. The spirit world? Look around, it’s here. Heaven? Also here, wherever you are. Eternal life? The people and relationships closest to you.For better or for worse, our relational heaven is here and it looks a lot like now, but with the added burden of glory.

—Rosalynde Welch, “Airborne at Low Elevation”

By each expression of faith, by each act of love, by each quest for holiness, by each act of self-healing, we give hope to our creators: hope that we will use the light they have placed within us to dispel the darkness in our lives, that we will use the love they have placed in our hearts to create peace, and to give hope to others by lifting their burdens, by healing their wounds, and by working for justice. Each step we take toward the light, each act of love gives hope to our Heavenly Parents that they can trust us with more light, more love, and more holiness. As Rabbi David Wolpe states, “By each act of love, by each expression of holiness, we give hope to God.”

—Robert A. Rees, “A Perfect Brightness of Hope”

The Lord asks me to make my offerings with a willing heart.

When people’s wealth took the form of crops and livestock, offering an animal to God required one to part with a significant economic asset. To place a bull or flawless lamb on the altar of God, one had to make a difficult choice about a scarce resource. One had to choose God over something else in a meaningful way. In a culture whose most valuable resource is attention, concentrating wholly on God requires precisely the same kind of sacrifice. Where your attention is, there will your heart be also.

—Michael Austin, “The Sacrament of Attention”

My chronic grief about not being a great musician makes me wonder earnestly about the disconnect between what I think God would like and what I can actually give. It occurs to me sometimes that most of what we bring to the altar is not nearly as valuable as we suppose. The difficulty of figuring out what the Lord wants from us is illustrated in Genesis by Cain’s rejected sacrifice, articulated again in Samuel’s insistence that “to obey is better than sacrifice,” and the psalmist’s recognition that “thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” The Nephites are instructed that their “burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings.” And just before the Saints at Kirtland are asked to give a tithe of money to build the temple, a new kind of sacrifice, they’re reminded that “all among them who know their hearts are honest, and are broken, and their spirits contrite, and are willing to observe their covenants by sacrifice—yea, every sacrifice which I, the Lord, shall command—they are accepted of me.”
Perhaps we need to be told exactly what to sacrifice because we aren’t very good at recognizing what is valuable. Maybe Paul’s description of gifts within the body of Christ isn’t just about other people’s gifts that we wrongly think are less worthy than our own, but about our estimation of what it is we ourselves have to offer.
Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:
And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.
For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked.
Maybe artistic gifts, like all the others, are useful for bringing us to the place where we can offer all that we really have to give—our brokenness, our need, our yearning to know and be known.

—Kristine Haglund, “The Beauty of Holiness”

The word “sacrifice” means literally to make something sacred, to take something mundane and ordinary and to put it to the service of a transcendent and sacred purpose. To give it up, or upward. Those moments when life feels meaningless, purposeless, or arbitrary, or when we feel at war with ourselves, those are moments when the pieces of life are not gathered properly in our own judgment in service of what we believe to be most high.
You have to sacrifice everything you have and everything you are. You have to sacrifice yourself. …
I can imagine each of us in a quiet moment kneeling and offering ourselves to God. And I can imagine God’s response: “Good. I can work with that.” But I can also hear him say “That’s only the beginning. You don’t even know all the parts of yourself, let alone how to sacrifice them.” I’m sorry to say that you will discover these pieces of yourself as they break down, and fail, and when you confront problems you don’t know how to solve. When that happens you have to let things die which have grown old and insufficient; ideas, desires, ways of thinking and understanding, habits, and paradigms, and more.
But the miracle of the cross of Christ is that those things that are given willingly to death upon it will be resurrected. When you choose to give your life as a body for Christ’s spirit, you will find that pieces of yourself will die along the way. But you will also see those pieces resurrected, now filled with God’s spirit and put to their proper use. The perfection that God has in mind for you isn’t a neutered, amputated, lobotomized sterility, where pieces of your spirit and body have been turned off. Christ wants all of you. This will not be a movement toward a uniform cookie-cutter image of pious, bland, sameness. Instead it makes each of us more fully and uniquely and eternally ourselves.

—Bob Sonntag, “The Sacrifice of All Things”

Discipleship happens at the intersection of the requirement that we sacrifice all things and the inevitability of losing all things. As a result, to imagine a life of Christian discipleship you need only imagine a religion that requires you to sacrifice everything in a world that will, regardless, exact the loss of everything.
Imagine, then, treading the path of discipleship and preemptively willing—as an act of love and sacrifice—your own already inevitable loss of all things. Imagine the practice of your religion as the business of willing the end of the world.
What would it look like to willingly give up your life and loved ones and world? What would it look like to give them up and then keep loving them and living with them and caring for them? What would it look like to sacrifice “all things” intentionally rather than just inevitably? How would it change your relationship to life? How would it change your relationship to property? How would it change your relationship to your parents, your spouse, your children? And how, in particular, would this sacrificial gesture utterly transform your relationship to time?
What would it look like to be a disciple of Christ as the world collapses around you?
What does discipleship look like at the end of the world?

—Adam Miller, “Discipleship at the End of the World”

In this conversation, Josh walks us through the pattern of the ancient tabernacle and Solomon’s temple, helping us begin to understand what temple worship and sacrifice looked like for the ancient Israelites. Gaining an understanding of what the temple experience was like anciently has really helped to enrich my relationship with our modern temple. I was struck by both the similarities and the differences in how we relate to the temple today. Josh breaks down the various types of sacrificial rites the Israelites performed and shows how they are more similar to our modern law of sacrifice than we might expect.

These were people who faced the same challenge we face today: how to move beyond outward performance and truly offer our whole heart and soul to the Lord. Josh teaches that, in the end, the only thing we can really offer God is our will. God invites us into the experience of sacrifice and repentance—a journey that both transforms and liberates, a journey back to Eden. And all that is needed to begin is our desire. —Larkin Swain

Insights from the Ancient Tabernacle: A conversation with Josh Matson

a month ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Cecelia Proffit

Temple ordinances were given anciently.

What are the differences and similarities between the ancient and modern temple experience? Learn from Matthew Grey in this episode of Sanctuary:

Learning the Language of the Ancient Temple: A conversation with Matthew Grey

Matt is a strong believer in developing an understanding of the biblical temple to increase our temple literacy, and he has dedicated most of his life’s work to studying this very thing. This episode felt like a continuation of my previous conversation with Josh Matson. Matt helps us explore more deeply the similarities and differences between the moder…

14 days ago · Cecelia Proffit

As we leave the temple endowed, anointed just as [the ancient priests] were, with the garment of the holy priesthood, we have a mission to go out into the world just like the priests did, and bring people who are separated from God, who are alienated to God, and help them come back. … We have a role just like the temple priests had in ancient days of welcoming people and helping them be able to be restored themselves.

—Jennifer Lane, “An Embodied Discipleship”

As people who wear the robes of the holy priesthood, we are playing a part in helping God’s people to be reconciled to our heavenly parents, to Christ. … Precisely how the Lord is reaching out is through people who have taken the name of Christ upon themselves and who can then go out to the world bearing his name, bringing his love.

—Larkin Swain, “An Embodied Discipleship”

An Embodied Discipleship: A conversation with Jennifer C. Lane

This conversation with Jennifer was especially meaningful to me because it explores embodiment, a pillar of my personal spirituality. Jennifer beautifully explains how our ordinances teach us the necessity of embodiment in discipleship. We perform ordinances with our bodies to symbolize that the spiritual journey requires more than intellectual belief—i…

3 months ago · 10 likes · Cecelia Proffit

Now that we’ve been clothed and anointed just like the priests were, when we leave the temple, we have a mission, like the priests did, to be a part of helping God’s people be reconciled. And when you make these covenants with God, the purpose of your life transforms, and it becomes about this journey, this great project of reconciliation to God—and not just our reconciliation with God, but with each other, forming those bonds, drawing us closer to each other and building, nurturing, and cultivating this familial relationship with all of humanity.

—Larkin Swain, “A Walk Through the Temple Ordinances”

Hear Jasmin Rappleye explain some of the history and symbolism behind the modern temple initiatory in this episode of Sanctuary:

A Walk Through the Temple Ordinances: A conversation with Jasmin Rappleye

As we began preparing to create the Sanctuary podcast, one of our goals was to offer a resource for those preparing to attend the temple for the first time. We wanted to have a straightforward conversation about what you can expect in the endowment ceremony and provide some context to help you begin understanding the purpose behind these sacred rituals…

a month ago · 9 likes · 1 comment · Cecelia Proffit

Because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, I can be forgiven.

In Alma 34, Amulek teaches that “the Son of God” will offer himself as a “great and last sacrifice” and that “thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name” (Alma 34:14–15). How, though, does this “thus” work? How does Christ’s sacrifice bring salvation to those who believe? How am I saved?
Amulek develops a powerful theory of atonement in this chapter that is unique to the Book of Mormon. Rather than treating Christ’s sacrifice as a way of generating moral influence, ransoming us from the devil, or vicariously appeasing God’s wrath, Amulek treats Christ’s sacrifice as a revelation that satisfies the demands of justice by showing how mercy was—all along, from the foundation of the world—“the whole meaning of the law” (Alma 34:13). Taking God’s law as a sign or type, Amulek treats Christ’s sacrifice as an “epiphany” that redeems by fulfilling and displaying the true meaning of that divine sign.
… Amulek does not treat Christ’s sacrifice as an ad hoc workaround for sinners, a late arriving amendment that is foreign to God’s law or the demands of justice. Rather, Amulek treats Christ’s sacrifice as the “whole” meaning of the law, and Christ’s mercy as the fulfillment of the love that the law itself commands.

—Adam Miller, “The Word Is Mercy”

This is the power of justification. It may look like a simple mathematical equation or a righting of a wrong, but when Christ chose to atone for mankind, he did not atone mathematically; his sacrifice wasn’t about numbers, economics or arithmetic. He atoned infinitely, and his infinite sacrifice brings forth infinite and eternal joy and consolation.

—Chanel Earl, “Atonement as Justification”

Meet the Early-day Saints Episode 9: Atonement and Grace, with Cecilia M. Peek

One of the most frequently discussed themes in Christian history concerns the relationship between grace, salvation, and human behavior. How does Jesus’s atonement work? How are we saved by grace? What role do human works play? Dr. Cecilia M. Peek takes us back to the early days of Christianity to take a look at these questions again. She also lays out …

3 years ago · 4 likes · Blair Hodges and Cecilia Peek

God has given me gifts to help with His work.

Meredith's book Woven on Bookshop.org

24. The sin eaters (Leviticus)

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 17:47:34 GMT

Leviticus 26:11-12 I’ll set up my residence in your neighborhood; I won’t avoid or shun you; I’ll stroll through your streets. I’ll be your God; you’ll be my people. (MSG)

The people were camping down in a valley. And God was leading them from up on top of a mountain. And so whenever the people had questions or needed help or directions from God, Moses had to climb all the way up the mountain to talk with God, and then all the way back down to tell the people what God had said. And he hoped the people didn’t have follow-up questions, because climbing a mountain is very hard work.

And then one day God asked Moses to do something most unexpected. He wanted the family of Jacob to set up a special tent so that God could come down out of the mountain and live with the people in the valley. The tent was going to be called “tabernacle.” This was great news for Moses’ knees. But while having God move into town sounded exciting, it also felt a little scary. Imagine if God were your next-door ne…

Nurturing a Faith Your Kids Don't Have to Heal From: A Conversation with Meredith Miller

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 14:01:59 GMT

Today we’re exploring a tender question so many parents are carrying: how do we help our kids grow in faith when we’re still figuring it out for ourselves? And underneath that—what if we get it wrong? What if we hand them something they’ll spend years trying to untangle?

Today, we’re joined by pastor, author, and researcher Meredith Miller, who has spent her career thoughtfully engaging these questions. Her book, Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From, offers a grounded and practical guide for what this can look like.

Meredith invites us to move away from rigid faith metaphors like walls and foundations, and instead to see faith more like a web—flexible, resilient, and uniquely woven for each person. That shift opens up a much more spacious way of thinking about what it means to guide our kids spiritually.

Anchoring this conversation is her distinction between obedience-based and trust-based faith. Meredith makes a compelling case that trust must come first—that obedience, when it matters, grows naturally out of a relationship with a God we’ve come to know and trust, rather than fear.

We also talk about how to approach scripture with kids, what her research revealed about the strengths of a Latter-Day Saint ward-based model, the value of family warmth, and why “I don’t know” can be a great answer.

This conversation was a steadying reminder for us that while we can’t control how our kid’s faith unfolds, we can trust that God is already at work in their lives. We hope this episode gives you both some practical tools and a little more peace for the long, slow work nourishing a faith your kid doesn’t need to heal from.

Meredith's book Woven on Amazon

You can also find Meredith’s new book Wonder: 52 Conversations to Help Kids Fall in Love with Scripture on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Raising Little Saints: A Faith Matters Family Night

May 1, 2026 | 6-7:15pm | Kiwanis Park in Provo (the big pavilion)

Nurturing deep faith without fundamentalism.

An evening of music, storytelling, and connection designed for families—both parents and kids.

What to expect:

Live music with Emily Susan Pack
Short, inspiring reflections on faith and family from Whitney Call and Lauren Yarro
Food and community building
Simple activities for kids (movement welcome)

Bring your kids exactly as they are. No perfect behavior or faith required.

Spots are limited, so do please RSVP below.

STUDY “COME FOLLOW ME” WITH FAITH MATTERS

GIVE WAYFARE ISSUE 7 FOR MOTHER’S DAY

Give a gift subscription to Wayfare this week to be sure it arrives in time for Mother’s Day! Get a peek inside the issue here:

OPPORTUNITY TO SUPPORT A FAITH MATTERS VOLUNTEER

What does it mean to be chosen? What does my obedience mean to God?

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:49:52 GMT

“Together in Christ” by Emma Taylor.

The Lord’s covenant people are a treasure to Him.

The greatest heresy in the history of monotheism is a misunderstanding of chosen-ness. It is the assumption that some are chosen for exclusive privilege, when in fact to be chosen by God is to be chosen for loving service. …
There’s this set of dynamic tensions that God says to Abraham. God says, I’ve chosen you to bless you and to be a blessing. I will make you a great nation, but through you, all the nations of the world will be blessed. …
The blessing is not exclusive. It’s instrumental. And that sense of being chosen, that chosen-ness, doesn’t mean that I’m better than anybody else. It means I’ve been chosen because God loves everybody. I have the privilege of trying to be a channel of of God’s love, not to people I’m superior to or separated from, but to people who God loves too.

—Brian McLaren, “Life After Doom”

Sometimes in the Church we like to think of ourselves as special or different. I remember learning very early that we are a peculiar people. We are blessed with knowledge, while “the World” sits in darkness. They need us to bring them the truth, to help them change their ways. We are the ones who have something to offer Them. But when I read Christ’s story of the Good Samaritan, I see something different. I see the importance of an outsider perspective. I see an other who has something to give. Maybe we aren’t the only peculiar people. Maybe heaven and earth are both populated by scores of peculiar peoples, each treasured by God, each with special callings that have been informed by their talents, skills, and cultures.

—Jeanine Bee, “Peculiar Peoples”

When we equate chosenness with deserved blessings, we create a dichotomy where those who aren’t chosen “don’t deserve” blessings. Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Olsen Hemming, authors of The Book of Mormon for the Least of These, reinforce this conclusion, arguing that chosenness can be “highly problematic in scripture and theology.” They add, “for if there is a chosen then there must be an unchosen. Any theology that would bifurcate and divide God’s children into the favored and unfavored can be a destructive and harmful mindset.” This way of thinking can breed dualistic, hierarchical relationships, leading to delineations of worthiness and unworthiness and potential discrimination in a divided society. Interpreting blessings or prosperity in terms of chosenness disrupts the chance for the beloved community that God is offering as the promise in the land.
…
Ultimately, Christ himself modeled the rejection of privileged prosperity in an act of self-emptying on the cross. As Latter-day Saints, we must courageously dismantle any false notions of deserved prosperity and power, for there is “no real imitation of Christ without humility, poverty of spirit, austerity of life, and genuine charity.”

—Jenny Richards, “The Promised Land”

…While this rabbi was only tangentially speaking about covenants, he reframed them for me. He said that he was sometimes asked by people who were not Jewish, “What makes you so special?” The implication was, “What gives you the arrogance to call yourselves a chosen people?” Latter-day Saints could ask themselves this same question: among the billions of people who have lived on earth, why would God give this unique piece of saving information to just a few favorites? Who made us the teacher’s pet?
The rabbi’s response to this question was simple: God chooses those who choose Him.
This felt like a mic drop moment. It was so basic. Could it be that this was the essence of covenant? Fundamentally, it’s not about reciprocal duties, but rather, reciprocal relationship?
And could it be that at the heart of every covenant we make is this one same truth? It’s not just separate and distinct agreements made at baptism, during the sacrament, and in the temple. It’s not a legal contract with pages of clauses. It’s one promise. It’s one choice. It’s saying yes to gracing. Fundamentally, it’s not making covenants (plural), it’s living in covenant (singular). It’s living in Christ.

—Hannah Crowther, Gracing

Sacred experiences require preparation.

If you—or someone you love—is preparing to receive their endowment for the first time, this episode of Sanctuary is for you:

A Walk Through the Temple Ordinances: A conversation with Jasmin Rappleye

a month ago · 9 likes · 1 comment · Cecelia Proffit

Obedience to God’s commandments brings blessings. God gives me commandments because He wants me to be happy.

The Extraordinary Gift of Life: An exploration of covenants with George Handley

Gosh, I really can’t express how much I loved this conversation with George. It felt like a celebration of life—and an invitation to live and love it more fully. This conversation explores the five covenants we make in the temple, with particular emphasis on the first and the last: obedience and consecration. George shares his personal journey of coming…

3 months ago · 11 likes · Cecelia Proffit

The ego certainly prefers a spirituality focused on certitude and transactional agreements with God over a spirituality that asks us to love one another in our shared uncertainty and suffering. Why wouldn’t we want control in a fallen world? Obeying the rules in exchange for security is a desire that certainly makes sense. Our impulse to find order and predictability in the midst of disorder and pain is both understandable and deeply human.
But as we endure life’s inevitable losses, our spirituality tends to become one of recognition—a spirituality that perceives the beauty and wonder in life amid the necessary sorrows and hardships. And though our souls can feel a deep order within reality—divine truths we are all subject to—we understand that faith doesn’t grant us certainty or obviate suffering. Rather, it offers us solace, evidence of God’s love in sublime moments, and glimpses of the eternal that anchor us in a world full of loss.  

—Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, “Our Bodies Are Holy Things”

An Evolving Relationship with Obedience: A conversation with Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

2 months ago · 6 likes · Cecelia Proffit

Making covenants shows my willingness to obey God’s law.

The action of participating in ordinance becomes a way of saying to our Heavenly Father, to the Savior, I want this, I want to be like Christ. We are ritually enacting a willingness. … The Germanic root of the English word, Wille, means to want. So “I’m willing,” says, “I want this.”

—Jennifer Lane in “An Embodied Discipleship,” an episode of Sanctuary

An Embodied Discipleship: A conversation with Jennifer C. Lane

3 months ago · 10 likes · Cecelia Proffit

This is what I have learned about covenants: You can try for thirty years to keep the promises you made as a child, and have never kept a single one, not perfectly, not even close. You can sink deeper and deeper into an ocean of indebtedness. And yet that same sin and brokenness can save you. If you let it, your failure will force you straight back into the arms of Jesus. He stands above the water, reaching down to pull you up.
And hear this, my boy: You are not drowning. You are being baptized.
And when you stop trying to kick and thrash your way into heaven, you will realize that every bit of you from the tips of your toes to the hairs of your head are awash in the grace of Jesus Christ.
And so young as you are, flawed and proud and hungry and ambitious and imperfect as I have made you, be baptized. Fall backwards into promises so much deeper than your comprehension or abilities. Commit yourself again and again and again to the life of a disciple, the life of a friend and follower of Jesus. Plumb the depths of a relationship that has no bottom. Immerse yourself in covenants. And leave no piece of your soul above the surface.

—Sarah Perkins, “Covenants by Immersion”

Sin is turning away from God; repentance is turning toward Him and away from evil. I will not “turn aside” from God’s ways.

Repentance is the journey of turning to God again and again. We forget to join with God, and then we remember. We think we are right, and then we realize we are wrong. We stop living a lie. We stop telling ourselves stories that keep us stuck. We live with ego-driven, narrow vision, and then, as with a camera lens, we zoom out and see that God was present all along. Our experience and story changes. God offers alternate views, relationships, healings, and ways of being and seeing—over and over.

—Hannah Crowther, Gracing

The word repent in Hebrew is shuv and it simply means “to turn back.” And what am I turning back to? I’m turning back to Eden. We’re coming back to God’s presence. … Preach nothing but repentance. Preach nothing but turning back to God.

—Josh Matson, in “Insights from the Ancient Tabernacle,” an episode of Sanctuary

Insights from the Ancient Tabernacle: A conversation with Josh Matson

a month ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Cecelia Proffit

The Sabbath is a sign. Honoring the Sabbath is a sign of my love for the Lord.

I no longer used the Sabbath merely "to recharge my batteries” for the work week ahead, although recharging was a natural by-product. Instead, I began to use the other days of the week to live towards the Sabbath, where consciousness, gladness, and life had grown more keen. In my stricter rules for the day, I found not confinement but freedom. More precisely: By my chosen confinement (my letting go and fencing off of the mundane), I found myself unshackled from mundane preoccupations and their attendant anxieties.

—Philip Barlow, “Sacred Time”

Theologian Walter Brueggemann called the practice of sabbath an act of resistance. The word conjures French fighters, stylishly sabotaging Nazi infrastructure while smoking Gauloises. Imagining myself in a beret with red lipstick really helps when I attempt to turn off my phone for a day. It’s certainly a more attractive image than the grey, dull associations most of us carry. Sabbath sounds to us like the shop closing early just when we’ve run out of milk. It sounds like restriction. Which it is. But it is also through restriction, liberation.
For most of the week, my value is in what I produce and what I consume. If I’m not careful my main goal in a day becomes being impressive and competent, subtly signaling my status with the things I buy, say and post.
Sabbath is the opposite. It is a line in the sand. Today I am just a person, and a person is beyond price. Sabbath is about valuing, fighting for and fiercely guarding rest.
… For Jews and Christians, the sabbath is not designed to serve work, because love, not work, is our ultimate end. It always moves me that the sabbath command was given directly after the Exodus, to a nation that had until recently been enslaved for generations. There is a tenderness in mandating rest and play for traumatized people who had only ever known enforced labor.
Mandated time to rest seems a foreign notion now. It’s become one of the few clear political intuitions I have: that it shouldn’t be. Breaking time, and people, into ever flexible units of production is one of the strongest drivers of disconnection that we experience. I have come to see sabbath as central for my personal project of connection, with myself, with my family and community and with [God]. It’s a relational reset every week, a bulwark against the instrumentalization of relationships and the commodification of time.

—Elizabeth Oldfield, “Attending to Life”

What was the difference between the two sets of stone tables Moses made?

God's intention in revealing the law was to build a relationship with us, because God wants us close. God wants intimacy with us. So on the second trip up the mountain, God gave Moses a set of things to do that would build a sacred transactional relationship…

—Steve Young, “Two Trips up the Mountain”

23. A new law and a new king (Exodus 16-40)

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 17:46:40 GMT

Exodus 19:5-6 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (KJV)

The family of Jacob had escaped from Pharoah and were now totally free to do as they pleased. Right? Wrong. The family of Jacob had escaped one king, but they were just getting to know their new king.

This ruler did not hide in palaces or pyramids. He did not build monuments to himself or empires. He did not raise armies or have slaves. Instead, this ruler stood on mountain tops and in fiery pillars. He built the world and made everyone in it. He raised winds and waves. The sun and the stars did his bidding. This king was not called Pharaoh. He was called God.

And the family of Jacob were pretty excited to have God as their new leader. They had already seen how powerful he could be. “This is great news,” they said to themselves. “We don’t need to be scared of anyone. If God is on our side, we can do anything.” And so they followed their new leader into the desert where they camped and waited for their new leader to lead them to their new home.

At first, camping can be lots of fun. You get to cook hot dogs and marshmallows and see so, so, so many stars at night. But try camping for two weeks. Then five weeks. Then six months. Then seven years. Eventually, you will be very tired of camping. You will want bathrooms and air conditioning and running water and grocery stores and restaurants. And so we should not be surprised that it didn’t take many months before the family of Jacob grew tired of camping and started to complain to their leader.

“God,” they cried out, “aren’t you ever going to give us our new home?”

“Little children,” God replied, “I am preparing you a home, but before that I am preparing you for the home. I need you to learn how to make a city. My city. The city of God.”

“Oh, that’s no problem,” the people responded. “If there’s one thing we learned in Egypt, it’s construction. We already know all about building cities. Just tell us when and where, and we will get started.”

“Not so, little children,” laughed God. “I don’t mean building with bricks and mud and sand. I’m talking about building hearts, minds, and souls. That’s the strongest, best, and most precious material that you can build with. And it’s the foundation of any city of mine.”

And so God decided to give Moses some instructions on how to build the foundations of this city, which was the City of God. It was a ten-step plan. He called the steps commandments, and he wrote them out on stone tablets so Moses wouldn’t forget them.

“Commandment number one, two, three, and four,” said God, “Don’t worship any other God or any other person other than me. And definitely don’t worship yourself or the things you make. Respect me. Worship me.”

The first four steps for building this foundation seemed simple enough. The people just had to remember what they were doing. They were not following a pharaoh, or a celebrity, or a billionaire, or a politician, or an idea, or their own ambition, or anything or anyone other than God.

“Commandments number five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,” God continued, “Honor your parents. Don’t kill. Keep your word. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t be jealous.”

These rules also seemed pretty obvious. In short, God was saying, “Follow me, and treat each other well.” If they could master that, they’d have a home in no time.

“Oh, great,” said Moses. “This will be no problem.” And he took this blueprint for the foundation of God’s city and brought it to the people. And the people smiled widely, because they, too, thought it would be so simple.

But the problem was, while the commandments seemed very easy, they were actually surprisingly difficult. And they are difficult because none of us are quite as good as we should be. We all want to be better than we actually are. We make mistakes. We’re mean, or untruthful, or say bad things — even though we don’t want to and wish we hadn’t. Even though we know we shouldn’t. Even though we know other people shouldn’t. Still, we hurt people we love. Even when we try really hard not to. We say things that are rude and bad and ugly for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes because we’re tired. Sometimes because we’re hungry. And always because we’re human.

And the family of Jacob was just like us. They were imperfect. They tried to worship God, but they would get distracted by things like gold or money or food or other people, and they would forget all about him. So then they tried to be kind and honest to other people, but they failed at that, too. They were mean to each other. They forgot about God all of the time and followed other people, other leaders, and their own ambitions. They stole, and lied, and were jealous. Children screamed at their parents when they didn’t want to leave the playground. Parents lost their tempers. People even fought and killed each other. Before long, they had messed up all ten of the commandments. And everyone was so embarrassed to be so bad at keeping such simple rules.

And maybe that was what God was trying to show the family of Jacob: they were not as good as they ought to be. They had a lot to learn. But when they failed, God did not give up. Instead, he gave Moses some new laws for his city. But these laws were very different from the first ten. Instead of being obvious but hard to do, these new laws were not obvious at all and were much easier to do.

God told the people to plant food, but then not harvest all of it. They had to leave some food behind so others could pick it for themselves, even though these people hadn’t planted it or paid for it. If they wanted it, they could get it for free.

And this was very confusing. Why give food away? Who will buy food if they can get it for free? “God,” they said, “you are going to make us all poor!”

Then God told them that every seven years they should stop planting food and just let the ground grow whatever it wanted. And they should forgive all debts, anything anyone owed them. But if the land grew whatever it wanted, it would grow weeds! No one wants to eat weeds. And who will pay a debt if they can just wait a few years to have it forgiven?

Then God told them to return any land they had bought every fifty years. “God,” the people cried again, “Enough! This is a very crazy economic system! We will never be able to make a living if we are always giving our food away, or giving our land back, or not even planting any food on it. We have no doubt that you are great and powerful, but maybe you don’t know very much about farming. How about you leave the farming to us.”

But God had created the dirt and the seeds. And he was telling the people that the world does not work the way they imagine. Gold will not save you. Crops will not always grow. The dirt is not your servant. The poor deserve food. All people are free. And everyone should be treated like a friend, even if they aren’t from around here. Because everyone in the world is your neighbor. Even if they live far away. Nothing is quite as it seems.

And even though they were strange, illogical, bizarre laws with scary implications, the people found that they could follow these laws much easier than the first ten. And as they lived the laws, they began to see the world differently. And they began to see each other differently, not as competitors, but as sisters and brothers. They were a family. And the only way for a family to succeed is to help each other.

It was different and scary to see the world this way. But it gave them a glimpse of a possibility. Maybe if they followed these laws long enough, they would be ready to try the first ten commandments again. And maybe this time, they’d do it. The people would be less tired and less hungry and lose their tempers less often and respect their parents more and remember God always. Because maybe, just maybe, they were better than they feared. And they could be a little less human if the world they lived in were a little more divine.

To purchase a hard copy of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, visit ForLittleSaints.com

To access the complete audiobook of The Bible Storybook: The Old Testament, become a Friend of Faith Matters by subscribing at FaithMatters.org/subscribe.

Sex With Soul

Jennifer Finlayson-Fife — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 19:42:10 GMT

What if the path to deeper spirituality isn’t through resisting your sexuality—but through more fully embracing it?

For many Latter-day Saints, sexual intimacy is experienced as a pleasant pastime, a bargaining chip, a well of shame, a source of frustration—or even a necessary evil. Far less understood is its potential to be something much more: a source of deep joy, spiritual transcendence, and communion with another soul.

In her new book, That We Might Have Joy, Jennifer Finlayson-Fife provides an honest, in-depth look at how sexual intimacy acts as both diagnosis and cure for what ails modern marriage, and a meaningful invitation to create something richer and more connected. Sexuality is not as a threat to faith, but a pathway toward it. Sexual intimacy can reveal the truth of a relationship—and for those willing to confront that truth, it can become the starting point for something far more soul-sustaining.

Join us for a conversation about Jennifer’s new book and about how to achieve greater integrity—within our marriages, our faith, and ourselves.

WHEN

APRIL 23, 2026 6PM

WHERE

31 Vinal Ave, Somerville, MA

PARTICIPANTS

Jennifer Finlayson-Fife is a therapist, educator, and coach with a doctorate in Counseling Psychology. For over two decades, she has helped individuals and couples—particularly within the LDS community—strengthen their relationships and develop a more integrated view of sexuality. Through her online courses, live workshops, and Room for Two podcast, she has supported the emotional and sexual development of thousands. Known for her clarity, compassion, depth, and humor, Dr. Finlayson-Fife is a sought-after voice on the topics of faith, intimate relationships, and personal growth.

Zachary Davis is the Executive Director of Faith Matters, the Editor of Wayfare Magazine, and a co-founder and director at Organized Intelligence. He is also the host of the podcasts Article 13, Writ Large, and Ministry of Ideas. He is the recipient of two John Templeton Foundation grants. He is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and Brigham Young University and lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with his wife, Mariya and their three children.

BUY BOOK

Jeff Strong & Joseph Grenny: What to Say When Your Kid Leaves the Church

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 18:42:40 GMT

Today we’re asking: what do you do when someone you love tells you they’re leaving the Church? What do you say? How do you stay grounded and connected when the stakes feel high or you’re caught off guard?

We sat down with two longtime friends of the podcast—authors and researchers Joseph Grenny and Jeff Strong—to explore these high-stakes moments when someone is ready to talk about their shifting faith.

Drawing on research from over 500 real-life conversations about faith transitions, Joseph and Jeff uncover something both surprising and sobering: statistically, it’s devout parents and church leaders who are most likely to miss the mark in these conversations.

They suggest this isn’t about a lack of love or sincerity—but consequences of a very natural response to fear. Jeff and Joseph call it a TUI—talking under the influence. When the amygdala takes over, stress floods the system, and the thinking brain goes offline. What looks like a communication problem is actually a chemical one, and even the most well-intentioned among us can say things that damage relationships for years.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Today, Joseph and Jeff show us how to recognize when we’re under the influence, how to pause before we cause harm, and how to come back grounded and clear—so that we can choose connection over control, curiosity over fear.

With General Conference and Easter this weekend—seasons that bring families together and open the door naturally, to these conversations—we hope this episode reminds you that you’re not alone, and that these hard moments, can become the fertile ground for relationships that are deeper, more honest, and more connected than they were before.

STUDY “COME FOLLOW ME” WITH FAITH MATTERS

GIVE WAYFARE ISSUE 7 FOR MOTHER’S DAY

Give a gift subscription to Wayfare this week to be sure it arrives in time for Mother’s Day! Get a peek inside the issue here:

Lower Lights In-Person Gathering | Wednesday, April 8th | 7:30-9 pm | Salt Lake City, UT

Most of us are a little lonely, even in a crowd.

We long to be truly known — and yet something in us resists it. To be seen is to risk being rejected. To open ourselves is to expose our most tender places. So we keep a careful distance, even from the people and the divine presence we most want to draw near.

In spiritual life, we name this honestly: we are ambivalent about intimacy. And then, we move into a greater vulnerability anyway.

On April 8th, we invite you to join us at Bell Hall — in song, in meditation, and in authentic contact with each other. To risk seeing others, and being seen in turn.

Love,

Thomas

OPPORTUNITY TO SUPPORT A FAITH MATTERS VOLUNTEER

What ordinary, extraordinary work is God doing in my life?

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 18:38:28 GMT

Brooke Bowen, “Heavenly Mother Feeding Manna to Her Children”

The Lord can do a “great work” in my life.

On the other hand in the Bible and Book of Mormon human beings are presented in the ways that most of us feel, day to day: struggling, frustrated, well-intentioned but flawed, determined but acutely aware of our own frailties. Moses protests that he cannot possibly do what God asks of him. Nephi obsesses about his failures. Mary confesses she cannot possibly imagine how God’s promise to save humanity is possible.
But in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon what we might call “religion” is something that God instigates. In scripture, religion is something that God does rather than something human beings do. Instead, God reaches out. God seeks humanity. The main character of the Bible is not Adam or Moses or Paul; the main character is God. The main character of the Book of Mormon is not Nephi or Alma or Mormon; it is God. The main character in Christianity is not us; it is God. And the point for human beings is not that we need to work harder on personal self-improvement; it is that we need to understand the world of justice and mercy that God is creating around us.

—Matthew Bowman, “Fruit on a Barren Tree”

The Lord can make bitter things sweet.

To be clear, my most foundational theological belief is this: God will never cause or condone suffering. Yet, since we exist as eternal beings in an oppositional universe, this is my secondary and nearly as resolute conviction: Our Heavenly Parents can consecrate suffering they do not cause or condone. Thus, while we are never meant needlessly to remain party to suffering, yet we can always trust that God will raise a phoenix, even from our darkest ashes. That light will make its way into and finally illuminate even what may initially seem to be the loneliest, scariest, and seemingly most impenetrable darkness.
God is light; and light finds a way.

—Tyler Johnson, “This is Grace”

He atoned for the world and yet, when I willingly enter that space I find it’s always one-on-one. The bitter cup he chose not to shrink away from is the totality of all the suffering experienced by humankind. I have found meaning and connection with Christ by visualizing how my current individual experience fits within that eternal totality. He is beside me to experience my moment of suffering with me. There, Jesus shows me how to pass through my mortal experience with dignity and grace, and not shrink from it. I imagine He and I softly clanking our bitter cups together before we take the first sorrowful sip.

—Chey Rasmussen, “Gethsemane in the Temple”

Fortunately, while disobedience temporarily compromises our access to experiences of God’s love or his inspiration, we can never put ourselves entirely beyond their reach. I know in my disobedience I still felt God’s love. Maybe I didn’t call it that, but it was still there in the joy of laughter with friends, in the sounds of seagulls and the smell and sights of a low tide on the Long Island Sound where I lived, the pleasure of music, or in the warmth of a family dinner or a wrestle with my dad. My personal experience with life’s goodness drew me back to God. After all, our very existence here is the fruit of this love. His love is not carefully budgeted; God is a spendthrift of lovingkindness. It falls outside of anything we devise to contain it. It is so abundantly available to us, it takes no more than a glance to find it in the most ordinary experiences or the most ordinary objects.

—George B. Handley, “Obedience as Gratitude”

The Lord offers me daily spiritual nourishment.

Heaven is like manna—it can only be savored on its chosen day because this portion of manna will never exist again. My youngest son will never be eight years, three months, and twenty-one days old again. Soon, he will pass through that imperceptible portal where it is no longer a thing to hold dad’s hand while he drifts to sleep, and, once that has happened, this tableau will be lost for all eternity—to be replaced, forever in an ongoing evolution, with whatever tomorrow’s manna will be, by whatever new tableau I will then need to learn to slow down to savor.

—Tyler Johnson, “This is Grace”

When hope in outcomes begins to feel dangerous—when it has the potential to become a downward spiral of worry and despair—looking for evidence of the Gardener has become a lifeline. As the Savior prayed, “Give us this day our daily bread,” I ask for sustenance and strength for today. Then, like the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings, I look for manna—or green peppers—for the echo of God’s presence. As I find the echo, the ashes of my bold hopes scatter with the wind where they nourish a garden sanctified in suffering and a new, gentle hope.

—LeAnne Bingham Hansen, “The Night Is Coming On”

I’ve stopped focusing on the Jesus who will come into my future and have started focusing on His coming into my present. The lines between a religious life and an everyday one blur. My search for a life in Christ requires a new kind of seeking and an entirely different orientation to my works. Works stop being a way to carry me into future grace and start being a way to orient me to present grace.
…I’m inspired by those who have shown me how this is possible. The Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren describes something similar in her book Liturgy of the Ordinary. Liturgy is not a word Latter-day Saints use frequently, but it refers to religious rituals and habits such as the sacrament or daily prayers. Warren explores the idea that the common daily liturgies of making our bed, brushing our teeth, or checking our email can be opportunities for practicing holiness. They can be practiced as liturgies to experience God in even the most mundane tasks.
In addition to the many chore-like daily routines, a more intentional motherhood has often involved reaching for what lights my children up. With my Minecraft-loving son, that might mean some stumbling around in the game. With my math-loving son, that could mean learning about the Fibonacci sequence and how its mathematical patterns show up in nautilus shells and galaxies. Too often I’m cluelessly going through motherhood, not paying attention. But my experience changes when I reach for connection with my children through the things they love. I bring God into the dance.
…Embracing these moments leads me to God in the here and now. In all the works I do, from math, to raising children, to taking the sacrament, to belting Queen, I can live more fully in relationship with Christ. I can stop living a severed life. I can learn that life in Christ has been the natural state of affairs all along.
We have a divine and willing partner.
And an invitation to join the dance.

—Hannah Packard Crowther, Gracing

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

The prayerful one promised bread like seeds
feathering on dusts of wild Sin, where wisps
of lowly morning water held God’s glory
in their mist. Here, child, mother said, go find pearls
of honey before they melt beneath the candle sun
—bright till late when even comes, hot while whirls
of coveys run. Have you forgotten? God can grow
flocks of quail from stone in single turns of earth,
will try our optimism with daily acts of sacred birth.
We tasted meat with manna, bit feathered flesh while
grinding colors from the seeds, baking cakes to turn
sweetness into fresh oil without a single olive tree.
Have you forgotten? Who God creates, God sustains
and we must keep for generations the seeds we have
been rained. I prayed to know my own mete hunger,
testing fullness as I ate. Here, child, I told my daughter,
plan what to ask from Heaven’s plate. Know you the needs
you call your own? Trust you the seeds you pleaded sown?
The prayerful one promised God our eyes, gazing up
into the clouds, and I promised God my words until
the heavens all fall down. Then song, then dance, then surer
faith until the mountains all but drown, and up on ridges
kin will gather to watch the dew again disperse. I’ll pray
for you to see your manna, child, flooding this universe.

—Manna’s Child, by Fleur Van Woerkom

Jesus Christ is my spiritual rock and living water.

The River from the Temple

2 years ago · 8 likes · Kelsi Folsom

Disciples help each other “bear the burden” of doing the Lord’s work.

But there are not two Churches and I am not divided. There is one Church, and I claim it as my own, ashamed of what is shameful and proud of what is praiseworthy. My loyalty does not arise out of a calculation that the pros outweigh the cons, but out of reciprocity. In addition to the gift of Christ’s atonement, which he gives freely to all, I owe a debt to my sisters and brothers. Fellow Latter-day Saints have taught me to want to be good, protected me from danger, and helped make real the things I wanted to be true but could not see.

—Melissa Inouye, “A Church That Is Real”

While it is not our place to determine the revelatory direction the Church will take, it is our place to hope, and it is our place to make those hopes known—especially to our priesthood leaders. We can look forward to a day when women and men more completely and effectively partner in the work of salvation. Even without knowing precisely how we will arrive at this better place, I believe that longing, hoping, and praying for such a day—and being candid about those hopes, especially in consecrated conversations with our priesthood leaders—is a powerful way that those of us who serve “out in the periphery” of the body of Christ can hasten the day when women are more fully empowered to fully partner in bringing about the Lord’s vision of Zion.

—Tyler Johnson, “A Church for All of Us”

Terryl Givens: The God Who Waits

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 13:35:07 GMT

We live in a world that prizes activity: being productive, staying in control, always doing something. So when life brings seasons of waiting—through illness, loss, or circumstances we didn’t choose—it can feel unsettling, even threatening to our sense of self. But what if those seasons are actually inviting us into a deeper understanding of God?

Today, we’re joined by Terryl Givens to explore an extraordinary book called The Stature of Waiting by W.H. Vanstone. Vanstone noticed something hiding in plain sight in the gospel accounts of the last week of Jesus’s life. Up until a certain moment, Jesus is the one acting—teaching, healing, feeding, leading. And then, almost imperceptibly, the grammar of the story shifts. He is no longer the one doing, but the one to whom things are done. He is handed over. He waits. He receives. And Vanstone suggests this isn’t a tragic turn in the story—it’s its deepest revelation.

Terryl and Fiona introduced many of us to the God who weeps in Moses 7. In Vanstone, we meet that same vulnerable God again—this time, waiting. And we ask what it means to follow that God in how we love, how we age, how we suffer, and how we let ourselves be carried.

We hope that as you move through Holy Week this year, this conversation helps see the face of God in the most vulnerable moments of the Easter story — and in your own.

Descent from the Cross, Brian Kershisnik

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OPPORTUNITY TO SUPPORT A FAITH MATTERS VOLUNTEER

Remembering Christ as Our Deliverer

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 20:27:32 GMT

Art by Hans Thoma.

I can choose to soften my heart.

I wondered about faithful believers, my kin in pain, for whom hope is treacherous—who suffer mistreatment at work, church, in families, or on missions—who boldly pray for deliverance, and then are left to “hope” God will soften the hearts of their persecutors. But what if the tormentors choose not to be changed by God? How can we pray when our peace is riven by the agency of some other person? Or by the circumstances of mortality? What about the prayers of those who are fighting cancer? Or infertility? Or loneliness? How do they pray when a remission doesn’t come, again? Or a pregnancy ends, or doesn’t even begin? When we are suffering, and hope is exhausting?
My wrestle with hope required a paradigm shift—a way to preserve faith in God’s goodness while I placed my hopes and desires on the altar and grieved. During this process, I read the third chapter of Mormon with new eyes. Here, Mormon seems to have experienced a shift as he loved and led his people, who were devolving individually and as a nation. He lamented, “My soul had been poured out in prayer unto my God all the day long for them; nevertheless, it was without faith, because of the hardness of their hearts” (Morm. 3:12). I had read this in the past and wondered at Mormon’s reaction. Didn’t he know that faith is to be centered in Jesus Christ? But with the lens of my own pain, I wondered if he, too, was experiencing a paradigm shift. What if he’d assumed that God would be able to change the people if Mormon believed hard enough? Perhaps he was wrestling with what faith is, and whether hope is always present in tandem. Roughly thirteen years passed as Mormon watched the Nephite and Lamanite armies retake and lose multiple times, in a bloody loop, the city Desolation (what tragic irony!). However, Mormon seemed to have laid his hopes for the repentance of his people upon the altar, where they were consumed. Later Mormon writes that he was “without hope” (Morm. 5:2). But I wondered if, in surrendering hope in a specific outcome, he found his faith.

—Leanne Bingham Hansen, “The Night is Coming On”

The Sacrament of Attention

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” —Simone Weil, Letter to Joë Bousquet, 13 April 1942…

3 years ago · 80 likes · 5 comments · Michael Austin

Jesus Christ can save me because of His Atonement.

How does Jesus’s atonement work? How are we saved by grace? What role do human works play? In this episode of Meet the Early-day Saints, Dr. Cecilia M. Peek takes us back to the early days of Christianity to take a look at these questions again. She also lays out different ways Christians understood Jesus’s saving work–from illuminator, to restorer, to victor, to victim and sacrifice:

Meet the Early-day Saints Episode 9: Atonement and Grace, with Cecilia M. Peek

3 years ago · 4 likes · Blair Hodges and Cecilia Peek

At age four, I attended my first funeral. I was very confused about death and what it was, but my mother explained to me that everybody dies and gets buried in the ground, and we don’t see them anymore. Then she reassured me that it was all okay because Christ died for us a long time ago and then came back to life, and now we will all (even my great-uncle Leon, lying in front of me in a casket) come back to life.
This is the first Atonement lesson I can remember, and I spent the entire year after that asking my mom over and over again when my Uncle Leon would come back to life. I thought I understood what Christ had done for me, but my understanding was as if I had seen a single picture of an oak tree and then declared that I understood the forest.
The Atonement is difficult to comprehend. Since that first lesson, I have had many more lessons and conversations about the Atonement with family members, teachers, friends, missionary companions, and the Spirit itself. And sometimes I feel like I am still four years old, trying to wrap my head around a concept I don’t have the capacity to understand. It is difficult to comprehend something that is infinite and eternal while also being both intensely personal and full of enabling power, but I want to try. I want to do all I can to understand the Atonement so that I can fully appreciate my Savior and access the miracles he has made possible.
I believe Christ has performed the Atonement, but faith is not the same thing as understanding. My faith has grown through personal, powerful experiences of heavenly love. My understanding has only come through stories.

- Chanel Earl, “Atonement, Metaphor, and Fairy Stories”

Explore further through Chanel Earl’s Atonement and Fairy Story Series

The sacrament helps me remember my deliverance through Jesus Christ.

It’s a ritual I’ve been participating in for longer than I can remember. Sunday arrives. My wife and I arrive at the chapel. We shake hands. We tousle a few Sunbeams’ hair. We’re happy to be here. We sit. We sing. We pray. Then the main event:
Bread first: break, bless, pass, eat.
Water second: bless, pass, drink.
Repeat weekly. It’s a simple routine. It’s all over in a matter of minutes. I’m as guilty as the next person of sometimes just going through the motions. But though I’ve taken the sacrament more times than I can count during my lifetime, lately it’s taken on new meaning for me. It’s become anything but routine.
…
In truth, healing is exactly what Christ is offering to each of us every week as we receive the sacrament. But we have to want it. We have to yearn for it. We have to reach from deep down inside of us and bring forth our brokenness, believing that He will receive our broken selves and heal us. This requires faith. It requires focus, as much focus as was present in this suffering woman. Our brains get distracted and wander so easily. The cares of the world seep in so effortlessly. Our shame and guilt beg to stay hidden even from ourselves.

- Brent Croxton, “The Outstretched Hand”

Learning how big and beautiful and shared the world is, I try to share myself and my family more—to open myself to receive the grace God has to offer me. During sacrament meeting, I no longer try to contain my children to our pew (except during the sacrament itself). I let my baby wander the aisles. She shares her Cheerios and steals applesauce pouches and sits on the lap of a childless man in our ward. I tell my son, we are Heavenly Father’s and Heavenly Mother’s children, so we are all family. We can trust our family to help take care of our baby. We can trust our family to take care of us.

—Lindsey Meservey, “‘All Things Common’ Among the Courtyard”

James Goldberg’s Tales of the Chelm First Ward is a collection of fictional stories set in a Latter-day Saint ward in the imagined town of Chelm—a nod to Jewish folklore and the famous “village of fools.” The humor in the book is wonderfully absurd, but beneath the silliness is something powerful and profound. Enjoy this short story from the book about Passover:

The Blind Beggar's Passover Feast

On the first night of Passover, all the families in the Chelm ward held seders in their homes, but on the last night, they gathered to the meetinghouse to enjoy the beggar’s largesse. Zusa Cohen came along with her grandparents to see what was happening. And oh, what a feast their new people prepared! With help from Heschel’s eager eyes, Lazar the blind…

2 years ago · 6 likes · James Goldberg, Nicole Wilkes Goldberg, and Mattathias Singh (he/him)

The Lord has power over all things.

22. The Freedom Plan (Exodus 5-15)

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 22:00:50 GMT

Exodus 12:51 And on that very day the LORD brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. (ESV)

Moses was on a mission from God to save the family of Jacob from slavery, but he was not alone. His brother Aaron stood by his side. They were going to try and intimidate Pharaoh into submission by marching right up to him and puffing out their chests and saying with all the power they could muster, “Let our people go! Or else…”

But Pharaoh wasn’t impressed. And so he simply replied, “No, I prefer not to.”

That was disappointing. And so Moses and Aaron tried to trick Pharaoh. “When we said let our people go, we just meant let us go on a little retreat in the desert. I think we’ve worked long and hard enough over the last couple of hundred years that we’re due for a vacation. What do you say?”

Of course, Moses didn’t plan to bring the people back after their long weekend. They were just going to keep on going, and run away, and never come back. But Pharaoh must have guessed what they wer…

Are You My Neighbor? An episode of Article 13

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 13:26:41 GMT

From time to time we like to share episodes from other shows in the Faith Matters network that we think you’ll really love, and today we’re highlighting one of our new favorites from Article 13, the podcast hosted by Zach Davis.

If you haven’t discovered it yet, Article 13 is one of the most beautifully produced things Faith Matters does. The title comes from the thirteenth Article of Faith and that really captures the spirit of seeking that you’ll experience in these episodes. These are rich, deeply researched explorations that bring together cutting-edge scholarship and spiritual wisdom to ask big questions about how we live.

In today’s episode, drawing on research from thinkers like Seth Kaplan and Pete Davis, we hear a compelling case that one of the central challenges of our time is a growing fear of commitment.

Our culture tells us that the best life is the one where we keep our options open. But the irony is that the things that make life richest—friendships, tight-knit neighborhoods, shared projects, belonging—become possible when we choose to commit to one another. Real, rooted, showing-up-again-and-again community.

Even though our tradition is built around covenant relationships, we’re living in the same cultural waters that pull toward busyness, mobility, and individualism.

This episode is both a diagnosis and an invitation. It’s full of ideas and stories that might make you want to knock on a neighbor’s door, join something local, or start something in your own community.

We hope it sends you back to your people—your neighbors, your ward, your community—with a little more fire.

And with that, here’s Article 13.

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SUBSCRIBE TO WAYFARE NOW TO RECEIVE ISSUE 7

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Creating a Rule of Life: The True Monastery is Within

OPPORTUNITY TO SUPPORT A FAITH MATTERS VOLUNTEER

NEW COURSE FROM THOMAS MCCONKIE AND LOWER LIGHTS

One Heart One Mind

We’re excited to share that registration is now open for our Rule of Life course—a 5-week exploration in creating a deep and authentic spiritual rhythm for daily living…

2 months ago

Wayfare Issue 7 coming soon!

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:25:40 GMT

Dear Friends,

We’re delighted to announce Wayfare Issue 7: TRUST. In addition to the beautiful essays, stories, and poems you’ve come to expect at Wayfare, in Issue 7 you’ll also find featured essays and art produced from a collaboration with McArthur Krishna and Amy Watkins Jensen’s Sovereign Women Project. In this collaboration, writers and artists explore how exercising sacred agency empowers all of Zion to trust both our Heavenly Parents and our personal discernment.

Wayfare paid subscribers and Friends of Faith Matters receive beautifully bound copies of the magazine. Become a paid subscriber or Friend of Faith Matters by May 10 to receive this issue in the mail! Your support will help us pay our writers, artists, editors, and the cost of printing and shipping. These print volumes are gorgeous and inspiring objects, worth holding in the hand and keeping for generations. Take advantage of a 20% discount on an annual Wayfare print subscription!

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ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS

Here are four featured essays you can read now:

This essay appeared in Wayfare issue 7…

Envying Hannah

4 days ago · Deidre Nicole Green

Please enjoy this sneak peak from Wayfare Issue 7: TRUST, featuring many women’s voices among its beautiful essays. Issue 7 will make a perfect Mother’s Day gift! Give a gift subscription now for 20% off and we’ll send your loved one Issue 7 and every subsequent print issue for a 12-month period. Email info@faithmatters.org if you have any questions abo…

Empty

7 days ago · 18 likes · 4 comments · Darlene Young

The Final Resting Place of Self

Please enjoy a sneak peak of this Issue 7 essay by Kristen Blair, where she explores the spiritual impact of false notions of the independent self, and proposes a truer model of being. Read the whole essay and receive your own print copy of this special issue by becoming a print subscriber today for 20% off…

a month ago · 15 likes · Kristen Blair

A History of Trust in God

Teresa Morgan is the McDonald Agape Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Yale Divinity School. In this interview, Morgan and Wayfare Editor Zachary Davis discussed how ideas of faith and trust have evolved in Christianity…

2 months ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Teresa Morgan

And below are a few of the spreads. We can’t wait for you to hold the issue in your hands!

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Help support Nicki Williams!

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 22:19:01 GMT

Dear Faith Matters Friends,

This is Cay Cox, one of the long-time Restore volunteers. You may recognize our darling Nicki Williams, who has also been a volunteer every year since Restore began. She absolutely adores this Faith Matters Family! You are her people!

We are reaching out because Nicki needs our help. She is a single mom of six kids who has been battling colorectal cancer the last few years. It has spread to other places in her body, most recently as stage 4 terminal lung cancer.

Nicki is a nurse who has been unable to work for the past year, so finances are a constant worry. She recently has been talking about selling her home, which would be yet another loss for her and her kids. This is such a challenge for a woman who has always shown such beautiful self-reliance.

Instead of “fundraising,” we want to support her with a monthly “income” that would help provide for ongoing treatment costs and daily living expenses for her and her children. Please consider a monthly contribution for the next year to help fund Nicki’s Support Account. This could be as small as $5 a month or $100 or more. One-time donations are also welcome.

If we all join together to show our love and support, we can lift a huge burden from this precious family in their time of need. Nicki has given so much love and service to our Faith Matters community over the years. This is our opportunity to show our love and support back to her. Thank you for your kind and caring hearts.

Donate here

With Much Love,
Cay Cox

What does Christ's Resurrection offer? How can I find joy?

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 19:21:05 GMT

Detail of Empty Tomb, by Anne Cameron Cutri

Jesus Christ offers me peace and joy.

Before we can fully savor the victory of Easter, we must learn to let hard things have their own gravity, their own time and space. After all, before it was empty, the tomb was full.
The concrete reality of Jesus’s suffering matters because most of us will spend time—days, months, years, a lifetime—staring at our own unjust pain, our own unwarranted suffering, or our own empty and echoing moments of doubt. There will be periods where our best laid plans seem to come to naught or when our noblest efforts turn to ashes in our hands.
In those moments, we need to know that Jesus lived as a fully mortal man—subject to hunger, pain, longing, betrayal, and sadness. Then, we need to realize that the bleak sunset of Friday and the emptiness of Saturday were just as real as the victory of Easter Sunday. The reality of all that preceded the resurrection teaches us that when we feel abandoned, or betrayed, or alone, or forgotten, we are not the first to walk that road. By recognizing this reality, we can learn that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not an empty fairy tale filled with flimsy promises, but rather, the gospel is the guarantee from someone who also suffered terribly that light will vanquish darkness, that love will overcome enmity, and that hope will conquer despair.

—Tyler Johnson, “Dressing the Wounds of Jesus”

Because of His Atonement, Jesus Christ has the power to help me overcome sin, death, trials, and weaknesses.

Finally, as we celebrate Easter soon, I am brought to the scripture that stands for me as perhaps the most direct and beautiful argument for the centrality of empathy in both the character of divinity and in the pantheon of Christian virtues. I am deeply touched to know that when Jesus presents himself in his resurrected glory to the people gathered at the temple surrounded by physical devastation wrought in protracted and absolute darkness, he immediately focused their attention on the centrality and beauty of his vulnerability and his history of suffering. As a doctor who has examined hundreds or thousands of patients, I cannot easily move past the visceral impact and almost macabre specificity of Jesus’s invitation and the crowd’s response:
Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that we may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole Earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world. And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety.
What other course of action but this could have more indelibly impressed upon the hearts and minds of Jesus’s followers this message: God’s willing suffering is what makes Him God. He has come to a people whose world has just been riven by earthquakes and consumed by fire. They have endured impenetrable darkness so thick that it could be tasted, smelled, and rolled between their fingers. Thousands have died, and the cries of the wounded and dying lingered in that opacity while the living wondered if light would ever be restored. But then, the Being who finally returns light to the sky and who descends with healing in his wings does this one thing before the healing, before calling disciples, even before instituting the sacrament: he shows them that even in his resurrected glory, he has maintained the bodily reminders of the steep price of suffering he paid to gain his empathy—because that empathy is what makes him most fully God, and is the path he invites us to follow.

—Tyler Johnson, “Vulnerability, Finitude, and Community”

Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price for my salvation.