This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Young Women's Session of the April 2001 Conference.
I've been trying to bear my testimony more often. Not in Fast and Testimony meeting (not that I'm opposed to doing it there, though I don't very often)—but just in regular life. Trying not to edit myself out of bringing up my faith and testimony when it makes sense to share it, trying to lean in to actually saying the deep and real reasons why I do what I do in life.
Most of all, I'm trying harder to share testimony with my children, in conversations and quiet moments. I started out as a mother with a deep aversion to coercion and manipulation. I didn't ever want to use my testimony to control or induce guilt in a child. But I think in fearing that, I perhaps leaned too far the other way, emphasizing secular arguments when I should have emphasized spiritual ones. Anyway, I am trying to remedy that now.
Sister Margaret D. Nadauld quoted Elder Holland in her talk about the Holy Ghost, and I loved this quote in context of my testimony-sharing efforts:
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland teaches that when we bear our testimony to others, they “are not only hearing our testimony of Christ, but they are hearing echoes of other, earlier testimonies, including their own testimony of Him,” for they were among the valiant who chose Christ and chose to follow Him over Satan in the premortal life. Elder Holland says, “When they hear others bear that witness of [Christ’s] saving mission, it has a familiar feeling; it brings an echo of truth they themselves already know.” Furthermore, when you bear testimony of Christ’s mission, “you invoke the power of God the Father and the Holy Ghost.” … My dear young sisters, work to gain a testimony of Christ’s mission. It will come to you by the power of the Holy Ghost. Then share your testimony and bear it often.
It's been a long time since I struggled with having a testimony. Not that I couldn't or won't, but I have had so many experiences with God's love and reality for myself that I don't even question it anymore. But I know being able to share it fearlessly (and knowing when and how) is the next step. So it's helpful to glimpse some of the blessings that will come when I do! I hadn't ever realized that sharing a testimony could awaken spiritual memories in another person, but this seems like an extremely comforting truth! It's all I want, in fact—for my children to remember who they really are, and to choose Jesus Christ as they already chose Him before this life!
Other posts in this series:
I love that quote from Holland so much! It just changes the way I feel about sharing truth when I think of it as just nudging remembrance of things their spirits already know! I remember once when Goldie was about ten reading her that quote from Elder Scott about us being prepared for every situation we would encounter in mortality. And I jokingly said something like “That seems a little funny to prepare us and then place a veil over our minds so we don’t remember anything!” And little Goldie said “But our spirits remember”. And I love that idea and of thinking of sharing truth as simply helping remind spirits.
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