None but God heard my covenant

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Relief Society Session of the October 2002 Conference.

This week I've been thinking about being seen and unseen. One thing that sparked these thoughts was reading Elder Bednar's most recent talk about the quiet, unknown sacrifices of many ordinary members around the world—and how those sacrifices are not unknown to God! Sister Bonnie D. Parkin's talk from this Relief Society Session took up a similar theme:

As I think about you, I am reminded of Priscilla Staines from Wiltshire, England. Nineteen-year-old Priscilla joined the Church in 1843. Alone. She had to steal away in the night to be baptized, because of the persecutions of her neighbors and the displeasure of her family. She wrote: “We waited until midnight … and then repaired to a stream of water a quarter of a mile away. Here we found the water … frozen over, and the elder had to chop a hole in the ice large enough for the purpose of baptism. … None but God and his angels, and the few witnesses who stood on the bank with us, heard my covenant; but in the solemnity of that midnight hour it seemed as though all nature were listening, and the recording angel writing our words in the book of the Lord.

Her words “None but God and his angels … heard my covenant” touch my soul, for like Priscilla—no matter our age, our gospel knowledge, our time in the Church—we are all women of covenant.…

Making covenants is the expression of a willing heart; keeping covenants, the expression of a faithful heart.

Sounds so simple on paper, doesn’t it? Of course, the doing is where we prove who we really are. Thus, every time we reach out with love, patience, kindness, generosity, we honor our covenants by saying, “Here am I; send me.” Usually we speak these words softly, unaccompanied by brass bands.

Here is the tiniest of tiny examples. It's a little embarrassing to even tell it. But we just barely moved into a new church building. A new stake was created near us that has no buildings within its boundaries, and so we were moved out of our usual building (just two blocks away from my house) and moved to our stake center so the new stake could have the whole building for their stake center. Now, you have to understand—our new building, while not as close as the old one, is still only about a five minute drive away. But…the old building was so easy! So nice! It only took a minute to walk over to church, or send the kids over for activities, or run back if you forgot something—I just loved being so close. 

In the new building, things will be marginally less simple. That's all. But I know it would be silly to be upset about it, and I haven’t been upset. I’ve been reminding my kids we should be so grateful for a building so close, and that people in other places often have to drive for long distances to church, and it would be so selfish and so entitled if we were to complain even a little bit about this change! We’re so blessed to even have a church building at all. And this emphasis is basically what everyone else in leadership has been giving too—expecting us not to complain, reminding us how privileged we are, and expecting everyone to just take it in stride and be grateful for what we have. As we should!

But this is the interesting part. Last Sunday the stake president was speaking in our ward, and he was saying how he knows it’s been a little disruptive to have to move buildings, and that it’s sad not to be in the one right next to our all of our houses anymore. And then he just said simply, “Thank you for your sacrifice.”

And it was just interesting because before, I didn't even call it a sacrifice in my own mind, because I told myself, “This is such a small thing, it’s not a sacrifice.” And I felt like Heavenly Father would think it was so stupid and ungrateful if I saw it like that. But somehow, when the Stake President spoke those words I felt such warmth and joy inside. To have God's representative for our stake acknowledge and thank us for our sacrifice—even such a small sacrifice—felt so good! 

I think it's because compared to what Jesus does for us, and how much Heavenly Father gives us, nothing is really that much of a sacrifice. Jesus could rightfully say to all of us, "Ha! You think THAT is hard? It's nothing!" But he doesn't. He "loves effort," and I can imagine Him saying to our tiny efforts, just like my Stake President—"Thank you! Thank you for swallowing that rude retort. Thank you for getting up a little earlier than you wanted to for scripture study. Thank you for letting your son have the last piece of cake. Thank you for going to church when you had a headache. Thank you for your sacrifice."

And of course, we all make bigger sacrifices too. Things that actually are hard, that are wrenching and painful and terrifying. Sometimes no one sees those either. Sometimes we can't even talk about them. But that's exactly why I think it was so touching to me to think that God saw, appreciated, and approved of my tiniest little sacrifice. Because if he sees that, he must see all of the things—everything hard that I do or try to do because I love Him, because I'm trying to keep my covenants, because I want to become like Him someday. To go back to what Sister Parkin said (and Elder Bednar too), even when no one else knows it—God knows, sees, and honors every effort to keep our covenants. And realizing that makes me want to do even better at keeping them!