In Memoriam Shauna Stoker Lunday

A few people asked me to send them my talk, I figured the easiest way was for me to send out one Link.

So here you go:

A Famous news commentator Tony Snow said the following after being diagnosed with Cancer.

“I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between ...”   Tony Snow

A Gardner Named Hugh B Brown, who also was a General Authority told the following story:

I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet (two meters) high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and clipped it back until there was nothing left but stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it and smiled and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush say this:

“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”

That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’”

Many of you are going to have very difficult experiences: disappointment, heartbreak, bereavement, defeat. You are going to be tested and tried. I just want you to know that if you don’t get what you think you ought to get, remember, God is the gardener here. He knows what He wants you to be. Submit yourselves to His will. Be worthy of His blessings, and you will get His blessings.

Yet even knowing that Gods purposes are more than ours does not remove the pain of suffering.  Even while Christ was suffering our sins in the Garden his pains were not taken from him, in fact that would have negated the entire action. 

                And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,

 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.

And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: band his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:41-44)

So it is with our pain and Shauna’s pain.  I cannot explain the actual inter-workings of how the atonement works any more than I can explain to you why Shauna has spent such a tough time the last few years.  Although our pain often is not removed, Angels stand nearby to bear us up as well.  And from what I have heard Shauna knew they were there as well.  Near the end she would even reach out to them.  Telling me that she knew them.  I can picture Aunt Florence, and Uncle John, and my dad, and Grandma Mair, and many others, being there to comfort her. 

I think everyone has been to that gulf of misery sometime during this life.  If you haven’t yet, it’s coming.  It is part of this mortal life.  The good comes with the bad.  Lehi taught us:

For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.  If not so… righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad…(2 Nephi 2:11)

But he never said there would be no comfort.  He never said that we would be left alone.  Jeremiah asked, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” (Jeremiah 8:22) When I study the book of Jeremiah, I sometimes wonder if his answer ever comes.  The record deals with a time in the history of the kingdom of god where there was rampant wickedness.  The descriptions of the time of Jeremiah are engulfed with sorrow, and destruction. 

It is later in the book of Jeremiah we read:

But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord: and thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid. For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee: because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 39:17-18)

These words were given while Jeremiah was in prison.  I have never been in prison.  I have never been through some of the experiences of Jeremiah, nothing I have experienced even comes close to what the Lunday family in general has gone through.  But sometimes I wonder, “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

A few years ago I felt like I too was going through trials.  Looking back my trials pale in comparison to Shauna’s, or many others in this life.  I was to be comforted by the spirit of the Lord.  I was alone working in New York.  I missed my wife and my family, but I had to be there to keep us afloat financially.  But I was falling into a deeper and deeper despair.  One night I went to the local Adult session of Stake conference, and since they were reorganizing their stake Elder Bedinar of the Twelve was there.  Of course I loved his talk, it was something he did at the end of the night that helped me.  He changed the closing hymn from whatever was scheduled to hymn #85 “How Firm a foundation” and asked us to sing all the verses.  He said we never sing the best part.  There is much that is good there, but I wanted to focus on one particular verse. 

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,

My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;

The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design

Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

It that last line that I am struck by when I think of Shauna.  I Love Shauna with all my heart.  She found ways to love everyone and we have heard many stories today to that fact.  She truly was precious as any gold ring, or gold necklaces. 

There is a story of how a man was watching a refiner of gold. The refiner kept turning up the heat, until at last, the curious onlooker asked him, “How long do you need to keep that fire burning?”

The refiner replied, “Until I can see my reflection in the gold.”

So in closing we will sing from Hymn # 85 “How Firm a Foundation.” But we will not sing the Verses we always sing in sacrament meeting.  If you would, let us sing from verse 3, Verse 5, and Verse 7.  And if you will notice this is one of the only Hymns that is written as if Christ is speaking to us directly.

I want to share my testimony that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real.  And that while a major purpose of it is to redeem us from our sins.  An outward growth of it is to strength us to live in this mortal life and the life beyond.