Sunday Reflections

Every Sunday morning I express gratitude to Heavenly Father for a Sabbath Day during which I do not have to think about yard work, or do laundry, pay bills, or blow out the garage. And I always pray that my spirit will be lifted and sensitive to the whisperings of the Holy Ghost. Yet some Sundays are better than others-- some seem very long and lonely to me, uninspiring, and yes, even boring! Of late, I've been taking inventory at the end of the sabbath to find at least one thing that left an impression of consequence. Here is what I thought was special about yesterday. . .

In Relief Society we talked about the last two days of Christ's life. Knowing what was ahead of him, he could have been caught up in preparing a defense for himself, but he went about doing the important things he still needed to do. One of those was to institute the sacrament. As we talked about the sacrament my friend shared something that has come back to my mind multiple times since she shared it. Jolyne suffers from an illness that has caused her entire digestive system to stop functioning. She has not had any food or liquid by mouth since forever ago. Okay, for at least 20 years. For eight or ten hours a day she is infused with TPN (a liquid nutrient) delivered through a port into a central line directly into her blood stream. Sometimes we talk together about what it is like to sit at a table and watch others eating the foods that you used to love and enjoy. Food is an incredibly big part of all friendship and society!

Jolyne comes to Relief Society as often as she is physically able, but the schedule of her meds does not allow her to come to sacrament meeting. Every Sunday afternoon, two priests and one of their priesthood leaders go to Jolyne's home where they bless and pass the sacrament to her. She said, "You know, I can only eat a crumb of bread and one drop of water. Perhaps you might think that would not warrant the effort to bring the sacrament to me each week, but the physical act of partaking of the emblems is oh so precious to me."

The sacrament has always been a time for personal introspection and reflection for me. Listening to the sacrament prayers is a time to think about the baptismal promises I have made, but I hadn't quite thought about what a privilege it is to be able to eat the bread and drink the water that represent the physical sacrifice the Lord made for me. I am looking forward to the next opportunity I will have to partake of the sacrament, which sadly for me is three weeks away (general conference and stake conference intervening). I'm grateful that from time to time something just a little out of the ordinary takes the "ordinary" out of something that has become very common to us.