Home Taught

In our church, when a guy reaches a certain age, they move him up to a group called the High Priests. They kind of try to make it feel like a promotion or something, but really it is just a nice way of saying a guy is getting old. When you become a high priest, you can get a whole lot more scary church callings, and your home teachers change. Dan got put into High Priests about a year ago, and then we got new home teachers. Murry and Fred. Fred is a very kind older gentleman with hearing loss, so when he gives the lesson, we just listen and he tells us stories. He just brought us some big bags of grapes and apples from his yard. Murry is younger, not too far ahead of Dan, lives just down the street from us, and is the dad/stepdad to several kids about the same ages as Alisa, Duncan and Will. They have been the most diligent home teachers we have ever had, and for the past year have made faithful monthly visits to our home to check on our family and give us a lesson. They were just at our home, a week ago Sunday.

Last night, Murry was life flighted to a hospital in Ogden. Tonight he is on life support, and tomorrow, barring a miracle, his family will turn off the life support and say goodbye.

Will asked me tonight if I thought God ever tried to stop bad things from happening. I'm sure this question stemmed from his thoughts about Murry. Duncan too, is having a hard time. It's a tough realization that bad things can happen unexpectedly to anybody. The fact that Murry has kids their age has brought this all home for them.

I told Will that I don't believe God stops things bad things from happening. I believe He could, but I just don't think He does, because this is what we signed up for. I think He cushions our falls as much as He can, and I'm sure He grieves with us when we hurt. And I think He watches to see what good we can make come out of the bad things. So we'll say a prayer for our neighbors tonight, and say thanks, that no matter what else is going on in our family, at least we are all here together for one more day.