3 November 1999
Dear Natalie,
As happens so often, today my thoughts drift to you. I remember a smart, pretty girl, full of life and potential, she looked, spoke, and acted a lot like Ashley Noel does now. She taught her younger brothers and sisters how to read. She helped raise them. She grew up and became a wonderful woman. But growth and maturity comes at a cost. The rules of life say you can’t get there without paying the price. The greater the growth, the greater the payment required.
I’ve heard it said, and it seems quite reasonable, that our Father in Heaven never said that earth life would be easy, he simply said it would be worth it. Looking back over my years this statement rings true. Natalie, you’ve paid, you’ve learned, and you’ve grown.
Sometimes it’s easier to communicate in short declarative sentences. I would like to share a few simple, but powerfully felt thoughts with you: Natalie, I care intensely for you. I believe in you. I trust you. I respect and admire you. I love you. Would it help to read these brief statements again, this time more slowly? Natalie is there anything I could say to help you understand what I feel by just saying your name? Natalie, Natalie, the daughter of Christmas, the gift of your parent’s beginnings.
Recently I thought of a long rope extending out of sight in both directions. There was a small piece of ribbon tied in a knot around this infinitely long line. My mind spoke to me that the ribbon was a representation of our earth life, a small, but important marker in an infinite existence. The Gospel teaches us that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, not the other way around. Prophets and teachers from all over the world, during many periods of time and from many different religious disciplines, have sought inspiration and dared to seek answers to the world’s greatest questions: Who am I, Why am I here, Where did I come from, and Where am I going?
Thankfully, the Lord has seen fit that we may have answers to the great questions. And, consequently, many inspired men and women have found deeply satisfying resolution to life’s perplexing puzzles.
Natalie, deep in your soul you know how much I truly love and care for you. You have children, and you’ve experienced how they can play the strings of your heart so completely that you may sometimes find yourself embarrassed by tears when there is no reason to be crying. I cannot explain love, but I know it is real. I cannot address this intensity of experience with any kind of rational argument, but I have felt it move through me with great power. Just as I have felt the importance of family bonds. This life is indeed our testing ground. It is the place where we may grow, mature, and become, or live a life of self-centeredness, and never quite be happy because we are so wrapped up in ourselves that we cannot appreciate quiet beauty, the good, and the now.
Recently I again came across those two wonderful verses penned by the poet William Wordsworth in “Ode on Intimations of Immortality” and decided to memorize these lines:
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home.”
And now we are here, and faced with making choices, all day, every day. From the moment we get up to the last minute of the day we are deciding things. And the choices we make determine the quality of the life we live. All of us make some really good choices, and all of us make a lot of mediocre choices, and all too frequently, all of us make some hurtful, harmful, poor choices. The trick is to make less and less of the bad ones, and more and more, of the good ones. I think that’s what righteousness is, right choices made more often. Nothing weird or spooky spiritual, just choices based on being able to forgive others their bad choices based on goodness, caring, honesty, and love.
Natalie, I love you. I care about you. You are very special to me. You have such wonderful children, and it is clear that there is no greater calling in life than to be a good parent. You are blessed and perhaps will be tested more than most. But you are equal to the task. Where much is given, much is expected.
Families are the heights and the depths of life. Your greatest trials will likely come from within your family, but your greatest joy and happiness will also come from family. I feel certain that in the pre-existence we were thrilled to know that we would be joined as family here on earth. And what more wonderful knowledge could we have than to know that after this life we may be together once again in perfect happiness for all eternity?
There is much more bubbling about in my brain, but time forces me to close for now. Never forget that your dad loves you.