Fast and Testimony and the Little Fishy

Fast and Testimony Meetings were my absolute favorite part of church. There are days where I still miss sitting captive, listening to the most intimate details of strangers, I mean ward members lives. There were times when I learned more intimate details about these strangers' lives than I even knew about my own family's lives.

Boy, I just miss the feeling of that sweet spirit when Sister Center-of-the-Universe would get up to tell us the details of her latest Colon Hydrotherapy for her Crones Disease and how she KNEW that the suffering that she went through was a gift from Heavenly Father, it was her refiners fire.

I remember one Sunday Sister Center-of-the-Universe approached the podium, tears already gleaming in her eyes. I briefly wondered if I should cover my children's ears, least they ask me what a colon is or what rectal stretching means. But much to my surprise, this F & T Meeting was to be different. You see, Sister COTU had a very difficult life and the Lord knew this. Even though she had six health, happy, productive children; a 6500 square foot house that was paid for; 2 brand new cars; a kind and generous husband that just happen to be the owner of several very profitable businesses...she had a VERY hard life. Now, I am not one to judge another's hardships. I know that everything is not as it seems on the outside and I would NOT want to walk a mile in ANYONE else's shoes, no matter how comfortable they may look. But I am also not one to look at life as something to endure, I try to look at how marvelous and wonderful it is. I believe that you find what you are looking for. If you think life sucks, it does. If you think it is a glorious wonder, it is.

Back to her testimony...the previous night Sister COTU noticed that one of her two remaining fish had died and the last lonely one was looking a little peeked. So Sister COTU pleaded with her Father in Heaven to spare her little fishy, she told Him that she had endured so much in life, that she simply could not bear to endure this too. Sister Center of the Universe openly wept as she poured her tale of sorrow upon us. But she knew that Heavenly Father listens and answer every prayer, and so it was with her tale. Father opened the heavens and poured out blessings upon her and her little fishy and he was healed! She knew the Church was true, because her fishy lived! InthenameofJesusChristAmen!

If I believed in the world as she sees it, I would have wondered why Heavenly Father saved Sister COTU's little fishy and yet when my 19 year old niece pleaded with Him to not take her father that she still needed him, he died. Oh, that's right, my niece isn't Mormon...