“A Compound in One”
The Apostle Paul concludes an account of the saints ministering to one another with a joyous cry: “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15). If words fail us in giving utterance to the totality of our debt to the Lord, we may yet understand and appreciate such totality by remembering how Lehi describes our earthly experience. He calls it “a compound in one” (2 Ne. 2:11) in which trial is a gift no less than talent and failure helps define success. Under God’s plan, all of his children must learn obedience by the things they suffer.
Consider a few of the mundane and apparently negative gifts that are a necessary part of the whole. First, a kind word for shame. Jeremiah kept faith with backsliding Judah through desperate days but finally despaired when his friends lost their capacity to be ashamed. What an unflagging prompter shame is! How grateful I am that the adrenalin of shame still summons my better self from the flabbiness of sin.
Next, at least a thankful nod toward poverty—that grey companion of all my student days. If necessity is the mother of invention, poverty is the father of perspective. When circumstance limits frivolous choices, even the dullard becomes discriminating. One seldom forgets the underscored lessons of deprivation. How sobering—and maturing—to be free from the cheat of indulgence. The recurring thrill of enough to eat is never lost on one who has been hungry without recourse. But surely the perspective of poverty is not limited to physical well-being. A shabby series of “C” grades is the perfect setting for a glorious “A,” especially when one has learned—and earned—the difference.
Finally, grateful acknowledgment of the uncertainty that has plagued my expectations and compromised my cleverest plans. In the romantic flourish of youth, I prized the decisive gesture, the unqualified stance. Now, mildly disheveled by the experience of being decisively wrong a few times, I am also willing to admit that an unqualified stance is just a pose that takes itself too seriously. An honest assessment of what we have really been able to forecast in our own life should keep the most compulsive planner modest. Recent deaths of those dear to me have underlined again the tenuous grasp we each have on life. Similarly, after the unexpected jostles with the unbelievable on the front page of every newspaper, we nervously assert that the only certainty is uncertainty.
What does make shame, poverty and uncertainty objects of true thanksgiving? Each is given a context by the gospel, and each provides a defining counter for truth. Shame is completed by repentance; poverty prepares the obedient for the abundance that is their inevitable reward; and earthly uncertainties are merely the obverse of the unchanging verities that make this season a time of thoughtful, humble rejoicing. May we turn to the Lord with a cheerful countenance, with glad and grateful hearts, aware of the wholeness of our blessings.
