One Little Word 2015: Holy
Some time ago, I heard about a book called "What Would
a Holy Woman Do?" written by Sister Wendy Watson Nelson, wife of Elder
Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
She started out by sharing an experience that happened in
2007. She and Elder Nelson had gone to
Tonga for the rededication of the Tonga Temple. They
had gone a little earlier to inspect the temple prior to the rededication. Everything looked perfect and Elder Nelson
was ready to sign off on the inspection.
However, when they were leaving, they noticed something very important
was missing from the temple. This
missing item was so important that if it was not put in place, the temple
rededication could not happen!
What was missing? On
every temple of the Church, in the local language, appear these words: Holiness
to the Lord. The House of the Lord. On the Tonga temple, these words were
missing! Elder Nelson informed the
appropriate people, those words were placed on the temple and the rededication
occurred on schedule.
After returning to Salt Lake City, Sister Nelson thought
about that experience. She thought about
holiness—the meaning of the word, the placement of those phrases. She asked herself what she needed to change
in her life so the words "Holiness to the Lord" could be placed upon
her life.
Sister Nelson asked six friends (ages 26 to 65) to try an
experiment. She asked them, for three
days, to choose one of their daily activities and try to "be holy"
while doing it, or do it as a holy woman would do it.
Some of the examples she offered as suggestions (and some of
mine): How would a holy woman start her
day? What would be on her to-do
list? How would she read to a
child? Clean her kitchen? Do laundry?
Scrub the toilets? Balance her
checkbook? Deal with a difficult
situation? How would she dress? What would she listen to? Watch?
Read? Look at? How would she pray? Read her scriptures? Prepare a lesson she needed to teach next
Sunday? How would she prepare for the
Sabbath day? How would she fast? If she were married, how would she greet her
husband when he got home from work? If
she were single, how would she interact with her roommates? If she worked outside the home, how would she
do her work?
Much of the rest of the book is the stories shared by those
who agreed to participate in this experiment, as well as some others who also
tried the experiment.
Sister Nelson also asked the reader, "What is the Lord
teaching YOU about holiness?" She
mentions that D&C 46:33 says that "Ye must practice virtue and
holiness before me continually".
Also, in D&C 60:7, the Lord says, "I am able to
make you holy".
The verse about practicing holiness continually comes at the
very end of section 46. Before that, in
verses 7-12, we are commanded to ask God for gifts of the Spirit which can help
us become more holy. And verses 13-16
list some of the gifts of the Spirit that are available. These are only SOME of the gifts
available. We can ask for ANY gift that
will help us in our desires to become more holy, to become more like the Savior
and to continue in our journey through life.
Well, that book really touched me. So much so, in fact, that I used it as the
text for my talk at the Relief Society Christmas luncheon. Several sisters told me that they felt
inspired too and were making their 2015 resolutions based on the concept of
"What Would a Holy Woman Do?"
I decided that my word for 2015 would be Holy, as a
shorthand version of "What would a holy woman do?"
In my next post, I will share some thoughts about how I can apply this word/question to my life.
