From Jonah Bench
Teaching in New York, USA
Here's an experience from upstate New York! We were at
branch meeting and afterwards a sister in the branch came up to us and asked
for a [Priesthood] blessing. Her husband recently passed away and she has been
having a hard time with that. So we sat her down and gave her a blessing. In
the blessing, she was told that she would live with her husband for all
eternity and that he was waiting for her on the other side. She was blessed
with a strong body, and the strength to bear the burdens she is, and will be,
facing, and I can't remember the rest. But she was crying at the end and
thanked us.
We were like, "Glad we could help!" and went about
our way.
A couple days later, we went to visit her with her home teacher and
she told us how thankful she was for that blessing and how much it helped! She
said, "My husband has been inactive for a long time and hasn't been living
the gospel. He knew it was true, he had the priesthood, and yet he still went
inactive. But he had a lot of mental problems, because of that I have been
wondering for a long time if he was going to make it! I prayed all the time
really hard to find out if he was, and I never got an answer! So I figured
maybe I'll get it after he dies. But then he died and I still didn't get an
answer! So I figured it was a, ‘No, he didn't make it!’ I was mad at God for a
while because of that, but when I got that blessing that told me we would be
together forever and that he was waiting for me and I realized how big the Atonement
is!”
That humbled me in a
big way! To know that, through no [power] of my own, I was able to give her a
blessing, to be an instrument and let God speak through me. Had I not been
living right, had I maybe let a bad thought in, had I not been trying the best
I could to work hard and be obedient, I would not have had the spirit with me
to bring to my mind the things our loving Father in Heaven needed her to hear.
I know that God loves us!
