A couple of weeks ago, I got the chance to work with some of the youth of the church for a few days. Having been a temple worker for a little over six years, I’d seen how spiritually prepared those who are in their late teens and early 20s can be. These high school students, though, impressed me. While there were several great things these teenagers said, there were three things that will stick with me.
Youth and the Temple
In high school, I had early morning seminary. For most of my high school years, I got up around 5:30 am. The youth around here have release-time seminary. Because they can sleep in, I would assume that they would. In talking to these youth, though, there are several of them who get up early once a week to go to the temple before school. They do baptisms for the dead at 6 in the morning and then head to school. Of course, at their age, going to the temple before school really wasn’t an option since the closest temple for me was at least two hours away. If the temple had been closer, I’m not sure that I would have been dedicated enough to sacrifice sleep to go before school, though.
It impressed me that these teenagers understand the importance of the temple. They have made it a priority, and they visit the temple regularly at the same time weekly, a time that really does require sacrifice.
Having a “Broken Heart”
Several scriptures talk about having a broken heart. While I’ve had the meaning explained to me, this phrase has always been a bit hard for me to understand. I continually picture someone with a sad, broken heart who has been hurt. While I know having your heart broken by someone who has hurt you is different from having a broken heart in the spiritual sense, I have struggled a bit with separating the two in my head.
One of the girls gave a very good analogy, which I’d never heard before. It will stick with me for a long time, though. The girl compared a broken heart to breaking a horse. For some reason, it suddenly clicked in my head when she said this. The end concept wasn’t anything new. I’m sure other people have heard this analogy before. A broken heart is about giving up our will to accept God’s will.
Repentance
In working with this same group of youth, I heard another great analogy, which actually made me laugh a bit. We were talking about repentance. One girl said that repentance is like throwing up. I wasn’t entirely sure where things were going from there. Then she explained it. When you need to throw up, you feel sick. You hate the idea of throwing up, but you know you need to do it. Then once you’ve thrown up, you feel a lot better. It’s the same with repentance. You may not want to repent. You may even dread the experience. Once, you’ve repented, though, you feel a lot better. This is an analogy and an image that will stick with me for quite a while.
What I Learned
Sometimes, we think we need to use big words or have elaborate examples to show our spiritual wisdom. These youth showed spiritual wisdom without having to present a message that went way over my head. To me, meeting and talking to the youth of the church has reminded me how spiritual wisdom comes from understanding the basics of the gospel and learning to apply them to our own current understanding.
