To consecrate

To make holy, to set aside for a holy purpose.

Jozie hasn't slept well tonight. As I lay on the floor next to her crib, wide awake, my mind went back to Les' beautiful testimony of his recent experience at Martin's Cove. My God, this is it, isn't it? has been running through my thoughts and heart and I realized I could use the time by the crib to think about anything I wanted to. How often do I use my mind to think about holy things, to pray? It got me thinking about what it means to consecrate.

It seems consecration or holiness often comes out of events which didn't go as planned and that those events often don't become holy until after they've passed.

I don't know, but for many of the early Saints at Martin's Cove, their suffering at the time likely did not feel holy. If I had been there, I would have been berating myself for trying to cross the plains so late in the season. I would have been sick knowing that my little kids were suffering. When did that event become holy? If, through my pain and hunger, I had the faith to pray and to think about Christ, the suffering could be consecrated right then and there, I think, as the Spirit would be able to sustain me. But still, the hunger, the regret, and the decisions to be made wouldn't have gone away. Did the experience become holy when it became a testimony to the rest of us--a beacon of what it means to sacrifice all? Did it become holy for the participants upon later reflection--either in the Valley or the Spirit World--as they gained healing through the Savior's atonement?

My dad is in the midst of a Martin's Cove. He is missing a limb, is legally blind, is weak, is tired. I blame him for unwisely letting diabetes take over his body before he fully realized its seriousness. I mourn for the loss of future memories that will not be, of time that won't be spent with my kids, of hikes that won't come to pass, of testimony that won't be personally told. When does my dad's suffering become holy? Do we just do our best to follow Christ and in the midst of suffering our experiences become holy, even if they were not planned, even if we are partially to blame? Will my dad's suffering become holy to me when I reflect on it decades from now, in the midst of personal suffering that will surely come to me? Is this what it means when the scripture says that "all things work together for good to them that love God," that regardless of what is happening in our lives and why, if we love Him, the events will in some way and at some time, be holy to us and to God?

I do think that when we pray and look outward for ways in which we can lift others, God can bless us with the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, the bringer of Holy feelings, Holy attitudes, and Holy understanding. I guess the key is to do our best to make the most wise decisions and then when the chips fall as they do, to pray, to be humble, and to let the Lord teach us and use our experiences for holy purposes, which purposes we may not see at the time or even during this lifetime.

The Savior had at least one Martin's Cove. Perhaps why hast thou forsaken me? was an expression of incomplete understanding at the time. Perhaps Christ was not given all of the answers. Maybe that's the point. And so we push forward, we hold onto the rod, even if we don't think we're doing it very well, even if we think we've messed up, even if we don't see how in the world our experiences in the midst of the mist of darkness could become holy, and we get more humble, we pray, and the Holy Ghost comes, and ahead we see that it was never about the existence or the non-existence of the mist of darkness at all but just about coming to the Tree.

We consecrate ourselves in seeking to be like Christ regardless, and that's what matters.