Thoughts and stories, by Pal

                                   This is a very good article! What Does it Mean to Be a Witness? By  Daniel C. Peterson  · August 17, 2022 To read more from Daniel, visit his blog:  Sic Et Non . We tend to make more progress, spiritually, in times of stress, sorrow, sadness, opposition, and difficulty than in times of ease.  It’s rather like going to the gym, I suppose; exercise with fifty-pound weights builds more strength than does working out with half-pound weights.  Or, as the great thirteenth-century Muslim poet and mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi put it, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” That doesn’t mean that we enjoy it.  And it doesn’t always mean that, while it’s happening to us, we can see good in it.  Sometimes, it’s just horrible. From time to time, I feel moved to post this item, which I first wrote many years ago.  I feel impress...

 This seems to be a helpful article for young adults! Four Bad Ideas that Make Latter-day Saint Dating Stressful By  Maurine Proctor  · August 8, 2022 Let me take you with me for a minute into a Relief Society meeting recently held in a BYU singles ward. My husband Scot and I were teaching and we asked a question that everybody wanted to answer. The young women were clamoring to be called on and the answers spilled out quickly. We asked them what is most stressful to you in your current life—and almost to a person, they said dating and boys. Then we went on. In a world where you have school and finances and big decisions before you, why is dating the most stressful thing? They exploded with answers. “Being in a singles ward sometimes feels like a meat market—like I am competing with everyone for the boy’s attention. I am always wondering if I look good enough or am what boys would want. It makes me feel like I’m always on the line and I have to second guess myself to fit ...

 I'm a great grandparent, and I hope I can make a difference with my posterity! Deliberate, Purposeful, Difference-Making Grandparenting By  Richard and Linda Eyre  · August 10, 2022 Publisher’s Note: Meridian is pleased to partner with the Eyres in furnishing Grandparents with insights, ideas, and methods to help us all be more proactive and effective in this eternally important role of helping the wonderful grandkids who are our legacy.  The Eyres have taken their Meridian Grandparenting articles and added to them to create a Grandparenting course composed of 6 Zoom Seminars and emailed materials.  It starts in September and you can enroll at  www.Grandparenting101.com .  Author’s note: We appreciate Scot and Maurine Proctor (very experienced grandparents themselves) for making Meridian Magazine our partner in what we hope will become a Grandparenting Movement—something the world needs right now! GRANDparent:  What a Title, What a Role! The term...

  Jacob’s Answer to Parental Despair: The Olive Tree and the Antichrist  By  Joseph Grenny  · July 7, 2022 In the past seven years I have loved and lost hundreds of precious sons and daughters. And I have seen inexplicable miracles in the lives of hundreds more. I know what it means to have “joy and great hopes… that they would walk in the paths of righteousness” on one day, and to feel the searing agony of seeing them throw it all away on the next. Through it all I’ve learned that almost all losses are temporary, and that much of my parental misery comes from my misunderstanding of redemptive labor. My extended family lives at an unusual school called The Other Side Academy. Adult men and women come to us after decades of homelessness, scores of arrests and after perpetrating innumerable acts of evil. They live with us for 2-4 years. We labor with them as they struggle through confronting monstrous demons. I’ve watched them find rewarding careers, reunite with aband...

   Are We Losing?: A Gospel Perspective on Imperfect Families  By  Joseph Grenny  · May 10, 2022 A 91-year-old friend recently called with an urgent plea for help making sense of the circumstances of her posterity. She listed how many of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren suffered from sexual or drug addictions, rejected the Church after declaring themselves L, G, B, T, or Q, or lost their testimonies for various reasons. She concluded her spiritual census with despair, “Is there any hope?” I vaguely recall a seminary lesson back in 1974 in which my instructor assured us that if we consistently attended Church services, read our scriptures, and held weekly Family Home Evening our future children would be similarly faithful. I won’t swear that my memory of that lesson is perfect, after all I was 14 years old, it was 6:30am, and I was simultaneously admiring a cute girl in the class. But I know I’m not the only one who emerged from my early Church years wit...