Brothers and Sisters, Aloha!
I want to begin by telling you how grateful I am for President Kauwe’s invitation to speak to you today. I first met President and Sister Kauwe, like he said, while writing a story about their call to serve here on this campus in 2020. While we only spoke over the phone, I was so impressed by their consecration and trust in the Lord. I've been so excited to meet them in person and to feel of their goodness as well as the wonderful spirit of this campus that exists because of each of you.
During World War II, a radio host named Paul Harvey began a segment called “The Rest of the Story.” During the segment, Harvey told a story but left out a piece of key information such as an important character’s recognizable name until the end of the segment, leaving the listener in suspense throughout the episode. His segment always ended with the catchphrase, “And now you know the rest of the story.”
Today, I’d like to speak to you about the One who knows the rest of your story and how trusting Him will make all the difference in your life.
In 2011, Elder Kevin W. Pearson spoke here at BYU–Hawaii and in illustrating the power of personal prayer, he shared an experience he’d had with his son who was born with a rare form of eye cancer called retinoblastoma. Despite prayers and fasting, when the surgeons went in to perform surgery on his 3-month-old baby, they found that one of his son’s eyes had been completely destroyed and the other had serious tumors that needed immediate treatment. Elder Pearson recalled the thoughts that entered his mind as he walked in the chilly San Francisco air outside the hospital that day, “There had been no blessing, and clearly the Lord had not intervened. Our faith it seems had been no more than vain hope. My faith was shattered. I began to question everything I had ever believed. As I walked, I felt betrayed and angry. I was overcome with pain.
“I am not proud of the conversation I had with Heavenly Father as I walked and wept that morning.” But as he walked the words of a familiar primary song entered his mind, “Heavenly Father, are you really there? And do you hear and answer every child's prayer?” In that moment, Elder Pearson said, “a tender mercy came. In my mind and heart, I felt these words: ‘Kevin, he is my son too.’”
Elder Pearson continued: “That moment has made a deep and profound impact on my life. We would face another six years of serious challenges as we battled our little son's condition to save his other eye and his life. But I now knew that Heavenly Father was aware and in charge.” [1]
I think the type of prayer Elder Pearson describes is likely one of Heavenly Father’s favorite kinds—where despite our hurt or our disappointment or our anger, we’ve still chosen to turn to Him. Where else would we go? He can handle that hurt and he can take our pain, He just wants us to turn to Him which leads me to my first point today: It is difficult to trust someone we do not know.
Like any other relationship in life, we come to understand the nature of God and establish a foundation of trust by spending time with and having experiences with Him. This is the purpose of covenants. As we make commitments to God and, in turn, allow Him to prove His faithfulness in keeping His commitments to us, we find that He does not let us down. Instead, He shows up again and again.
Speaking in a BYU devotional, Sister Neill Marriott shared that when she and her siblings were little growing up in Louisiana, their dad regularly promised his kids that if they were ready and waiting for him, he would take them swimming when he got home from work. At 5 p.m. on most summer afternoons, she and her brothers would stand on the hot cement, towels around their necks, looking earnestly down the street. She said, “Even the hot pavement couldn’t break our concentration—though sometimes we would jump back to the cool grass of the front yard for a moment, we would not shift our gaze from the far corner of the street.” When her dad’s car rounded the corner, they would cheer. Jumping up and down. Her dad would get out of the car, pulling his tie off, and say “I’ll be right back.” Soon he returned with his swimming suit and off they went to the pool. “[Now] why did three young kids stay so sharply focused? Why were we so certain we would get to go swimming?” Sister Marriott asked. “Because we knew our father.” [2]
I’ve struggled to tell this story without becoming emotional. Maybe it is because I was lucky enough to have a dad who always kept his promises or maybe it is because I know I have a Heavenly Father who has shown up for me time and time again.
My mother-in-law often says, “We love most those we know best.” As we come to know the Lord better and better, we will only love Him more and will understand more deeply the love He has for us. President Henry B. Eyring has said, “You show your trust in Him when you listen with the intent to learn and repent and then you go and do whatever He asks. …And if you then go and do what He would have you do, your power to trust Him will grow, and in time you will be overwhelmed with gratitude to find that He has come to trust you.” [3]
Now, there may be some of you here today who are thinking that for one reason or another, our Heavenly Father couldn’t love you or maybe He loves you but He would never be able to fully trust you. To that, I would simply offer up the words of Truman G. Madsen who said, “If there are some of you who have been tricked into the conviction that you have gone too far, … that you have had the poison of sin which makes it impossible ever again to be what you could have been—then hear me. I bear testimony that you cannot sink farther than the light and sweeping intelligence of Jesus Christ can reach. I bear testimony that as long as there is one spark of the will to repent and to reach, He is there. He did not just descend to your condition; he descended below it, ‘that He might be in all and through all things, the light of truth.’” [4]
Here at BYU–Hawaii, you are in one of the most unique environments you will be in for the rest of your life—an environment that provides you with a tremendous opportunity to stand in holy places, seek personal revelation, to repent and be better than you’ve ever been before, and to be surrounded by others who also want to know God. I invite you to make an especial effort to get to know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ during your time on this campus and I promise you that if you will do this, you will find the mutual trust President Eyring spoke of—and that trust will change everything for you.
Second, I must warn you that where good things are about to happen, there is often opposition.
We were reminded of this principle this year as we began our study of the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph said of his experience that he had scarcely begun to kneel down and ask God “when immediately [he] was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame [him] … Thick darkness gathered around [him], and it seemed to [him] for a time as if [he] were doomed to sudden destruction.” [5]
President Jeffrey R. Holland has taught, “It is the plain and very sobering truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Life has some of those moments for us, and occasionally they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our life.” [6]
Just as Joseph and countless others throughout history, you will experience opposition in your life. This opposition will be catered to you and will appeal to your specific vulnerabilities. The adversary will seek to distract, discourage, and cause you to doubt. [7] My mom has often reminded me when it feels like Satan is working overtime that “something really good must be about to happen.” The hope that something good could be just around the corner has kept me going in many instances. So, when you feel these forces working on you, I would invite you to pause, consider the situation and what we know about opposition, and instead of turning away from God, turn with greater dedication toward Him.
I’ve found this principle to be true in my own life. I recently found a note on my phone and was transported back to 2018. I was 29-years-old and single. My sister who is five years younger than me had just given birth to her first child, my first niece and while I was so happy for her and thrilled to be an aunt, I struggled to understand why I wasn’t married and having children of my own. I’d poured myself for three years into a job I loved at the Deseret News in an attempt to compensate for these other hopes and dreams that didn’t seem to be working out, but even that had taken a negative turn and I’d switched jobs to work at Deseret Book in a role that didn’t seem to have a clear direction. I’d briefly dated someone that seemed promising which only led to more heartbreak and discouragement. I remember very clearly one day working my brand-new job surrounded by strangers trying to cover up the tears that were dripping onto my computer keyboard.
Two months into that job though, we had an idea for a podcast called “All In.” That podcast changed my life. Among other things, it gave me greater professional purpose than I’d experienced previously, filled my life with the wisdom of dedicated disciples of Jesus Christ, and ultimately led to my meeting my husband.
This leads me to my last point, which is that we are always in the middle of our story.
This idea has captivated me since I was a missionary and read a First Presidency Message by then-President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. He wrote that while “there will be moments of beginnings and moments of endings throughout our lives,” [8]…with the proper outlook on our time here in mortality, considering ourselves as “in the middle of things can help us not only to understand life a little better but also to live it a little more meaningfully.” [9]
This is much easier said than done. Our hearts yearn to know what is going to happen in the end of our stories. The waiting is not fun and the middle of the story is often full of challenges and setbacks. These are the moments where we feel that hot Louisiana sun and wonder if our Father is ever going to round the corner.
Take Lucy Mack Smith for example. Two decades before Joseph’s vision, Lucy made a personal covenant with God to “seek the religion that would enable [her] to serve him right.” She wrote that, “For days and months and years” she “continued asking God…to reveal…the hidden treasures of his will.” She continued this search for 20 years. [10] Historian Rachel Cope points out that Lucy then “says, basically, little did I realize that it would be through my son that it would eventually come.” Cope then points out a lesson in this for each of us: “Twenty years of praying? Twenty years. And then we tell the stories as if everything’s instantaneous and then feel like we’re falling short because nothing is instantaneous for us.” [11]
Lucy is far from the only example of the waiting that mortality often requires. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Sarah Sun Kanell writes, “In the middle of the story, Eve ruined everything. In the middle of the story, Joseph was rotting in prison. In the middle of the story, Noah built a boat for a storm that wasn’t coming. Moses wandered for forty years. Hannah was infertile. Isaac was not coming back from that hike. Jonah got stuck in a whale. Mary was going to get broken up with. Bethesda was too far. The Egyptians were too close. It was just mud. Lazarus was dead. And Jesus Christ underwhelmed the Jewish nation, was hung on a cross, and dashed all hopes of the revolution that had been hoped for for thousands of years. Everybody was ready to close the book on these stories.”
But those stories were not over and neither is yours. As Sarah Sun Kanell continues, “Joseph became second-in-command. The entire earth flooded. Milk and honey were everywhere. Hannah rejoiced. Isaac was spared. Ninevah repented. Mary became the mother of the Messiah. The paralytic leapt. The Red Sea parted. The blind man washed his face and could see. Lazarus was just kidding. And Jesus Christ pulled off the resurrection, defeating sin and death. And the earth that Eve thought she ruined was restored for all eternity.” [12]
The beauty of trusting God is that it means trusting that while we cannot see the end from the beginning, there is One who can. President Ezra Taft Benson taught “Men and women who turn their lives over to God will find out that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can.” [13] Adam S. Miller has said, “God’s work in your life is bigger than the story you’d like that life to tell. His life is bigger than your plans, goals, or fears. To save your life, you’ll have to lay down your stories and, minute by minute, day by day, give your life back to him.” [14]
Quoting President Russell M. Nelson, President Camille N. Johnson said, “Our dear prophet asked: ‘Are you willing to let God prevail in your life? … Are you willing to let whatever He needs you to do take precedence over every other ambition?’ Then President Johnson said, “I humbly add to those prophetic inquiries: ‘Will you let God be the author and finisher of your story?’”
The Lord is inviting you to co-author a beautiful story with Him. Of that story, President Johnson said, “Write a story in which the path you are on is straight, on a course leading you back to your heavenly home to live in the presence of God. Let the adversity and affliction that are part of every good story be a means by which you draw closer to, and become more like, Jesus Christ. Tell a story in which you recognize the heavens are open. Ask questions to which you do not know the answer, knowing God is willing to make known His will ... through the Holy Ghost. Let your narrative be one of faith, following your Exemplar, the Savior Jesus Christ.” [15]
With that in mind, I go back to the story of Elder Pearson. A young father who had just learned that his 3-month-old’s eye would need to be removed. A young father weeping in the dark, damp San Francisco air.
I wish I could go back and show that young dad what I see every day as his son plays with our children. I wish he could’ve somehow known that I believe in many ways cancer is the thing that made his son so wonderful. That painful years of wearing goggles while playing sports made him empathetic and kind. That years of medical treatments and surgeries would instill in him a love and gratitude for his parents that make him a wonderful son and an incredible father. That his appreciation for life and the opportunities it gives makes my life so much better. And that his goodness, that no doubt stems from that moment His dad chose to trust God, is the thing that makes me fall in love with him all over again every day.
I wish that young father could’ve seen just for a moment what I see every day in his son. But if I could go back to that young dad, I would be spoiling a beautiful part of the story.
When I was a little girl, my parents helped me memorize Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” [16] I’ve found this to be true not only in my own life but in the lives of the hundreds of people I’ve had the opportunity to interview: His stories are the best stories and trust in Him makes all the difference.
I invite you to come to know the One who knows the rest of your story as knowing Him will create a trust that will get you through the difficult times that will inevitably come. I invite you to recognize opposition for what it is and to trust that, when that opposition comes as you are seeking to do what’s right, something good is likely just around the corner, and finally, I invite you to remember that as long as we are here on earth, we are always in the middle of our story but as we allow the Lord to co-author that story with us, the rest of the story will become more beautiful than we could’ve ever dreamed. I leave you that testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes:
[1] Kevin W. Pearson, “The Power of Personal Prayer,” [Brigham Young University–Hawaii devotional, May 17, 2011], speeches.byuh.edu
[2] Neill F. Marriott, “Pointing Our Souls to Christ,” [Brigham Young University devotional, May 3, 2022], speeches.byu.edu
[3] Henry B. Eyring, “Trust in God, Then Go and Do,” Ensign or Liahona, November 2010, 73
[4] Truman G. Madsen, Christ and the Inner Life [1978], 14
[5] Joseph Smith—History 1:15
[6] Jeffrey R. Holland, “Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence,” [Brigham Young University devotional, March 2, 1999], speeches.byu.edu
[7] Kevin W. Pearson, “Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2009
[8] Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Always in the Middle,” Ensign or Liahona, July 2012, 5
[9] Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Always in the Middle,” Ensign or Liahona, July 2012, 4
[10] Lucy Smith, The History of Lucy Smith [1844-1845], 33, 120
[11] Spencer W. McBride and Rachel Cope, “What Was to Be Done,” First Vision Podcast (Ep. 2), The Joseph Smith Papers [Audio podcast transcript, January 3, 2020], josephsmithpapers.org
[12] Sarah Sun Kanell, Made For This, [Salt Lake City: Desert Book, 2025], 112-113
[13] Ezra Taft Benson, “Jesus Christ—Gifts and Expectations,” [Brigham Young University devotional, December 10, 1974], speeches.byu.edu
[14] Adam S. Miller, Letters to a Young Mormon, Deseret Book [2018]
[15] Camille N. Johnson, “Invite Christ to Author Your Story,” Ensign or Liahona, November 2021, 82
[16] Proverbs 3:5-6