Whew! TWO handfuls of dirty tissues. Board magnets hiding willy-nilly amongst the detritus. Old bulletins from Sacrament meetings held months ago. A thank you card from the Stake Primary for our great Sacrament Meeting presentation in September. Ward Council notes long since acted upon. An outdated Handbook 2. Pens. Lip balm of at least three varieties. A pair of bi-focal glasses. And a long-forgotten spiritual thought I gave in Ward Council early in 2018.
Harold shared the original quote by Susanna Wesley with me while I was still working at Super PC Memory, I think. I had always appreciated this profound message and for some reason must have been thinking about it around the time Brother Hill assigned me to give a spiritual thought.
"Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."
In my mind I remembered Harold told me it was from one of President James E. Faust's talks. Only, I couldn't find it. I never did find the exact quote in any of President Faust's writings (Sabbath Day, October 1991 General Conference comes the closest)--or anywhere else when I did a search on lds.org. But I found a lot of other information pertinent to the quote, which I prepared for my spiritual thought from various sources including Wikipedia, and gave that back story before I shared the words the way Susanna Wesley wrote them in a letter on June 8, 1725 to her son.
When I reread the entire thought I gave that early Sunday morning last year, I was impressed again how the Lord has loved all his people throughout the ages. There are so many good people who tried to live according to His teachings, even though the gospel hadn't yet been restored. I think Susanna Wesley is one of my heroines. She sought light and truth and lived her life in accordance to what she knew was right. UNDER GREAT DURESS!
Susanna Wesley was born on January 20, 1669, the 25th of 25 children. Her father, Dr. Samuel Annesley, was a dissenter of the established Church of England. At the age of 13, Susanna stopped attending her father's church and joined the official Church of England.
She was married to a preacher. They had 19 children, nine of whom died in infancy. Her husband was a man who couldn't manage money. They disagreed on everything from money to politics, and he left her to raise the children alone for long periods of time--sometimes over something as simple as an argument.
One of their children was crippled. Another couldn't talk until he was nearly six years old. Susanna herself was desperately sick most of her life. There was no money for food or anything else. Debt plagued them.
Her husband Samuel was once thrown into debtor's prison because their debt was so high, which doubled their problems. Twice the homes they lived in were burned to the ground, losing everything they owned. Someone slit their cow's udders so they wouldn't have milk, killed their dog, and burned their flax field. It was assumed that their church members did these things because of volatile political sermons her husband preached!
When Susanna was young, she promised the Lord that for every hour she spent in entertainment, she would give an hour to Him in prayer and in doing the Word. Taking care of the house and raising so many kids made this commitment nearly impossible to fulfill. She had no time for entertainment or for long hours in prayer! She worked the gardens, milked the cow, schooled the children and managed the entire house herself. So, she decided instead to give the Lord two hours a day in prayer! But she struggled to find a secret place to get away and pray in secret to God as she had promised. Consequently, no matter how challenging her day to day life was, she advised her children that when they saw her with her apron over her head, that meant she was in prayer and couldn't be disturbed.
Susanna Wesley never preached a sermon, published a book, or founded a church, yet the example of faith and religious reverence she set for her children John and Charles inspired them to become powerful spiritual leaders, who launched the Methodist movement.
She wrote that she knew that one day her difficult life would be over and she alone would stand before God and give an account of how she had lived her life.
Susanna Wesley died in England in 1742 at the age of 73.
She wrote part of her personal creed as follows:
"How would you judge the lawfulness or unlawfulness of "pleasure"?
Use this rule:
Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sight of God, takes from you your thirst for spiritual things or increases the authority of your body over your mind, then that thing to you is evil.
By this test you may detect evil no matter how subtly or how plausibly temptation may be presented to you.
(NOTE: I didn't keep the bibliographical cites from which I took this information. Just know these are not MY words. I'm just repeating this information as I recorded it from online sources.)
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