Elizabeth Nielson: This is the Prosper Stronger Podcast, a community where LDS women gather to cultivate covenant connections and strive to be devoted disciples of Jesus Christ.
Hi, and welcome back to the Prosper Stronger Podcast. I am so happy today to be discussing the talk from Sister Emily Bell Freeman from October 2023 General Conference.
This is the talk she entitled "Walking in Covenant Relationship with Christ". And as soon as I heard it, I knew we had to talk about this on the podcast, not just because she talks about covenants, but because she has such a beautiful way of doing it. And she did something that I think is so powerful. In sharing with us her reason for walking the covenant path.
So I won't spend a lot of time today. Hopefully you can take some time yourself to dive into this talk and really truly study it. There are just beautiful pieces here that she has done a wonderful job of incorporating is masterful. And I am so grateful that we have Emily Bell Freeman to teach us and to guide us and to help us.
So she starts off by sharing her experience with what is called the Jesus trail. And this is a trail , or a path, I should say, from Nazareth to Capernaum that many believe that Jesus walked. And as soon as she learned about it, she wanted to go walk it too. And right before her trip to Israel, I think she said about six weeks before she broke her foot.
And that's a challenge. If you've been over to the Holy Land, to Israel and the surrounding area, It's a rocky place. It's hard to get around. You have to be able to navigate quite well as you walk. And many people bring walking sticks. It's dirty. It's uneven. These are not beautifully paved paths that we often find in our national parks and in many of the places that we traverse here.
And so I understood when she was worried about being able to walk it. And what a beautiful story. She shared how she was willing to try. She had the fortitude and she calls herself stubborn. And so she got off the bus and the tour guide was like, I don't think you can do this. She said, yes, but nothing's going to keep me from trying.
And I love that because really that's all we can do in this life. I know that years ago. I was Young Women's President, and we were doing a fundraiser, hosting a Valentine's dinner, and I had probably honestly bitten off more than I could chew and taken it all on myself to do the major portion of it, including making almost all of the food.
And although most things went well, there were still some things that didn't, and I felt really unsatisfied. I felt like I had failed. And my wonderful, marvelous, amazing counselor, Mary said to me near the end of the evening. She said, Elizabeth, nobody tries harder than you.
Now, Mary was somebody that I looked up to so much. I still do. Someday I would love to have her join us and love to share some of her story with you. Talk about some really hard things in her life. Just an amazing woman. And when she said that to me, I actually was not in a place to receive it properly. I took it as if she was confirming the fact that I had tried and failed and that it hadn't gone as well as we'd hoped. And even though I look back now, I'm like, actually it went fine. It wasn't perfect, but it went fine. But I felt like a failure. So I took her comment as if she was telling me I was a failure.
Jump ahead another 13 to 15 years, and after my own life experiences had expanded and I'd studied more and learned more, I realized that by Mary saying to me, nobody tries harder than you. She was actually giving me one of the greatest compliments. That I ever could have received because that's all that our Savior is asking of us. He's asking us to try to just fry and to keep trying. And so I love the Sister Freeman brought that up that she was willing to try to not give up, to not throw in the towel.
She had a dream. She had a desire. She wanted to walk where Jesus walked. And she was willing to try and because she was willing to try others saw her willingness and then they were able to lend a hand. They then chipped in and helped her. She said the guide's name was Maya and she took a thin string and tied it around her knee scooter handle or something on the knee scooter and helped pull her through the Jesus trail and then continued to do it throughout the rest of the trip and her nephews also helped.
I loved that. That when we try and people see we're trying, then they're willing to reach out and help us. And we can do the same for them. And so I just love this idea of trying that Sister Freeman shared with us.
One of the other pieces that I really love is that she said something that hit me as soon as she said it. Her quote was in reference to her guide. She said, "I love her for that, for believing I could walk the trail broken." I don't know about you, but I'm broken. There are parts of my life that just really aren't fitting together perfectly right now. I am still broken in so many ways. There's so much of me that needs healing, that needs to be made whole.
And so when Sister Freeman mentioned this idea of being able to walk the trail broken, it's beautiful. All of us need to know that we can walk the trail. We can walk the covenant path broken. We don't have to be perfect to walk it. We don't have to be perfect to progress on the covenant path. We just simply have to keep trying, keep taking one step, one little bit at a time, and we can do it broken. And He loves us. Our Savior loves us for staying on the trail, for trying, for taking the next steps and for doing it broken and He loves to make us whole.
I had another experience. This was about five years ago and there'd been some heartbreak and really challenging situation. And I went to sleep with a completely broken heart. And not only that, I had been speaking with my bishop. I was at a point, this situation had brought me to a point where some very serious decisions needed to be made that would impact my future. My children's future, my husband's future, everything. One of the things I realized that night and that I had talked with my bishop about is he asked me about miracles.
And I finally had to admit to myself that I was broken. My belief that there were miracles for me was broken. I even said to him yes, 100 percent I believe that God is a God of miracles. I just don't believe that there are miracles in my plan. And this was from past experience, from experience pleading and praying that my mother would be healed, not die from cancer, other multiple things.
And I hadn't realized that I held this belief. That I had this idea that I had made this story up in my life, that although God was a God of miracles, my life was going to be laid out in such a way that there wouldn't be miracles, that I had to have faith to not be healed, to have faith to not get the answer I wanted, that my whole path was going to be faith to not have the miracle.
And that was quite a powerful moment. And what was Even more powerful is that I went to bed that night. I cried myself to sleep, weeping and praying that night. And when I woke up the next morning, God had worked his miracle. Jesus Christ, through the power of His atonement, had worked his miracle in my heart and on my heart.
And I woke up, not broken, but being empowered and feeling of His love. And my heart felt whole. Even though nothing about the situation had changed, I truly felt like He had gone in, the Savior had gone in, and He had taken all the pieces of my heart and put them back together and scotch taped them so that they all fit. And I knew that no matter what happened, I was going to be okay. We were going to be okay. I didn't know what okay looked but He had fixed my broken heart and He had shown that there are miracles. In my life, if I choose to see them.
I will forever be grateful for that experience. And since then, I have seen many more experiences that have testified and helped me understand that miracles aren't always huge. Miracles come in many ways. And He is a God of miracles. And I am still broken in many ways, but I fully trust and know that through the atoning power or through the enabling power of our Savior's atonement, He will heal us. He loves to heal us. He loves to make us whole and we will not be broken forever. So we can walk the trail broken and know that we will be made whole as we continue to walk the covenant path, the Jesus trail.
And one of the other things that I love that she said in the talk that pulls it all together, she said that those who helped her guide, her nephews and everything helped her accomplish something that she could have never accomplished on her own.
And that is also what our Savior will do. Just like Nephi who says that when God gives us a commandment, He will not do so without providing a way for us to actually fulfill that commandment, to accomplish the thing that He has commanded us. So I love that idea that He will always help us do what we can't do on our own. It's okay to accept that we can't do it, but to turn to Him and know that He will help us.
I wish we could spend a thousand hours on this talk, but I hope you will spend the time yourself. Anyway, she goes on to talk about examples of people that were called of God and who felt blinded, who needed help, the help of the Savior.
People like Enoch. And she said that we are, like Enoch, invited to walk with God. We are invited to walk with Him. That Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want us to walk with them and that we can always turn to them. Yes, we will have challenges on our path, and that is okay. That's part of life. And if we continue to walk with Jesus Christ, He will help us along every step of the way.
So I love this vision and analogy, this idea of walking the path. And then she takes it to and applies it to the covenant path. Now, this is a phrase that president Nelson introduced to us. And I know we've been hearing it a lot and I hope it never becomes something that is minimized simply because we use it frequently.
I adore this idea years ago when my youngest was baptized. I felt inspired to give a talk and it was about the covenant path before we even had this name for it or this term for it. And it's just such a beautiful principle. And I love how she talked about the covenant path that we all start by walking it.
We don't have to run. We don't have to skip. We don't have to bite. We just start by putting one foot in front of the other by making and keeping those covenants that we make starting with the one at baptism. I love it. And then she also reminds us that a covenant is like for Jacob. So another story that she tells, she's called it the five-finger promise that Jacob made with Heavenly Father or Heavenly Father made to Jacob when he chose to enter into a covenant relationship with God.
And the five-finger promise is first, I am with you. God says, I will be with you.
Second, I will keep you safe. And President Nelson has told us this, that He will fight our battles, not President Nelson, but Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. They will fight our battles. They will fight our children's battles. They will keep us safe.
Third, I will bring you home again. This is the Savior's redeeming power. This is the Plan of Salvation. This is their work and their glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of each of us. They promise. They offer this to each and everyone of us. They have the power to do it.
Fourth, I will not leave you alone. We never have to worry about that fear of being alone. They will be there for us always.
And fifth, I will keep my promise to you. So they're giving us these promises and then they're iterating again or reiterating, I will keep these promises and we know that God will heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will and do keep their promises. It is their nature. If they don't keep their promises, they cease to be God and that is not possible.
So we can trust in them that they will do these things that they have promised to us in our covenants, but it is our choice. As to whether or not we will keep our end of the covenant. Will we do our part?
And just like in the past episode of the podcast, as we studied First John, yes, the commandment is to love God. It's not because God needs us to love Him. It's because we need to love Him. Because when we love Him, then everything we do changes. And we choose to follow Him and we choose to submit our will to Him and we choose to fully trust Him. We choose to keep His commandments. This is true love. That is what we do. We keep his commandments. We choose God. We choose just like Jacob did in that moment. We choose to have a covenant relationship with God.
And then Sister Freeman goes on to remind us that covenants are about relationships. She says "a covenant is not only a contract or about a contract, although that is important. It is about a relationship." And President Nelson said, "the covenant path is all about our relationship with God."
So yes, conditions have been set and they need to be kept. We need to follow God's law. We need to keep the covenant as He has defined it. We don't get to change it. This is a contract that Heavenly Father has outlined, and when we choose to enter into that covenant, we are agreeing to all of those conditions and we can't go back and change it.
It's just like a contract in law. My husband's an attorney. You don't sign a contract and then a few years later decide, but I didn't like that part. So it really doesn't matter that I signed it, right? You can't do that. A covenant means we keep our promise just as He keeps His promises to us. But the beauty of it is that He is there to help us every step of the way.
Just like the guide helped Sister Freeman, Heavenly Father in Jesus Christ are there to help us every step of the way along the covenant path we do not have to travel it alone. We don't have to overcome everything alone. President Nelson has taught us we can turn to Him. Jesus Christ will help us overcome the world because He overcame the world. He has all the power we need to be able to successfully travel the covenant path.
Sister Freeman says, quote, "He invites each of us to come as we are able," so that means even broken, "with full purpose of heart and to press forward with him at our side, trusting that His promise blessings will come." I love this. It says with full purpose of heart, it's all about turning our hearts to Christ, even when they're broken, He can make them whole. Where is our heart? Where are our feet facing? Where are we looking? Are we turned fully to Christ? And do we have a covenant heart? We know he will be with us and he will help us. The choice is ours.
Thank you for joining the Prosper Stronger podcast today. We hope that you have felt inspired and empowered.
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Remember that you are loved and cherished by a Heavenly Father who wants you to prosper and thrive. Until next time, may you continue to cultivate covenant connections with God, with others, and with yourself, and find strength in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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