“The pain associated with sin is the natural consequence of our choices; it is not God’s retribution upon the wicked.”
Terryl and Fiona Givens
Quotes by authors Terryl and Fiona Givens
“We want a script, and we find we stand before a blank canvas. We expect a road map, and we find we have only a compass. We have yet to learn, as the poet John Ciardi wrote, that ‘clean white paper, waiting under a pen, is a gift beyond human history and hurt and heaven.”
“Like children, we adults also want our most pressing questions answered, not multiplied. So it is not surprising that we look to religion, the great comforter, to ‘resolve us of all ambiguities,’ in the words of Dr. Faustus. But perhaps providing conclusive answers to all of our questions is not the point of true religion.”
“As Joseph reminded his followers, ‘I believe that God foreknew everything, but did not foreordain everything.’ Exaltation, is within the reach of all, even if the journey toward that divine end is fraught with suffering. If we had insurance against a painful journey, one-third of the heavenly hosts would not have abandoned the enterprise. The risks are real. Or, in the language of the Book of Mormon, we cannot assume that our afflictions come from God, but we can know that ‘God shall consecrate [our] afflictions for [our] gain.'”
“A supreme deity would no more gift us with intellect and expect us to forsake it in moments of bafflement, than He would fashion us eyes to see and bid us shut them to the stars”
“‘Repentance will be possible even after death,’ wrote James E. Talmage. To some, he continued, ‘it may appear that to teach the possibility of repentance beyond the grave may tend to weaken belief in the absolute necessity of repentance and reformation in this life. There is no reason for such objection,’ he explains, when we consider that willful neglect here and now will render the process that much more lengthy and difficult in the future…Our error here, once again, may be in adopting a language of salvation as either/or, as an event that transpires rather than a process that unfolds.”
“Our deepest healing seldom comes in the ways or modes that we envision. What we think we need to be happy and whole is not always what the Healer knows we need to be happy and whole. Solutions that seem obvious to us may be distractions from where the deepest pain lies…
“A loving Savior does all he can to help us choose the most fulfilling and most healing pathway; the precepts with which he provides us are for our liberation and not our confinement. It all comes down to trust. ‘The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth,’ he tells his disciples, ‘but I have called you friends.’ Friends trust each other.”
“‘Hearken unto my voice. Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him…that [you] may come unto me and have everlasting life.’
“What, exactly, is meant by this verse? We are happy to know we have an advocate, but we would hope our Father is not in need of heart softening. It may be that we misunderstand the term advocate the way it is being used here…We see that Christ as the atoning one — the mediator — is not our defender from God’s justice, but the collaborator in and minister of our Heavenly Father’s plan.”
“As Latter-day Saints, we know we do not earn heaven; we co-create heaven, and we do so by participating in the celestial relationships that are its essence (and which temple ordinances eternalize).”
“I think the greatest benefit that can be derived from an honest doubt is the recognition that in the final analysis, we choose to believe. For somebody who has seen that there are reasons to doubt and reasons to believe, and yet make a free choice to affirm their belief, you can see that that is a wonderful position to be in, to recognize that this is something I chose, it’s not something I was compelled by the evidence to accept. It’s something that out of a free heart I choose to embrace. Now, I think that that’s an advantage known only to those who have passed through the crucible of doubt.”