Bearing Grief and Testimony

On the first Sunday of each month, our LDS services conduct what we call a "testimony" meeting, where time is opened to congregational members to approach the pulpit and bear testimony: bear testimony. What an interesting phrase.

A former member of the First Presidency, James E. Faust, taught that we should "bear testimony with our words and also with our lives (1)."

Tonight, another facet of the meaning of bearing testimony became apparent. Bear is the present tense of the word bore. When we delivery our testimony through words, we are citing the experience of what we bore, or what we have borne.

Take grief, for example. Grief can come blindingly, or slowly raise up inside us like the tide of the seashore. It can become as much a pastime as our memories, and sadly, as much an expectation of the future as a sunrise. It can be a greedy thief in the night, and steal away our children. Veritably, we have all dealt with grief in some form or another. We are exposed to it like the wind on a chilly day. What is most important, however, is how we have borne our grief.

The daily bearing of grief can become an enormous act of faith. We can learn to bear our griefs through a lens of patience, accepting the either stabbing or subdued pain as a transition to better things to come. Grief can be experienced daily, but we need not sorrow daily. The ability to differentiate between the two comes as a result of the application of faith- the bearing of the knowledge we have. To abide our grief, we bear out the expectations of our faith, and by so doing, patiently bear our grief.

Grief is indeed a transitional state for those who are willing to bear it. The images of the great patriarchs and matriarchs of this world have been developed, processed. The were not instantaneously great, just as no great thing is instantaneously born. They walked, as we must walk, through the valley of the shadow of death, having feared no evil. They have withstood, as we much withstand, the flame that torments souls; having licked the cool water from the finger of the Lord, dipped in the pool of everlasting life. They have waited, as we must wait, in the tomb of death, kept alive by the vision of bandages rendered useless through the resurrection.

We must conclude, therefore, that all kingly and queenly saints bore grief, and bore it well. We may hope to stand in what may seem an insignificant moment, at the pulpit in a regular sacrament meeting, and bear our testimony. What we are doing is testifying the we have borne those things which must be undergone, and borne them in enduring and patient faith. We bear testimony, and in so doing, pronounce through tongue the experiences borne through the soul.