Knocking the House About

I have been sick this week.

Some who know me might ask, “But, Marnie, aren't you always sick?”

Well, yes, technically. But this week I have added, to my usual serving plate of sickness, a very icky cold.

“A cold! A cold! What are you whining about? Everybody gets colds sometimes!”

It's true. I know that. But this little illness took me by surprise, and happened to come at an especially inconvenient time, as this week we are doing some remodeling of our house.

Our house was built in 1987, so it's not really an old house. But it certainly is not a new house. It's not cute, like new houses and young children usually are, and it's not sweet and charming and full of memories, like senior citizens often are. It's middle-aged, and in need if some improvements and repairs.

It's a lot like me that way.

And home improvements, like sudden illness, always seem to take more time and be more trouble than you expected them to be.

(Disclaimer: These are not actual pictures of our actual home messes. These are other people's messes. I don't want ours to go on record).

  This combination of events has me thinking about something C.S. Lewis wrote in his book Mere Christianity:

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to?”

(I have wondered that myself). Lewis continues:

“The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

I am not yet as Job (see D&C 121:10). He went through some terrible afflictions, so difficult that he cried “Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

(Job 3:11)

He was in serious misery. But still, he knows his physical oppression will not last forever. He declares his testimony of this truth:

For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me. 

(Job 19:25 – 27)

I won't live in this imperfect, aging house forever. And I won't live in this imperfect, aging body forever. Like Job, I know that I will be resurrected and have a perfected body, freed from flaws and aging. 

I know this because I know that Jesus Christ was resurrected so that all people can live again. He conquered death for all:

As one of His latter-day witnesses, I testify that He lives today. He is a resurrected Being. He is our Savior, our Lord, the very Son of God. I testify that He will come again as our glorified, resurrected Lord. That day is not far distant. To all who accept Him as Savior and Lord, His literal resurrection means that life does not end at death, for He promised: “Because I live, ye shall live also.” (John 14:19.) Ezra Taft Benson, April 1992

He Lives.

And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him,

          this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: 

 That he lives!

            For we saw him,

    Even on the right hand of God;

             and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father—

That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.

           (D&C 76:22 – 24)

He lives, and grants me daily breath –

He lives, and I shall conquer death!

He lives, and while He lives I'll sing –

He lives, my prophet, priest, and King.

                        Happy Easter.