Slow of Speech

More than three thousand years ago, God gave Moses an assignment.

Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

But Moses wasn't so sure. He had some serious doubts and questions.

“Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?  . . . what shall I say unto them? . . . O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” 

I think I know a little of what he's feeling. I really dislike the sound of my own voice. It's a little nasally, kind of sloppy, and I have a lisp that seven years of speech therapy could not erase. Sometimes I worry that I'll use the wrong word, or pronounce a word wrong, or just say something really stupid and make a fool of myself.

               But what if that doesn't really matter?

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When Wes and I moved to Memphis in 1989, we lived in a fairly poor part of the city. Memphis was a city with a lot of social, racial, and economic inequality, and we felt the presence of that inequity more than we had expected to.

The building where our ward met was several miles away from our home, and no active church members lived near us. After we had lived there about two years, we were given an assignment – to pick up a woman who had recently joined the church, and give her a ride to the meetings every Sunday. Although she did not live very close to us, her home was on our way to the building.

I don't remember her name, so I will call her Sister Pether. She was an older woman who lived in a small apartment near the freeway exit. She was always there, dressed and ready for church, when we pulled into the parking lot. She was cheerful and talkative, and she chatted with us as we drove. But we didn't know what she was saying. Under the best of circumstances we might have been able to decipher her strong deep-southern black accent, but these were not the best of circumstances. Sister Pether was a poorly-educated woman with no teeth. We understood almost nothing she said.

We were glad to give her a ride, and she was clearly delighted by our fat, smiley baby, Sam. I silently wondered what she knew about the gospel, how she had come to join, and whether she might not be coming to church for the right reasons.

One evening the sister missionaries came to our house for dinner, and they told us something that had happened in Relief Society on a recent Sunday. The teacher had called on Sister Pether to read a scripture. (I don't know if the teacher was unaware of this woman's illiteracy and her speech impediment, or if she knew and bravely followed a spiritual prompting.) I expected that would have made for an uncomfortable moment, but that's not what happened. The woman sitting next to Sister Pether opened her scriptures to the assigned verses and quietly read the first word, which Sister Pether repeated. Word by word, they read the word of God, while every woman in the room struggled to control her tears.

I still don't know much of Sister Pether's history or her gospel knowledge. I don't know how her story ends. I don't need to. God knows her heart, and He will be her judge, and He will be her helper.

And with righteousness shall the Lord God judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. (2 Nephi 30:9)

O let not the oppressed return ashamed: let the poor and needy praise thy name. (Psalms 74:21)

For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. (Psalms 72:11 – 13)

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And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say . . . Certainly I will be with thee.

Maybe how we speak, and how we feel about our ability to speak, is not that important. Moses and Sister Pether both did the thing God called them to do. For Moses, it was freeing the Israelites, miraculously parting the Red Sea, and giving them God's commandments. For Sister Pether, it was getting dressed and ready for church every Sunday morning and doing what she was asked to do, despite her worldly weaknesses.

I frequently come across things that seem hard to deal with and that I wish I didn’t have to do. Maybe that's true for you, as well.

I hope these stories will help us remember that when we accept an assignment from God, big or small, He will be with us. We all have something to share; something to do that no one else can do.

The counsel that Bryant S. Hinckley gave his struggling missionary son Gordon is good advice for all of us:

Forget Yourself and Go to Work!