Letter

It's a strange sensation, reading to someone who doesn't respond. My friend is still here in the hospital, and it's hard to tell if she's sleeping or unconscious.
I just got finished reading her a letter from another friend.
Here's the letter that Carli (the other friend) wrote. Go ahead and read it if you want.

Firstly I want to tell you how beautiful I think you are. You are exceptionally beautiful because you’re so happy all the time. Your bright face coming out of Wyview dorms always makes me so happy. Even when you got upset when other girls were flirting with Mike, I was laughing at how beautifully you were handling the situation (ripping all the pages out of an entire textbook in less than a half hour, I would guess). You bring a lot of beauty in my life. Oh, and you’re naturally beautiful on the outside too, but I’m guessing you hear that from Mike all the time, so I’ll keep that comment short.

Secondly, I wanted to tell you my theory on flowers. Flowers are a plant’s device to lure butterflies, bees, and other sorts of creatures into areas where they can get pollen stuck to themselves. Then, when they fly away, the plant’s pollen flies with them, and the pollen can then be used to make new baby trees. If you don’t understand how that works, ask your parents, or just know that when a mommy tree and a daddy tree love each other very much, they choose to love and care for baby trees too. Back to the theory. Flowers are meant to attract. They are there for beauty and for functionality. That’s what nature says. For God, I think that flowers are given to us as testimonies of God.

My dad gives my mom a bouquet of flowers every year for my mom’s birthday. It’s always an arrangement of the Birds of Paradise flower. This is one of the most dominant images in my mind when I think of love. Love between husband and wife, love in a family, and love between friends. Flowers, to me, are closely associated with love. “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. . . . he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect” (1 John 4:8, 16-17). Just like my father gives my mom flowers to show her he loves her, I believe that our Heavenly Father gives us (individually and collectively) flowers to show us he loves us. That is part of His testimony to us of his love for us.

Here at the London Study Abroad, we had our own Valentine’s Day last Saturday. Since there are about 35 girls, 3 boys, and three couples (professors and wives), female students were asking boys and girls on “dates.” It was a way for everyone to share their love and friendship with each other and have a fun time planning and doing special things for each other. I was designated to be an “asker,” or the one who asks on a date. I got to ask Lyssa on a date, and lucky for me I had had a class with her last semester. This is important because this is where I learned that Lyssa loves Wordsworth. Well, when I picked her up for the “date,” I brought with me a small bouquet of yellow daffodils. Wordsworth wrote the poem “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” which goes on to describe, “a host, of golden daffodils; / beside the lake, beneath the trees, / fluttering and dancing in the breeze.” Pretty, right? So I put these daffodils in a giant water bottle (instead of a vase . . . McGyver incarnate right here), and Lyssa left them on the mantle by the front door of the BYU London Centre. Every time I walk by the front door, I see those bright yellow daffodils and I’m happier. They are a source of sunshine in this terribly overcast country. It’s surprising how beautiful flowers can make the inside of buildings look, regardless of the outside conditions . . .or even the inside ones. I believe that God gave us flowers to give us hope regardless of whatever is going on around them. Flowers are God’s example to us of optimism. President Gordon B. Hinckley counseled us to “cultivate an attitude of happiness. Cultivate a spirit of optimism. Walk with faith, rejoicing in the beauties of nature, in the goodness of those you love, in the testimony which you carry in your heart concerning things divine” (Standing for Something). One of my favorite quotations, actually, comes from President Heber C. Kimball. He said, “I am perfectly satisfied that my Father and my God is a cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured Being. Why? Because I am cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured when I have His Spirit” (Journal of Discourses vol. 4, p. 222). Jesus Christ Himself is echoed in this quotation, for he stated (as recorded in John 16:33), “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” Those yellow daffodils remind me to be optimistic and lively, just like Heavenly Father is.

There are so many kinds of flowers in the world. I don’t know how Heavenly Father created them all, let alone keeps track of them all. But I know He does. I really do. “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Matthew 6:28-29). That’s right, God can spend so much time on each individual lily (and lilies in the collective) so that each flower’s beauty is more beautiful than the manmade temples that were supposed to have the most beautiful materials in them. “Shall he not much more clothe you?” (vs. 30) we are asked. If God desires to make each flower more beautiful than anything we can come up with, then why would he not be so concerned about his children individually in making them beautiful also? That’s why we have spiritual gifts. Carmody, I think you have the spiritual gift of happiness. I do. I think you have many other gifts, but the one that has impacted me the most is your gift for being happy. I know God is watching out for you, oh one more precious than the lilies of the field and the fowl of the air.

Flowers are wonderful things, are they not? I wish I were there to give you flowers myself, but since I’m not, I’m sending you pictures of flower on Facebook. Here’s the deal: you get a flower a day. I’m sending you these flowers to remind you that God is love, and He is all around us wanting us to be optimistic and to hope even in the darkest time. I’m sending you flower pictures because I want you to know that you are individually beautiful and precious to him. Remember that these flowers are for you, Carmody. They are to remind you ultimately of God and your worth in His Kingdom and His sight. I want you to take these flowers, too, as a reminder of how much I love you, how much I hope for you, and how much I care for you as an individual and a friend. You are like a flower in my life, and I want to return the favor.

“For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.”

William Wordsworth, “I wandered Lonely as a cloud”

Carmody, thanks for being my daffodils.

If you've ever read a letter to someone who doesn't respond to anything, you know as well as I do, that it's easy enough to doubt whether or not anything is getting in or being heard. I walked away wondering if she had even heard, let alone comprehended or appreciated what Carli had written and I had read. 

I got back on Skype, and Carli told me "I have faith that Carmody heard the letter". Carli's on the other side of the world. She can't see anything that's going on here. Faith isn't really about seeing though. It's about giving the benefit of the doubt.

The benefit of the doubt is that we don't have to remain in the doubt. The benefit is that when we close our eyes and pray, we have the opportunity to set aside what we have seen and believe. Faith is the other side of doubt, and just like with a coin, we can pick one side. The best thing about the faith-doubt coin is that when we lay it down faith-side up, we completely cover doubt, and it disappears.