More than Coincidence: Remembering Jesus Christ in Your Story

Christ Speaks Through the Arts with Caroline

• Lily • Season 1 • Episode 37

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Can music and poetry truly serve as vessels for divine connection and emotional healing? This episode promises to shed light on this intriguing question through the personal journey of our guest, Caroline, a 30-year-old mother of two and master's student in humanities, who has found deep spiritual solace in the arts. Caroline’s story reveals how the arts can connect us to Christ during our darkest hours when typical “primary answers” bring us heartache. 

Caroline especially emphasizes that we must each figure out how Christ uniquely speaks to us and shares how she has heard His voice and felt His Spirit strongest through singing in choirs, poetry, and inspired novels like The Lord of the Rings

Reflecting on themes of faith and hope, Caroline discusses the comfort found in the Psalms and the beauty of sacrifice in following Jesus Christ. Through biblical stories and personal testimonies, we examine the importance of maintaining faith during times of suffering and darkness. Caroline's testament to Jesus as the "author and finisher" of our faith offers a compelling and heartfelt narrative that encourages us to find divine connection in the beauty around us and from what we or others create! 


Please reach out to me if you are interested in sharing your story! I would LOVE to hear from you. :)

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**Transcripts available on website!

Speaker 1:

Thank you and bring us peace upon reflection. This podcast is dedicated to sharing these anchoring memories from everyone's unique stories in order to collectively remember and testify of the reality of Jesus Christ and his presence in our lives. I'm your host, Lily, and I'm very excited to share these experiences together. Good evening, everybody. Today we have Caroline. How are you? Hi, I'm great. Would you mind introducing yourself a little?

Speaker 2:

bit for us. Yeah, so I'm Caroline, I'm 30 years old, I have two little kids that are six, and two. They're really fun and I'm getting my master's in humanities right now, which is really fun. It's kind of a big deal. It's kind of a big deal, yeah.

Speaker 1:

How far are you into your?

Speaker 2:

program. I'm just one year in, so I'm just at the beginning.

Speaker 1:

So you still have a year left. Is it a two-year program?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think it'll take me a while. I'm just doing one class at a time. Yeah, and it's online so I can Sweet. Yes, so it's nice because it's very flexible finishing the first year, but it has uh. So, yeah, I'm doing humanities with an emphasis in christianity nice so I'm just really interested in the arts and spirituality and how those interact um and that's yeah, that's basically sweet and I'm married, obviously because I have two kids.

Speaker 1:

But just to make that clear, I'm also married. I've been married for eight years, uh-huh, yeah, and you're going to be doing residency yes, my husband's starting his residency.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we're moving to Maine. He's gonna do his residency in radiology so we're excited for that. Congratulations, thank you.

Speaker 1:

It's gonna be such a fun adventure we're really excited. It will be, yeah, awesome. Well then, I'll just ask you the question, caroline what memories do you have in your life that you reflect on, that prick your heart and remembrance of Jesus Christ and anchor you to him?

Speaker 2:

Well, such a beautiful question. And I think, as I was thinking about that, there is a scripture that came to my mind. It's from 2 Nephi 31.3. I was just reading a couple nights ago and it says For the Lord, god giveth light unto the understanding, for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding. And I love that scripture because I think my language is music and art and I just feel like God speaks to us in our language, like it says and so throughout my life, as I was thinking about those memories, so many of my connections to God come through music and through art.

Speaker 2:

I feel like that's kind of my medium right that you can speak to me in so cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so when I was growing up, I sang. I've always been a singer and love singing and, um, when I went to college, I studied music, music education at BYU, and so so many of the times where I've felt divinity have been in song have been with in singing, and especially with choirs. I feel like there's something about singing with other people that really feels like this form of like Zion for me. It's like you're unified in song and it can be with people that you have nothing in common with, but you're united in what you're singing, right. So there's this kind of uh togetherness. So I feel like choir has been uh just so many times in my life when I've been in a choir and we're singing something where I'll just feel this connection, this feeling of Zion, and those have been really beautiful experiences.

Speaker 1:

Is there any particular song that you're just like? It gets me every time? Oh yes.

Speaker 2:

So there's a song by a composer named Will Todd. He's a contemporary composer, so he's alive right now and he has a song called I wrote it down what is it? The call of wisdom? It's really beautiful and I remember actually listening to it. Um, the BYU singers just recorded it on one of their recent albums. Yeah, and I was in a really dark time and I was just listening to that album one Sunday and that song came on and part of the lyrics are that the chorus says um, I am here, do you hear me? And it just kind of will repeat that over I am here, do you hear me? Um, and I just love. It really struck me because sometimes I'm like, oh, sometimes we don't, sometimes we don't hear him and yeah but he's here so, so anyway, I love that song Right.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's awesome, cool. So then what do you have anything? I know you said music.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you mentioned art and obviously in the humanities you're doing art and Christianity.

Speaker 1:

Yeah so what particularly about tangible art as well?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like a medium or.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, one thing I love also is poetry and, yeah, and there is a time in my life where I really struggled with church and with and with feeling connected to God yeah and I had had a lot of people that were really close to me leave faith and just choose different belief systems, and so things that were related to the church were really painful for me for a little while. So like reading the Book of Mormon was really hard. Going to church, the temple, things that had been like kind of spiritual touch points in my life, right, I couldn't really like access them anymore for a little bit because it just caused me pain.

Speaker 2:

I couldn't really feel God through those for a little bit, um, because it just caused me pain. I couldn't really feel God through those for a little bit, and so during that time, um, I turned to poetry and um, and it was funny because I there's a writer I love her name, sarah Clarkson, and she had a similar experience and she talked about how she couldn't read the bible, and so she read Lord of the Rings and she's like and looking back, I just kind of like I could hear God laughing because she's like it's the same story.

Speaker 2:

You know, it's like it's truth. You know, yep, it's the theme, it's the things.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

It's like all the things. So I feel that way with poetry, but I could read poetry and it's the same you know, it's like it's true so I feel like there's this poem I wrote it down because I love it by a poet named Chesla Milotes.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, because it's I don't know, but it's called One More Day and he talks about the last part of it says and though the good is weak, beauty is very strong. Non-being sprawls everywhere. It turns into ash, whole expanses of being. It masquerades in shapes and colors that imitate existence and no one would know it if they did not know that it was ugly. And when people cease to believe that there is good and evil, only beauty will call to them and save them. So they will still know how to say this is true and that is false. And I remember reading that and that just really resonating with me that beauty will always call to us. It's so hard to see something beautiful and think that it's ugly you know, like if you walk into the Sistine Chapel.

Speaker 2:

You can can't say that that's ugly. It just you know, it's just opposite. And so I feel that way where sometimes, when we get befuddled with truth and error, but beauty has always helped me, it's kind of my guiding star of God's goodness, goodness, and so poetry does that for me, where I can feel divinity and I can feel um the sense of peace that now I've been able to, as I've kind of worked through um my dark times and as.

Speaker 2:

God has led me through that. I feel like I've been able to circle back to scripture and can feel that same divinity and beauty in it now again. But when I couldn't? Um, god speaks in our language and God could speak to me through poetry and through music when I couldn't access it in other, in other parts of his language, I guess you know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

So did you? Um, when it comes to music and poetry, was it mostly reading or listening to things that other people have made that made you feel the spirit, or do you? Also really like to compose and create and stuff as well, like do you do both?

Speaker 2:

I don't really compose but I do love singing. So whenever I do sing, I feel like I've had really great experiences, like there was one experience where I was singing at a funeral and I'd never met the person, but it was a really tragic death. He had committed suicide and the family had asked me to sing. And they'd asked me to sing oh, divine redeemer. And I had this experience where I was singing the song.

Speaker 2:

I'd never met him before but I felt, as I was singing, that he it was really like his song. It was kind of his cry to god, um, and I was so overcome by this feeling of this person being in that room and really this cry, like his cry to god, of like have mercy on me, and I like couldn't make it through this song. I had never had that happen before, but I just like started crying. Yeah, I like couldn't, I couldn't keep, I couldn't get through because it was so powerful. So I feel like sometimes, where language can fail, music just has this way of kind of getting beyond that Um, and so I've had experiences like that where the spirit will just come as I'm singing something that I can just feel it's beyond me and it's, it's somewhere else.

Speaker 1:

Yes, what about poetry? Do you write your own poetry or do you still like reading poetry?

Speaker 2:

yes, I also don't really write my own. I would love to someday. I think that would be so fun, but I think at this phase I'm just kind of in the like reading and absorbing phase so yeah but there are so many poets I love and great Christian poets too Like there's this poet who's also current. His name is Malcolm Geit. I don't know if you read any of his stuff.

Speaker 1:

I'm not. I honestly am not big into poetry.

Speaker 2:

No, yeah, I understand. It kind of feels like elitist a little bit, or it can feel like unapproachable sometimes.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

So I totally recommend starting with Malcolm Guy, because his stuff is so approachable. He does collections for different parts of the liturgical calendar, if you're familiar with that. So, like he'll do poems for Lent or for Advent, so I love celebrating Advent. It's around Christmas time, yeah, and you know, as Mormons, we don't really, we don't.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we don't obviously formally celebrate the liturgical calendar, but I really like it just as a personal spiritual practice because it helps me just kind of have different rituals that really I feel like connect me to God. So the Advent one is great where, yeah, it leads up to Christmas and I think you can check me on this, because I don't I would have to check to make sure but I think it also goes the 12 days after Christmas, and so I love that. I love a poem every day, yes, and I just love doing that because it helps me just kind of start reflecting for the season. And then he also does it for Lent, and that's really lovely too. So he has some great collections, yeah, Well, you of the people that you, um, tell me about tonight.

Speaker 1:

Would you mind texting those to me so that I can put them up, so that everybody else can listen to them too and look at that, yeah, yeah because I think it's really cool that you bring up like poetry and and feeling testimony through art yeah because I was actually I've actually had two really interesting experiences with that recently. The first one was so I have I have a brother with that. I have two brothers with down syndrome oh yeah, but one of them he. He's more verbal than the other one, but he still can't really talk very well. He just graduated from high school, oh that's and he, I keep having this feeling.

Speaker 1:

Like you should interview Stefco, like you should interview Stefco for the podcast and I'm like, but how like he can't really talk like yeah, it's, it's kind of difficult, but then I had the feeling like no, lily, he loves the hymns. Yes, like you need to ask him what his favorite hymn is yes have him either, you know, and figure and figure out how he can share his testimony in that way, because, yes, music for him is so powerful and we will just see him sitting reading with his hymn book and he or he'll take these little like connector toys or something and he'll like write out music notes oh like of his favorite hymns.

Speaker 1:

He just and when he wants, when he's just at home he just listens to Motab. I guess we don't call it more of a tabernacle choir anymore Tabby cats. Yeah, the tabernacle choir at Temple Square. But he will. He has this whole playlist that it's like where's Stefco? Oh, I hear the music on, that's where she is Wow yeah. It's his language, and so I think I love how you're bringing that this up, because it's like another confirmation to me of you should try this yes, see how this goes.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and you saying that reminds me I worked in memory care for a little bit with people that had Alzheimer's and dementia doing music right, and it was amazing because they would be non-verbal. Some of them would be in wheelchairs but, they could sing. That is weird. Yes, so they couldn't speak, but since music can go throughout the whole brain, it's like it could connect in ways that, like other parts of their brain, couldn't connect anymore right, so they could sing, and it was so.

Speaker 2:

That's wild like seeing them come alive with music when they couldn't with words, right, so anyway, that's wow, so you should totally try.

Speaker 1:

Well, anybody listening? Get ready for chef co's episode. Yeah, I gotta figure out.

Speaker 2:

You have no excuse now, it's coming, it's coming out it's amazing.

Speaker 1:

The other funny experience I had with poetry. So I am not a poet. I love to. I love to write. Writing is, yeah, I, I love writing, but I've always felt like poetry was I like how you say it's unapproachable? Yeah, for me. I'm a little bit more, maybe I'm the snooty one and I'm like like, oh, like, it's just so, I don't know, it's just, it's hard for me to connect, like I love William. I think I think William Blake is the only poet that I've read well, that's a good choice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, like he's a classic.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so I love him, but everybody else. I'm like, eh, not my yeah. But so we were having this Relief Society banquet, or something I think, for the Relief Society birthday in my ward and one of my friends who was on the committee was like, hey, lily, we really want you to share your testimony. And I was like, okay, I guess I can do that. And I was praying and really praying, like okay, well, how should I like what should I share? Right, and I'll have to send you the talk yeah.

Speaker 1:

President Packer um gave this talk a few years before he passed, I think, where he wrote a poem and as he, I think he started it when he was like 50, and then every or 60 or something, and then every 10 years he would add a new stanza oh, you know and as I was reading it, I had the really strong feeling Lily, you need to write a poem. Yeah, and I was like what do you mean?

Speaker 2:

I need to write a poem yeah, like I'll get up and I'll like I'll like I'll give a speech or talk or whatever, but poetry really yeah.

Speaker 1:

I don't think this is so, not me yeah and I, I tried writing and I'm a perfectionist anyway, yeah, so. I was like stressing over it, trying to figure it out. Well, I don't finish it until, literally, I'm about to go up to talk and I'm freaking out and I'm stressing out. But I will say I have not felt the spirit testify more strongly to me than when I finished that poem.

Speaker 1:

And it was insanely embarrassing because I got up there and I was sobbing. I don't. I hate crying in public. I know me too right, yeah it's like the worst. Yes, but I I was sobbing, caroline like I could not get through this poem, especially the last part because, the last, because what the whole poem was was about was I really felt like I needed to talk about the things I know and the things that I don't know yeah about being in the gospel, yeah, and living the gospel right and so the whole first part of the poem is me kind of like lamenting to God, like this is my list of I don't knows yeah and then the last part of it is the spirit telling me the things that I do know.

Speaker 1:

And the last part of it is like me, kind of seeing what happens in Gethsemane and Sam. You want to get to anything about it. Yes, think about that writing that poem just completely reshaped and the way I had to express myself and my testimony in a different way.

Speaker 1:

It just spoke powerfully so powerfully to me and and one of my cute girlfriends got up to bear her testimony afterwards and she likes to compose music, and so then she got up and shared her testimony about how it is through the composition and all those things that she has felt the spirit, and so I love how you're testifying to that too, because it really I didn't realize, yeah, how special that was until I had that happen to me and and so now, yeah, that's just a poem that I I will always treasure because it literally came from my soul. Like I feel like when I write, when I write a talk, it comes more from my mind yes and it's very more logical, like there's still some feeling behind it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but this poetry was like I literally bore my soul to these women?

Speaker 2:

yes, and it was.

Speaker 1:

It was so uncomfortable, but it was so raw. Yeah that, I I it. It was one of the most the strongest spiritual experiences I've ever had in my life, so I'm so happy that you brought that up.

Speaker 2:

That is so beautiful that is so beautiful I hope. I hope you can maybe write. Thank you, I know this is inspiring me. I want to, but I'm scared. So you're inspiring me that you did it. We can do that, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I definitely can do it. Who was like yeah, poetry oh no, that is so.

Speaker 2:

I love that.

Speaker 1:

That's so beautiful it was really, it was quite the experience yeah, but so are there other like? Are there other things specifically with like music or poetry or any other like memories that you really have had, that really kind of stuck out to you a little bit more, that you cling to or any others you know?

Speaker 2:

no, yes, I will say just one other thing with music and poetry. I felt it so important that we have so many different, uh, connecting points with God, especially like with yeah, I guess, like I've been saying, with music and art. So one thing that I am really passionate about is doing that with children. So me and my friend started this website called the milk and honey mamas and we um every she's studying theology and getting her PhD in theology, so she'll do like a theological background to go along with. Come follow me, and then I'll do art, poetry and music to go with every week, so we, and it's for children yeah

Speaker 2:

so that's just really important to me too, that we give people so many different ways of connecting with God, because I think sometimes, again going back to the language, like we'll think that maybe the only language is scripture or prayer, which are really important languages of God, for sure, but I think there's so many other languages that maybe people don't recognize in themselves, like music or poetry, that maybe can reach them really well. So anyway, that's just something to think about. I was thinking about just like all the different languages God uses, because I've been reading this book called the Reason for God. It's by Timothy Keller. He was like a New York pastor I don't know if you've ever read it, but really good and I was like man. His language is like rationality, like he's so great at communicating rationality and like the rationality for God and that's like his language that he can speak to you, know, and like that connects with God, where he's like yeah, these are the rational reasons for God, right, um, and I love that.

Speaker 2:

So, anyway, I just think it's so interesting to discover, like, what language God is speaking to you in anyway, that's a side note.

Speaker 2:

But, um, I think, other experiences.

Speaker 2:

I will say I have had some beautiful experiences with prayer and with the psalms.

Speaker 2:

So I, when I was going through that really dark time, when I had a lot of close people to me leave, like I said, I really struggled to connect with church-specific things, so I had gone to poetry, but then I also went to the Psalms, and I love the Psalms because there's just so many different types of prayers to God and when I didn't really have words, I felt like, for God, they gave me words and my favorite Psalm is Psalm 139. And I think I just know I have the NIV version memorized, so it's a little different from the KJV which we normally use, but the NIV version there's a part that says, um, well, the first part is really beautiful. It says you have searched me, lord, and you know me, you know when I sit down and when I rise up, and it goes through. And then there's the part that says even the darkness is not dark to you. And that line has always stayed with me because in my darkness I felt like so unreachable, so lonely, but knowing that darkness is not dark to God, because he's light.

Speaker 2:

He is light. He can always shine light into the darkest places, and so even my darkness wasn't dark to God, and I remember just reading that outside on my phone and I never read Psalm 139 before. I don't even know how I got to that Psalm, if I was just like scrolling through, but oh, I felt so much of his presence in that moment where I was like this is not dark to him. Yes, like I'm not dark to him, he can just, you know, he can just shine his light through that. Yes, um, and that has gotten me through so many times to know, even when I feel dark, it's not dark to him. Nothing is dark to him, everything is light, everything is bright, and he can lead us into that lightness. Um, and I was thinking about that this week a lot because I was talking to a friend who, in a really dark time of her life, she didn't feel God at all.

Speaker 1:

And she was like oh, if I'd felt him, I would have stayed. But I like felt nothing.

Speaker 2:

And I was thinking about that because I was like man in my dark times, like I also have felt nothing, Like I haven't felt this like immediate connection, of like comfort. And then I thought of Jesus and I was like Jesus was on the cross, he felt abandoned, he felt nothing. He said where are you? Exactly? He felt the dark. He felt totally abandoned. Yes, but I love that Jesus turns to God, in that, in the dark, where he doesn't feel anything. He says where are you?

Speaker 2:

There's still this trust that God is there, yes, and then he goes into God's presence you know, and so I was thinking about that because I'm like, yeah, I felt abandoned and alone, but then always I get to come into God's presence in some way, in some way, like there is some sort of light that gets me through that. And going back to Lord of the Rings, there's this part in Lord of the Rings. Anytime we can tie it back to Lord of the.

Speaker 1:

Rings Right.

Speaker 2:

There's this part at the end where they're climbing Mount Doom and it's all darkness and just like horrible. Yes, actually. I'm going to find the quote Do horrible, yes, actually I'm gonna find the quote.

Speaker 1:

Do it. Find the quote, do it. I'm ready, because I'm a fan of sam wise gamgee. Let's do it, just to get the. If you're gonna quote sam, you gotta do it right.

Speaker 2:

I gotta do it right, potato. Oh, because this part is so good and it just like speaks to what we're talking about. Okay, so this is what sam says. They're peeping among the cloud rack above a dark tour. High up in the mountains, sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart as he looked up out of the forsaken land and hope returned to him. For, like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced in the. In the end, the shadow was only a small and passing thing. There was light and high beauty, forever beyond its reach. That's from the return of the king isn't that so beautiful?

Speaker 2:

and I just love that because I think that's it like in the dark, forsaken land, there's beauty beyond our reach, right, and that has always got me through. Beauty has always called to me, like that poem that we talked about earlier, the cheslamiolets one has always called to me, like that poem that we talked about earlier, the Cheslam Yaltz one. It has always called to me and has helped me return to trusting in light and trusting in Jesus Because I think it's real, more real than anything else I've experienced.

Speaker 1:

Right. So then, what I'm getting from our conversation that we're having right now is people should try and figure out what language is the lord speaks to them yeah, and then seek to find the beauty in the world that can add light. Yeah, is that my understanding?

Speaker 2:

yes, absolutely yes and I would also say a big thing that I've come to believe is that we all choose what to trust in. No matter what world we have, we're trusting in something and for me, I just trust in Jesus more than anything else. Yeah, I trust in his life, I trust in, I trust his word, that what he says he's not lying, you know like I think he's really.

Speaker 2:

When he says that he has come to redeem, that he's come to heal, that he has come to repair the breach, I trust that that is really true. When he says he can do his own work, I trust that I know he can do his work. When he says he loves us, that we're his children, I trust that. I believe that that is true. When he says he knows us, I believe that I've felt that. So I think I've just come to really realize in my life that I trust him more than anything else right, you know.

Speaker 1:

So how do you do that? I guess then in the dark times, because I feel like you're giving me this really big contrast, as I hear a person testifying. Oh my gosh, I felt the darkness.

Speaker 1:

I've been on Mount Doom, yes and then, but at the same time, you're like but I trust him and I have this complete faith in him and I'm sitting here going how, yeah, because, honestly, like, I feel like that and I think that's a lesson that I know. I'm for sure, learning I know a lot of people are learning is how, when you when you feel this, this crushing darkness. Yeah, how can you come out of it?

Speaker 1:

and or even while you're in it and when you come out of it say I, I am his, yeah, he is mine, yeah, how the heck do you do that like?

Speaker 2:

I'm super.

Speaker 1:

I think it's amazing that you're testifying of it, because I needed to hear that oh but now can you help us who might be struggling with that.

Speaker 2:

yes, oh yes, what? Yes, what a beautiful question. Well, there's a couple of things I will say. The first thing I think is I think that sometimes we think, if we are in sorrow, or if we're in darkness or in doubt, that that is somehow well, and this might sound cliche, but I guess I would say sometimes that feels like we are failing in some way, that we're failing God. I think I've learned that sorrow, suffering, darkness, they can be a form of worship, and I guess what I mean is like if you read job's story right or reading the psalms yeah, like we were talking about I think those are really dark stories a lot of them, a lot of psalms, are like rough.

Speaker 2:

A lot of you know job's story, rough story yes, we're like talking about suffering and darkness. That's like yeah, that's it right, but I find them to be so worshipful because they always take that to god. There's still this feeling of like I am in despair. Where are you?

Speaker 2:

right and I guess the where are you might feel like this failure, but I feel like there's this still. There's like this reaching out. So when I think about Joseph Smith saying like, oh God, oh God, where are you now? I think about Jesus saying like where are you? Right, I think of that as worship. There's like this reaching the hand out to being like I am reaching for you, reach back to me, I need you. There's this ultimate humility, there's this recognition of like I cannot do this alone.

Speaker 2:

So when I see that in Jesus of being like, this is my darkest hour and I feel abandoned, right Like, I feel alone. So I think when we look to Jesus in that way, it's like Jesus felt that he felt abandoned, he felt darkness and he turned it to God. And he didn't feel God in that moment, but he turned it to God and then eventually has led to God's presence. So I think that's a big thing, is like. I think we can think of it as a form of worship when we take it to him, even if we don't feel anything. It's still this act of trust of like I don't feel you at all, but I'm gonna bring it to you anyway, right, um, and that's not cheap like, that's like very costly you know, like that will cost you something and that will like bring you to a different place of faith, right?

Speaker 2:

the other thing I think is kind of what I was saying before, which is like we all have to trust in something. So I think how like a very practical thing for me was like really looking at the other options yeah of of world views and cons yeah and like, really, looking at, we'll just take atheism because it's like so you know that's like a very intense opposite one yes, atheism, and I was like, okay, like let's say that is what is real right.

Speaker 2:

There is no god right, and we are here and it's okay. So for me I just can't. That has been so contrary to my lived experience of what life is for me. I've felt inherent meaning in everything. Yeah, for me, like I can't really reduce friendship, marriage, love, children to just evolution, like it doesn't, it's just too reductionist I don't know.

Speaker 1:

It's like.

Speaker 2:

This is how it is, yeah and for me I'm like that just isn't how people live like that's not how people act. People don't even if you like, are like a 100 atheist. You don't live that belief out like. You still act like things have meaning.

Speaker 1:

You still act like your relationships matter to you and you can say, yes, it's like soul and like the human part in my mind yeah, atheism, kind of like I don't want to say rejects it yeah it rejects a lot of things.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes and I just don't think people really live that way and I haven't, I, I don't know, I just there's too much meaning for me and I know people can say you can create your own meaning, but that's so fragile and and it just doesn't check out for me. So I think, like for me, like people don't live that way, right, right, anyway. So I think, like for me, really trying to like logistically, logistically, look at each world view and look at the rationalism behind them and be like okay, is this like?

Speaker 2:

does this match up?

Speaker 2:

with what I feel is is lived reality. Yeah, um, and I think for me, I just like, I think it just came to. I believe that there is inherent morality. I believe that meaning is real and also that we don't just create it ourselves. I believe that there is so much again, beauty, which I guess, guess, yeah, people say that wouldn't be evidence for God, but I feel like it's a very good clue. I feel like beauty matters to me because there's no real reason for it and it's so abundant. This desire to create, to be in relationship, I don't know. All of those things to me are just clues and I have felt so much divinity in life that I'm like I just that really helped me hold on to at least just the idea of God at first, where I was like no, I really feel that there is more, and that was kind of impossible to take from me, just from my lived experience, right, right, life you know right when I think it's okay for you, anybody or anybody yeah to really kind of take that line up online.

Speaker 2:

Precept upon precept it's okay, to step back and be like yeah okay, let's literally, logically, and yes, cons, let's look at okay god divinity, yes.

Speaker 1:

This step yes, and I think that that is good and I think that that is okay, because yeah, I think sometimes, when you just kind of like try and drink it from a fire hose yeah, it's really overwhelming but. I really do think that it is very healthy to step back and, yeah, ask the one question at a time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and ponder that one question at a time yes and I think the spirit will testify to you of which direction that is, and that yeah, and that honestly, that that might be for some people maybe needing to step away just for a little bit and then coming back yeah for some people that might be just saying, okay, I'm just gonna hold on real tight and just wait and see what happens. You know, yes, yes, the spirit speaks to us all differently? Yes, but I think I think that again, if we circle back to the learning the language that God speaks to you and the appreciating beauty.

Speaker 1:

I think doing those things really will help you sift and find that meaning and find those answers because, you know, it's true, god doesn't speak to us. All the same, yeah you know, it's true, god doesn't speak to us all the same, yeah, and I think even just so, when you see something beautiful, you feel the spirit a little bit. Yeah, and I think even that can be that star that Sam saw on Mount. Doom and you're just like okay, I can keep going, we're almost there, right?

Speaker 2:

Yes, oh, absolutely. And I love in the scriptures God says like he will manifest the truth to you. And I think manifest is such a open, beautiful word because sometimes I think, growing up, I thought, like the promise you know of, like, oh, like, pray about the book to you, and so I just think that word is really beautiful because again, he'll speak in your language and he'll manifest it to you. Yes, and that can look so differently, you know, depending on who. You are right, and I feel like he's done that to me in a very personal, in my own way.

Speaker 2:

he's manifested himself to me in ways that, like he could only do for me you know, and it's enough for me, and it might not be for somebody else, but he can manifest it to them in their way, and that will be for them right, so right. Like someone else might hear beauty and think that's silly and it doesn't manifest to them, but to me, that's how god manifests to me and it's a way that really speaks to me.

Speaker 1:

So anyway, right, that's awesome. Well, I've I've truly enjoyed our conversation. This has been so much fun me too. Do you have any other thoughts that you would like to share before leaving us with the testimony?

Speaker 2:

I will just say I guess this is kind of my testimony, but I I feel like it is the best sacrifice ever. I know we make that covenant of sacrifice and I think it is so important that it's one of those covenants that we make. It's so just sacrifice is important. So I guess too, when we're talking about the darkness and like and trying to hold on, I think sacrifice will just be a part of faith and of following jesus. I mean jesus, yeah, that was his life just full of sacrifice. Yes.

Speaker 2:

So if we want to follow that, there will be some of that involved. But I just think I wouldn't. There's nothing I would rather sacrifice than my life to try to follow him and I just have such an abundance of gratitude for how I have seen him in my life, such an abundance of gratitude for how I have seen him in my life and, and even the times I haven't felt him there, I have felt him through people and I love that we call ourselves like the body of Christ, because I really feel God and other people so much and how he works through people.

Speaker 2:

So times when I felt alone I was given people know that like helped me through in so many beautiful ways and helped me stay close to God, and so that's another thing I'd say is that I think the body of Christ is real and I'm so grateful to be in the church for that reason, because it's real, and like moving to Maine I am so I feel so comforted because I know that I always have the body of Christ with me, like I know I have a family to go to there. I know I have people that care and that are full of belief and trying to you know right, follow Jesus and the way I'm trying to follow Jesus. So, anyway, but yeah, I will just say I really do love him and as struggling as I am and as imperfect as I am, I think it's something that I will just wrestle. Faith will be something I wrestle with my whole life because I just want to follow him the best way I can. So I'm just so grateful for this opportunity to testify of that. It's like such a wonderful thing that you're doing to help and encourage people to testify of Christ everywhere. It's so important and um, and I love.

Speaker 2:

I don't remember if you sent this to me or if it's part of your podcast, but you like the first phrase in the google if you sent this to me or if it's part of your podcast, but you like the first phrase in the Google Doc you sent is that he's the author and finisher of our faith, and I just have been thinking about that phrase so much that he is the author of our faith. I love that and it reminds me of there's this CS Lewis quote where he's talking about how it was after they had gone to the moon and they came back and they said, oh, we didn't see God up there. And CS Lewis's response was something like oh well, if God is there, we don't relate to him. Like going up in an apartment building and like going up to the third story and there he is. If God is real, it's more like he is the author and we're the characters in the play and the only way we recognize him is he writes himself into the play. Yeah, and that's how we know he's there.

Speaker 2:

So I was just thinking about that like the author and finisher of our faith and I'm like he has written himself into my story in like really personal ways and I just love that phrase because I hadn't really thought of that like he is the author of my faith, like he has written himself into my story and I'm so grateful for that awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you, caroline, so much for spending this time together with me. It's it's been wonderful. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I've loved it. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1:

You're welcome. Thanks again for tuning into more than coincidence remembering Jesus Christ in your Story. Please follow us on social media or share us with a friend. If you have an experience you'd like to share, feel free to reach out to morethancoincidencerememberhim at gmailcom. I can't wait to hear all of the amazing memories you all have of our Savior. See you next time.