by Laura Briggs-Fenn
Ridges, and timbers, and pickets, and towers. Ridges, and timbers, and pickets, and towers. These words repeated over and over in my mind as Jared drove me to the Huntsman Cancer Center for the next in a litany of tests that I would undergo as doctors worked to discover the extent to which my breast cancer afflicted me. I had read many times, ever since I was a child, of how the brave Captain Moroni defended his people from the onslaught of Lamanite armies using ridges, and timbers, and pickets, and towers. What I didn’t know, as my little childhood fingers thumbed through the worn pages of my illustrated Book of Mormon reader, was how these words would return to buoy me up and strengthen me during my own personal battle. I arrived at the hospital and changed into the infamously immodest hospital gown that lay neatly folded on the exam table. Soon enough, I was ready to begin a sort of sensory deprivation; no talking, no light, no phone, no people. In order to stop my brain from working too much and using up too much of my blood glucose, I was also instructed to be still and not think. Now, I am pretty good at zoning out when I am not supposed too. In college, I actually paid a lot of money to not think. It’s a completely different story when you are sitting in a metabolism slowing cold-room, hungry from fasting, weak, scared, sipping on an ice-cold glass of radioactive sludge and then are asked to not think about anything. Yeah right! Try as I may, my mind was anything but still. I was in a trough, no, not a trough, I had hopelessly plummeted to the bottom of a deep trench of despair. In order to claw my way out of this despair, I relentlessly thought of ridges, and timbers, and pickets, and towers. Ridges, and timbers, and pickets, and towers.
Alma 50:1-4, “And now it came to pass that Moroni did not stop making preparations…to defend his people against the Lamanites; for he caused that his armies should commence…in digging up heaps of earth round about all the cities… And upon the top of these ridges of earth he caused that there should be timbers, yeah works of timbers built up to the height of a man, round about the cities. And he caused that… there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers round about; and they were strong and high. And he caused towers to be erected that overlooked those works of pickets…that the stones and the arrows of the Lamanites could not hurt them.” Moroni did not sit idly by. He was deliberately and brilliantly engaged in building up his defenses.
Initially, when I was faced with a much poorer prognosis than ended up coming to fruition, the story of Moroni auspiciously came to my worried mind. I thought of Moroni’s courage and character. I took strength from the idea that I too was worth defending. I knew that, like Moroni, I must work to spiritually build up my own fortifications. I could not sit idly by. Stephen W. Owen, Young Men General President, has proclaimed the importance of “deliberately [taking] time each day to disconnect from the world and connect with heaven.” I found, in order to defend my vulnerable spirits, and even my body, from the battle-field that my life had become, it was essential that I deliberately connected with heaven, and in so doing, was able to build my very own ridges, and timbers, and pickets, and towers.
As a first deterrent to the furious fray, I built Ridges of Righteousness. I suppose we all have room for improvement, and I did what I could to be a better person. I did away with thoughts and actions that were not reflective of what I knew to be right. I also did away with actions that were not necessarily wrong, instead they were perhaps immature habits. At very least they were not things that I would picture Jesus Christ doing. By doing my best to be Christlike, I felt the power of the adversary diminish in my life. And even though…
No tales have been told of my sweet-tempered soul,
No record rings of my righteousness,
Still I kneel and trust His grace
My sullied spirit to soothe and bless.[i]
Each thing I change for the better, no matter how small, is like a shovel full of earth being added to my defensive ridges. Ridges of Righteousness, like the immovable mountains, can impede the way of the adversary. In fact, Psalms 36:6 says that “righteousness is like the great mountains.” Proverbs 10:2… “Righteousness delivereth from death.”
I also learned that I could build Timbers of Time, meaning that if I deliberately dedicated my time to connecting with that Captain of Man’s Salvation[ii], He would respond, and I would be strengthened. D&C 88:63 “Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you.” My Timbers of Time could be like Moroni’s strong timbers fortifying my own citadel. In a mortal existence such as ours, time is a non-renewable resource. Deliberately and thoughtfully using my limited time to pray, to meditate on the things of God, or to study the scriptures has proven to be richly rewarding. If I am not careful, I find that I spend too much time on my phone scrolling like a drone through a myriad of minutia. It can be entertaining, for sure… I collect vast amounts of recipes to never make. But, in the end, very little of it builds my timbers. President Nelson has said “ We live in a world that is complex and increasingly contentious. The constant availability of social media and a 24-hour news cycle bombard us with relentless messages. If we are to have any hope of sifting through the myriad of voices and the philosophies of men that attack truth, we must learn to receive personal revelation.” In other words, we must build our timbers with time deliberately dedicated to connecting with our Spiritual Rock[iii], even God.
Pickets of Prayer… my third line of defense. From D&C 10:5, “Pray always, that you may come of conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan.” Isn’t that perfect? Not only will prayer be a defense for us, it will allow us to win the war, to conquer Satan! Prayer is the golden thread that connects us to that royal cloth from which we have been cut, even to our Father. Prayer is our lifeline. God has not left us alone. I testify that He hears our prayers and that for me, His answers are often immediate and clear yet so subtle that, if I am not deliberately listening, I am apt to brush them aside, thinking that His answer was just another random thought. We have a line of communication. Prayer is our way to tell Father what we need, but prayer should also involve some degree of listening as well. Pickets of Prayer can be, and indeed have for me been, the strongest line of defense.
Finally, I erected Towers of Truth that turned my thoughts heavenward. The scriptures, the words of the prophets, and personal revelation are all Towers of Truth. They teach us the truth and echo the words of Jesus Christ. I have learned to love the scriptures even more in the past years. I have found that sometimes, when I study the scriptures, I can spend an hour on a single verse. I have also found that sometimes, I read and I don’t feel much. However, I cannot tell you how many times my eyes have been too filled with tears to read my scriptures. Yet, having read them over and over, the words flowed effortlessly to my mind and, like a soothing balm, healed my heart and awakened my courage. These Towers of Truth can elevate and can provide a secure place from which the stones and arrows of the world cannot harm or injure.
There is a children’s picture book that I love that speaks to me of life on this earth, of the challenges we face, and of our longed-for heavenly home. The book is called Far Flutterby and the story begins like this;
One day in the town of Better-than-Brown,
Cody the Caterpillar crawled on the ground.
Eating and inching his way through the day,
His spirits were low and the heavens were gray.
“I wonder,” he said, as he inched up a tree,
“if there’s more to this life than just branches and leaves.”
Then right at that moment a bird came along,
Beulah Lee Bird with a beautiful song.
“I’m from the land of Far Flutterby
Where God has good plans for his creatures to fly!
These plans include you, so have faith and you’ll see!”
Then Beulah Lee Bird flew off joyfully.
As the story continues, little Cody has another visitor, a beautiful, colorful winged butterfly named Franny McFly. Franny McFly conveys, again, the same message that Beulah Lee Bird had, namely that Cody should have faith, that there was a beautiful land called FarFlutterby, and that God intended for little Cody the Caterpillar to one day fly to his forever home there! Cody tried an assortment of ways to give himself wings, but no matter what he flapped or strapped onto himself, he always ended up splat, flat on his face.
There in a heap he thought life can be tricky,
Upside down, sideways, and pokey and prickly.
Still he held on to hope because that’s what he’d heard
From Franny McFly and Beulah Lee Bird.
“Okay,” Cody said, “if there really are plans
For me to find more than I have in this land,
When will it happen and how will I know?
‘Cause here I’m still boring, still wrinkly, still slow.”
One day, Cody felt the compulsion to spin himself into a sticky cocoon, and there he despondently hung for 3 long weeks…
All hope was lost, he was downer-than-down,
Stuck there forever in Better-than-Brown.
One glorious morning, the sun came out and hope shot straight through his wiggly[iv] heart. He knew he couldn’t give up, he knew he believed in the words of Franny McFly and Beulah Lee Bird and that God did have a plan for him. So, he began to work his way out of his cocoon…
Then he wriggled and squiggled and jiggled about,
Juggling and buggling for any way out.
He was so very stuck, he was sweaty and sore,
For nothing had ever been this hard before.
When Cody had at last freed himself of his encumbrance,
He looked round behind him
And there of all things
Were beautiful, bountiful, wondrous…
WINGS!
Cody fluttered his wings and he flew off the ground,
And his flight took him high above Better-than-Brown.
His struggle had placed him in Far Flutterby,
And Cody was now a bright, new butterfly!
With colors of blue and yellow and gold,
Cody’s wonderful life now would never grow old.
For these were God’s plans just as good as the word
Of Franny McFly and Beulah Lee Bird.
Cody called to his friends,
As he dipped and he soared,
“have faith through the hard
Times, believing in more!
For there in the journey
And stuck in the sting,
The struggle…
The struggle…
Is what gives you wings!”
As with Cody the Caterpillar, life for us can be tricky, upside down, sideways, and pokey and prickly. As we strive to build up Ridges of Righteousness, the pokes and the prickles penetrate less often. As we devote our Timbers of Time to deliberately drawing nearer to Our Peace[v], our God, we fall less and fly more. Like Cody, we may find ourselves downer-than-down in the town of Better-than-Brown, but we are not hopeless, and we are not alone. Just as Cody had Beulah Lee Bird and Franny McFly, so we have the scriptures, the prophets, and personal revelation that stand as Towers of Truth and testify to us of a better world. Ether 12:4 “Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yeah, even a place at the right hand of God.” We, at times, may find ourselves wrapped in a cocoon of despair. The road of life may be fraught with unexpected disappointment, vicissitude, heartache, pain, fear, and seemingly insurmountable challenges. In my darkest hour, I prayed to God and surrendered. I told Him that I knew He loved me. Do not ever doubt that. GOD LOVES YOU! If He, who loved me immeasurably, unconditionally, and incomprehensibly perfectly, was putting this obstacle before me, I would surrender and trust in His wisdom. I would praise Him until I had no strength left, and then, in my heart, I would praise Him still. The moment that I said that prayer of surrender, the entire burden was lifted. My Picket of Prayer had worked. I told God that I would hold nothing back, that I would sacrifice ANYTHING, even my life, if He asked it of me. He led me, from that moment forward, through many ups and downs. Through it all He was there for me. He loved me, in a very personal and real way. My Savior held my hand through the toughest moments. Like the metamorphosis of caterpillar to butterfly, God can awaken something in us. I wrote a poem once entitled “The Sleeper” that speaks of the awakening that God can affect in us. In part, it reads
Enthusing every efflorescence, entwined around my greater part
Exists Thine ever-loving soul, where eternally I rest my heart.
And as the seedlings in the springtime to the splendid sunlight tend to sprout
Thy light it warmed the winter soil and called The Sleeper out.[vi]
As He loves me, so He loves you. “Who is among you that walks in darkness and
cannot see the light[vii]?
All alone with no one to turn to in the
darkest night?”[viii] Who among us has found themselves on the
bathroom floor crying out in pain and deep despair? He loves you, heaven hears you. I testify that, if you cry to Him in faith, your
cries, like waves rippling out into the universe, will be met by that God of
Comfort[ix]
and, though darkness enshrouds, He will command you from danger and angels will
hasten to attend. Who is among us that,
even in the midst of the crowd, feels desperately alone? Pray to Him.
I testify that He loves you and He will fill your emptiness and send
angels to be your companions. Who among
us has a challenge that seems insurmountable?
Surrender to His wisdom and I testify that you will feel His never-ending
love. He can make your challenge feel
easy. God gave me wings to rise above
the turmoil! He loves you; He will give
you beautiful, bountiful, wonderous wings too.
Matthew 11:28 “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you
and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto
your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light.” I can testify, in a raw and
very real way, that this scripture is true.
God loves me. He carried me
through the darkest of days. If the King
of Kings[x]
loves me so immensely and desperately, then I know He loves each one of
you. God loves you, God loves you, God
loves you! It wasn’t until Cody the Caterpillar
struggled and struggled and struggled that he ultimately got his wings. It is a struggle and a challenge, in today’s
world, to draw near to God. We can not
be passive, for there are multitudes that are actively engaged in planning our
destruction. We must be deliberate and
purposeful. We must remember His love
for us. We must build our Ridges of Righteousness,
Timbers of Time, Pickets of Prayer, and Towers of Truth. Ridges, and timbers, and pickets, and
towers. Ridges, and timbers, and
pickets, and towers.
[i] “In Bethlehem” by Laura Fenn
[ii] Heb 2:10 “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”
[iii] 1 Cor 10:4 “And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”
[iv] “Far Flutterby” by Karen Kingsbury
[v] Eph 2:14 “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us”
[vi] “The Sleeper” by Laura Fenn
[vii] 2 Ne 7:10 “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light?”
[viii] Pioneer Trek theme song by Ma Oswald
[ix] 2 Cor 1:3 “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;”
[x] 1 Tim 6:15 “Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;
*This is the transcript from a talk I gave at church on 3/8/20