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Since the Garden, faith has carried on through stories. It’s no coincidence that Jesus’s preferred method of teaching was the parable. Our mission is to tell the world’s greatest faith-promoting stories.
New episodes every Monday at 8 a.m. MDT.
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Hello! And welcome to the Faith Promoting Stories Podcast. I'm your host, Caden Beardall. Let's dive right in. Story 4 - The Miracle of the Catfish After being exiled for their religion, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner and other pioneers found themselves stranded on the banks of the Missouri River. Tragically, these pioneers didn't have enough money to ferry themselves across the river. To make the situation worse, mobs were on their way to brutalize them. Unwilling to accept such a bleak fate, some of the men in the group had an idea: they would catch a few fish and pray that the ferryman would accept their catch as payment. They cast their lines and caught a heaping catfish, weighing 14 pounds soaking wet, because all fish are soaking wet. When they opened the fish, they were in disbelief: inside were three bright silver dollars, the exact amount needed to ferry the saints across the river. They offered their thanks to God for such a miracle. Their story is as informative as it is inspiring. Rather than pray and wait on the Lord to fix their problem, these Saints casted their lines into the water. Once their line was in the water, the Lord could provide the miraculous fish. If you're currently waiting on a miracle, I would ask you: is your line in the water? When we put our effort forward, much like the loaves and fishes, Jesus can magnify our efforts. On the other hand, if we are complacent and sit idly by, the Lord cannot multiply our efforts when there are none. Anything multiplied by zero is still zero. Today, cast your line, and be amazed at what comes to you. Story 5 - Elder Holland's Mistake One evening, a young, newly married Jeffrey R. Holland returned from a particularly exhausting day of schooling. As he approached his small student apartment, he reflected on the weight of his circumstances, feeling crushed by the burden of financial pressures and a dread, familiar to many, that accompanies an uncertain future. Regardless, he turned the key and entered the apartment. Within, he found an unusual silence. Addressing the terseness in the air, he asked Pat, his wife, what the trouble was. She responded that his son, Matthew, only 5 years old, had something to tell him. "Matt, what do you have to tell me?", he inquired. The tot continued playing, making his best effort to pretend he hadn't heard. When Elder Holland pressed the question again, this child looked up at his father with enormous, tear-filled brown eyes. With the unique despair that can only reside in the heart of a five-year-old, Matthew confessed that he had spoken back to his mother. He then burst into tears, obviously penitent and craving reconciliation from a father he adored. Elder Holland, typically apt to be the administrator of such reconciliation, instead felt the enormity of the weight on his shoulders, and in a moment of idiocy, in his own words, unleashed his anger on his young son. He sent the child to bed without prayer or a story, a novel, punitive resignation for the young Matthew. With muffled sobs, he cried himself to sleep. When Elder Holland prayed that night for blessings for his family, he felt the satire of his own words ring hollow. Anguish filled his paternal heart as his cruelty distilled on his conscience. Somehow, he drifted to sleep. Elder Holland rarely dreamt, but on this evening, he was met with an unforgettable nightmare. He dreamt that he and Matthew had packed two cars to move, one for Elder Holland to drive, and the other for Matthew. As Elder Holland began to pull away, he observed his son desperately reaching for the pedals, his arms in a flurry, twisting knobs to urge the vehicle onward. But the car stood still. In the rearview, Elder Holland could see Mathew's enormous, tear-filled eyes, and the plea of a young son to his father: "Daddy, don't leave me. I don't know how to do this. I am too little." Elder Holland drove away. After some time, the heinous realization of his actions struck him. He slammed the car to a stop, threw himself from the vehicle, and sprinted in the direction of his son, the searing pavement singeing his feet. Finally, broken by emotional and physical exhaustion, Elder Holland came upon an unfamiliar car. Behind it was Matthew and an older man playing. Though Matthew had evidently forgiven him, Elder Holland could not meet the older man's gaze. The older man spoke. "You should not have left him alone to do this difficult thing. It would not have been asked of you." In that moment, the dream ended. Flying from his pillow, stained by tears, Elder Holland ran to the room of his son, cradling him and speaking to him while he slept, pouring apologies, affection, and oaths to never, ever offend the least of these. Of all the sanctities of life, rearing children may be the foremost among them. I speak to myself as I plead: Be kind to your children. Their heritage is divine. They are the closest thing to Christ that this world offers. You are their world. Paint it cautiously. Story 6 - The Resurrection of the Prophet's Wife On his way to assume his new role as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Wilford Woodruff's wife, Phoebe, fell gravely ill with a deathly "brain fever." After a day of hurriedly keeping the house warm and his wife well-tended, it became apparent that her end was imminent. With tremendous tenderness, Phoebe cradled her beloved companion's hand, and in those precious few moments before her spirit was released, she relayed to Wilford her confidence in their divine mission with soft but piercing words. Her soul lingered for another day before it finally relented to its eternal destination. Wilford, and a handful of other sisters, wet her bedside with their tears. But before sorrow could entirely overtake Wilford, he was suddenly overcome with a faith and power to do something sacred. With anointing oil and ordinary hands, Wilford rebuked death in the words of a Priesthood blessing, reverent, but resounding. Phoebe inhaled, her soul rushing back to meet its host, color returning to her as blossoms in the spring. Undoubtedly after some rejoicing by the party, and once Phoebe had regained her composure from having recently been deceased, she relayed this sacred experience. When Phoebe's spirit left her body, she could see herself, her husband, and the whole group as if it were third-person. As tears fell upon her lifeless body, two personages suddenly entered the room. One of them told Phoebe that she had a choice: she could proceed to a paradisiacal state, or she could return to her body on one condition: She must endure all the trials and afflictions that accompany of the wife of an apostle and eventual prophet. As she looked down at her child, innocent and unblemished, and her husband, faithful and devoted, she told the personage she'd like to continue her mortal probation. And so it was. The blessing was given, the messengers departed, and she lived. Now, if Phoebe had chosen otherwise, would either option not have yielded a happy ending? If Phoebe had moved on, would the mourners perhaps questioned if God lived? As mortality obscures our vision like the dark glass that Paul described, we often tell our stories as though the preservation of life is the only happy ending. Let us not be so myopic, so spiritually naive, to assume that all of God's dealings are punctuated in mortality. True, we should treat our lives as though our eternal lives depend on it. But when we speak of punctuation, it would serve us well to see death not as a period, but a semi-colon, a mark of unresolved clause. Indeed, once Christ assumed authorship of man's story, its prose became dotted with commas, colons, and sentences that run into eternity, but never question marks.