[Title] “Are You Really There?” [Kicker] A chaotic world would have us forget God’s relationship to us. A simple children’s hymn can remind us otherwise. [Highlights of the source article] I felt like a little girl, hiding behind a wall and eavesdropping on an important conversation. “So, do you believe in God or not?” My friend, Jane, was the kind of person to dig deep into a person’s soul—and tonight, my brother was the specimen under the microscope. Even from the other room, I felt a sense of suspension as her question lingered in the air. Finally, Brad responded. “I mean, I think I believe in a higher power, but I’m not going to be so presumptuous as to name it ‘God.’” Every cell in my body lurched at that statement as a roll of images flitted through my mind. Me as a shy kid singing “I Am a Child of God” during a primary program. Me as an awkward preteen reciting, “We are daughters of our Heavenly Father,” in a young women’s room. Me as a confident missionary teaching that “God is our loving Heavenly Father,” in a dim living room in Colorado. Five years earlier, Brad had sung a different tune. I still remembered him Brad five years earlier as a beaming returned missionary, with a testimony as crisp as his ironed shirt. He would quote Elder Holland, saying that telling others about God’s nature and His love was “higher and holier and more sacred and more eternal than anything [I’d] ever done.” But a new church policy, a few lost gospel habits, and many philosophy classes later led Brad to a “belief” system that was as ambiguous as it was agnostic.
Commented [Unknown A1]: This is nice, but I would like for it to mention asking questions or directing our questions to God, because I was not expecting the article to go in that direction, but I would have liked to know about that in the kicker.
Commented [Unknown A2]: Wow, this is a great first paragraph. My own brother is an atheist, and I really understand (very personally) the struggle with this situation.
Commented [Unknown A3]: I like the parallelism here.
Commented [Unknown A4]: It makes sense to use “sung a different tune” because this article is about music, but I don't actually love that word choice here. It sounds a little too cliché for me, I think. Commented [Unknown A5]: I would get rid of the quotation marks here, because I think lack of belief really could count as a belief system. This kind of sounds like a judgment to me.
As I stood with my back against the hallway wall, I silently poured out a prayer in the form of a children’s song. “Heavenly Father, Are You Really There?” As He had done many times before, my Father responded with a gentle press on my heart, reminding me that He was there. Of course He was. All I had to do was ask. I learned in the hallway that night that whether we have moments, weeks, or years of feeling like Brad, the trick to knowing Heavenly Father is to project our questions towards Him, not toward a political news source. It’s searching for spiritual truths in spiritual texts, not temporal ones. It’s choosing to believe that He’s our Father, not just a “feel good” concept without a name. I know these things because He does, in reality, hear and answer every child’s prayer. [Link to the source article] Read the lyrics of “A Child’s Prayer” and discover for yourself how to feel Heavenly Father respond.
Commented [Unknown A6]: I would include a couple other places that people might turn as well. Just so it doesn't look like you're saying that everyone who is struggling with knowing that He is there is looking at political news sources. Commented [Unknown A7]: I really love this sentence. (:
Source: https://www.lds.org/music/text/childrens-songbook?lang=eng Find more insights See how several individuals from around the world came to know that God was their Heavenly Father: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-06-02-god-is-our-father?lang=eng Read about how we can turn to Heavenly Father as our mentor when doubts and questions arise: https://www.lds.org/liahona/2016/06/our-father-our-mentor?cid=HP14FPM&lang=eng Learn more about how a testimony of God’s existence and His relationship to us can navigate us Home: https://www.lds.org/topics/plan-of-salvation/god-is-our-father?lang=eng&old=true Discover how the Savior teaches us to receive communication from Heavenly Father: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/matt/6.6 Study the teachings of the prophet, Joseph Smith, about God’s nature and His love for us: https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-2?lang=eng&_r=1 [Tags:] Heavenly Father, doubt, belief [SEO keywords:]