Theron David Rose, 2021
I was once asked, “What is the most unique belief or truth you Latter-day Saints have to offer the world? What one thing do you know that defines you and makes you different from all other people on earth today”?
That question has been asked in other ways to many of us who have lived in different places and in differing circumstances during our lives. How do you answer such a question? Sometimes the question is simply, “Why are you so different? I have been watching you and you do not act like or talk like the people around you.” Or, “There is something about you that makes you different, what is it?”
A former student of mine graduated from Cyprus High School, married her sweetheart, and moved with him to his employment near Washington, D.C. They found a home in a small suburb where several other young married couples, like them, were just starting out. At that time, most of the husbands went to work each day leaving the wives free to form friendships and interact socially. This former student of mine had been an impressive seminary student. She served on the Seminary Council during her senior year. I was the faculty member assigned to be the Council Advisor and got to know her well. I ran into her mother in a local grocery store approximately a year after her daughter and her husband had moved back east and she told me of an experience her daughter had related to her in a recent phone conversation that has to do with why some people ask these kinds of questions.
She said that her daughter had gotten to know several girls in her new neighborhood and that they get together as friends each week to socialize and to do crafty and decorative projects. They take turns hosting in a different home each week and have gotten to know each other quite well. One day, her daughter was accused of keeping something hidden from the group. They wanted to know what brand of make-up her daughter was using. Her daughter—who had never used make-up in her life—told her friends this, but they would not believe her. They told her that they had all noted that she looked so much different from other people, that they had decided among themselves to ask her about the ‘make-up’ she was using. When she told them that she did not use make-up and never had, they refused to believe her and accused her of trying to keep her ‘special make-up’ a secret from them.
Her mother laughed and winked at me as she said, “We know what that ‘special make-up glow’ is among latter-day saints, don’t we, Brother Rose?”
Later, as my wife and I were putting away the groceries I had purchased, I told her about the conversation I had with this mother and the ‘special make-up glow’ and my wife said, “Those girls will meet other Latter-day Saints during their lives who will not have that special glow about them. Then what?”
I have often thought about those two words, “Then what?” in the context of having or of not having that distinctive glow. As I pondered upon this question, I came to realize that it relates to one of the profound personal evaluative questions the Prophet Alma tells us we must ask ourselves: “And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?” And then, because Alma knew that a person could reach this level of spirituality and then slip or fall away, he added this important follow-up question: “”If ye have felt [this spirit] can ye feel so now” (Alma 5:14, 26)?
I believe that if we have lost this Spirit-glow, this ”make-up’, then, like Alma suggests, this should become our ‘wake-up’ call. Do I, do we, have the image of Christ in our countenances? If we know that we did so in the past. and that we have had this conviction and glow at one time, but have slipped and fallen below that standard, then it becomes our challenge to work to get it back. You can do it! I can do it! I know we can. And, won’t it be worth it? Yes, it will. I know it will. A good, simple beginning would be to faithfully read the General Conference talks given by our general authorities. A second step would be to read the footnotes given in each selected talk and look for and read those scriptural references given. The footnotes give additional depth and meaning to the words spoken in General Conference. May the Lord continue to bless you in your faithful efforts to be good and to do good, and to reclaim—if need be—your former spiritual strength. Acquire that special ‘glow’ that shows you have the ‘image’ of Christ in your ‘countenance’!