Faith, Hope and Charity

 Before you start reading this speech, I'd first like to say that this was not written by me. This was written by D'Ani, who is a part of the online class I keep mentioning.

She did such a great job that I asked her if I could post it here on my blog. She obvisously agreed.

So, thank you, D'Ani, for writing such an inspirational speech.

  ________

Faith, Hope and Charity

I would like to start by asking all of you a fairly simple question: what could you not live without?

I am sure all of you had something automatically pop into your minds. The more sensible of you probably thought of food, water and oxygen; the more loyal and sociable of their friends, families and pets. I wonder how many of you thought of your cellphones and iPods.

I agree with all of these things, and yet I would like to add a few more to that list, and those are Faith, Hope and Charity. This may sound incredibly peculiar to you, and maybe even irritatingly preachy, so allow me to explain.

“Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible.” ~ Corrie ten Boom.

“Hope... it is the only thing greater than fear.” ~ President Snow from the Hunger Games movie.

“All you need is love, all you need is love, all you need is love, love, love is all you need.” ~ The Beatles.

These are all such wonderful virtues and, judging by the quotes here, incredibly useful.

Now, I do not claim to be a great example of any of these, as I struggle as much as the next person with all of these characteristics and am altogether too sarcastic, cynical and judgemental. However, I have been influenced by each of these principles, whether by exercising a particle of one or recognizing a lack of one in myself. I have also been influenced by others who do possess these qualities and have made a difference in my life.

Each one of these qualities is desperately important, on its own and all together. Let us begin with faith.

Faith means so much to me. For a Personal Progress goal, I wrote a poem on faith, though I will not bother reciting it and boring you all. However, it taught me a lot about faith and I really broadened my personal definition. I had always thought that faith was just a religious word for belief, and had been told before that “Faith is an action word”, but that was really all I thought.

Then when I actually had to think about it I realized that, at least for me, it was my reason for doing things. I will wake up between 5:30 and 5:45 in the freezing winter so I can attend Seminary, and I know many people who wake up even earlier. I will sacrifice my time and effort so I can help teach lessons in YW and Seminary, so I can study the scriptures, and memorize Scripture Mastery, and I know that most of you do likewise.

Why?

Before you say it is because your parents make you, stop and reconsider. Do your parents have the physical ability to force you into learning anything? They can demand you do things, and nag and bribe you, and try to persuade you, but they cannot force. That's Agency for ya. Why we do these things is because we have faith that it will be worth it in the end. The Prophets have told us to, and we have faith in their word. We have faith that it is the right thing to do.

Faith is not just religious, though, and the same counts for our schoolwork. Nobody forced you into writing your speech, into logging on into class today, into preparing presentations for your platoon, into doing any of the assignments. We chose to do them, because we had faith it would be worth it and helpful. We do it because we are willing to take a leap of faith and do what we are told is right.

It is faith in what is right that gives us hope, and hope is such a powerful thing. Just ask the elephants.

Young elephants in captivity will be kept chained up tightly in order to break their spirits and keep them from escaping. Their natural hunger for freedom will drive them to fight for some time and try to escape, but doing so will bring them physical anguish from the chains around their legs and eventually, inevitably, they will give up and become broken.

It is said that elephants never forget, and as they grow older they will remember their pain from trying to fight and will not try to escape, even though the chain that holds them captive could be broken effortlessly by their now strong limbs. A thin piece of rope will contain them, because they remember that chain and the pain it brought.

They gave up hope for freedom and stopped fighting for it, and because of it they will spend the rest of their miserable lives in captivity. I do not blame or seek to scorn them for this, as I know I would do the same. I merely mourn for them, and try to learn from their experience and hope you will all do the same.

Hope can make all the difference. It has the ability to make a terrible trial into a learning experience. No matter what we are bombarded with in life, we must never lose hope, for it is hope that gives us the power to be great and rise above our challenges. It is hope that gives us the strength in this dark, treacherous world, to show forth light and charity.

One of the greatest examples of charity are the great Cornelia and Elisabeth ten Boom, whose names you should all recognize.

They jeopardized their own safety to help others and even after they were caught they did not lose their charity. In the darkest time, stuck in jail and death camps, they never stopped thinking of others. They held prayer meetings for their fellow prisoners and could often be found trying to lift others up and help them ease their burdens. They shared their Bible with others and their knowledge and truth. They shared their medicine with the other ill prisoners, and found that they always had enough. They were kind and loving to those struggling, vulnerable women which surrounded them.

Yet their charity was not limited to those who suffered with them, but also to the guards and those who made them suffer. Betsie felt pity for those wandering souls, lost without the Word of God to guide them, and wished to be able to help. Corrie, with the help of her Lord, found herself able to forgive one of the Nazis who had made her and her family suffer so much during the years of the Second World War.

To Corrie and Betsie, charity was not just a word used by strangers knocking on your door and requesting a donation, but the way that they were able to get by with dignity and a sense of purpose. Charity, the purest form of love, can do the same for us if we only allow it.

In fact, all three of them can, for we need all three to be complete. Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a leader in my Church, described them as a three legged stool, with each virtue playing a dire role in the integrity of the design. In my Corebook, or book of Scriptures, we are taught to “See that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works.” (Alma 7:24). We are also taught that “If you have not faith, hope, and charity, you can do nothing.” (D&C 18:19). Clearly, these are very important virtues, and we must try to obtain them if we ever hope to be good people.

It is physically impossible for anyone to fully, impeccably develop all three qualities. Imperfection is the one attribute that all humans undoubtedly have, despite what some may think and say. Because perfection is unattainable in our mortal form, it means that we can never stop striving to achieve and obtain such Godly qualities. That is my challenge to all of you, one that I myself will be taking up.

No matter how sweet and meek you may be, there is always room for improvement. Perhaps your thoughts are not as sweet as your words. Perhaps there is one person, maybe a sibling, with whom you simply cannot seem to share the same kind of love. Perhaps you have given up hope in something or someone. Whatever it is, you know what you can improve. I am sure many of you have reasons and excuses why you should not try to improve it. Right now, take a moment to think about those things. While you are at it, consider what holds you back from having, showing, or feeling faith, hope, or charity in that instance. Hold those thoughts in your mind for a moment and, taking a deep breath, release them and try anyways.

Whether you choose to accept my challenge or not, I will be doing so, for I know my weaknesses and hope to overcome them. To those that will take up my challenge, I promise you that you will not regret it, for true happiness comes not from wealth or success, but from showing forth those three vital characteristics: that is, Faith, Hope and Charity.