C.S. Lewis’s words have been the steady drumbeat of my life, a foundational influence second only to scripture. He is more than an academic interest to me; he is a trusted friend whose writings expose the tactics of darkness and shine a bright, fierce light on our divine identity. His wisdom is a balm for the weary and a weapon for the battle.
This passion is a family affair. My husband and children are all devoted readers (two sons argued over who will name a child after him), and we often debate the best of his writings. I own stacks of Lewis biographies and several copies of his books. I learned more under the tutelage of Dr. Andrew Teal at Pembroke College in Oxford, walking the very paths Lewis walked.
I don’t pretend to know everything about C.S. Lewis, but I have spent a lifetime walking with his words. What I can offer is a trusted guide to the trails I know well, and a fellow seeker on the ones we can discover together. This is my invitation to you. It’s a guided tour through the world of a man whose wisdom has a unique and powerful resonance for Latter-day Saints. We’ll use his work to expose the lies and remind us who we really are.
Because women (and men!) who remember their divine identity are absolutely terrifying to the enemy.
As a subscriber, you’ll join me each week to explore:
Hi, I’m Michelle—mother to six wildly wonderful kids, Mimi to five tiny grandsons, and a witness that the love of God will heal the earth. I believe in creating magic at home, hiking as medicine, grace in the mess, and the kind of laughter that brings heaven to earth.
I created this space from a conviction in our power to change the world. Lewis’s work helps us see that battle clearly.
If you’ve ever felt exhausted or unnoticed, these insights aren’t here to shame you. They’re here to expose the lies and remind you who you really are.
Subscribe for free to receive weekly deliveries straight to your inbox. Share if something hits your heart like truth. Heaven is whispering—and you were built to remember.
Much love,
Michelle
Note: This is a chapter from my spinoff of The Screwtape Letters for LDS Women. I created this series because I’ve watched too many radiant women feel unworthy, unnoticed, or not enough—when in reality, they are the very thing darkness fears. If you’ve ever felt exhausted, invisible, or quietly convinced that God loves everyone but you, these letters aren’t here to shame you. They’re here to expose the lies, name the tactics, and remind you who you really are.
Speaker: Madame Mirthbane, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Subtle Sabotage
Audience: All Level 3 Tempters assigned to LDS female subjects
Welcome, little gremlings. Sit up straight. Wipe that slime off your tunic. No, Grubthistle, you may not eat it. The air here tastes of sulphur and mangled hopes. Breathe it in. This is where you learn.
Before we get into strategy, let me make one thing painfully clear: You are not clever. Not yet. You are amateurs fumbling at the locks of souls you don’t even begin to understand. Your assignments are not men, and thank the Darkness for that—if I had to endure another one of your locker-room tactics (lust, ego, rage—how quaint), I would throw myself into the Abyss out of sheer boredom.
No, your assignments are women. Faithful ones. And that requires a touch of elegance, subtlety, and venom disguised as virtue.
You’re intimidated. I can smell the acrid stench of your fear from here.
And rightly so. You’re unnerved because you and I both know who they really are—daughters of God, children of light, beings with unlimited potential to fill the universe with good.
But remember, they don’t know that.
The veil has been pulled over their eyes. They’ve forgotten heaven. They don’t remember who they are. So yes, they all outrank you—even the the grumpiest, frumpiest of them is a being so glorious her spirit could burn you to ash.
But here they are, fumbling in mortal bodies. Insecure. Distracted. Worried about all the wrong things—Instagram filters and group chats, pant size and cereal labels. They’re wearing invisibility like a second skin.
And we? We are here to take advantage of their blindness.
Now, we don’t give these women to amateur tempters. You’re all Level 3, yes? You will feel like fledglings again.
These are not halfhearted souls drifting towards. These women pray. They wrestle with scripture. They don’t just have access to divine truth—they have dog-eared scriptures on nightstands, quotes scribbled on kitchen scraps, the voice of prophets humming in their pockets.
That cursed app—always within reach, always whispering light. Pathetic. The Enemy has made Himself far too accessible. He has, quite inconveniently, given them all the answers.
(And don’t get any foolish ideas about sabotaging their access. Oh, how we’ve tried. We’ve planted so many bugs in their Gospel Library app—glitches, download errors, searches that go nowhere. Do you know what they do? They sigh, they restart their device, they help each other. They just keep plugging along, laughing off the inconvenience. It’s… embarrassing.)
And another thing—we never, under any circumstances, speak the full name of their church. Ever.
Too long, too holy, too packed with That Man’s name.
Stick with “LDS” or “Mormon,” and even then—say it with an eyeroll. Keep it casual. Detached. Sterile.
Because that name?
That name reminds them.
It reminds them who He is.
And worse, who they are.
There’s a reason He named them daughters. A reason He calls them His.
Now, my grubby little wormlings, I see you squirming in your slime—don’t panic. Yes, these women are formidable, but we’ve had centuries to study their weaknesses, and oh, how well we’ve done our homework. We’ll delve into the exquisite techniques later, but for now, let me offer you a taste—a tantalizing drip of poison on your tongue. Just enough to whet your claws.
I want you to picture your subject.
She kneels beside her bed, early morning light slanting through the blinds. Her knees ache. Her heart aches more. She’s praying again—not because she feels the heavens open, but because she hopes they still can.
She’s weary. She’s trying. She’s good.
Which makes her vulnerable.
And this, my dear larval tempters, is where you come in.
Whisper that she’s always just a little bit short. That her efforts are admirable—but ineffective. That her prayers hit ceilings. Her scripture study? Shallow. Her service? Unnoticed.
If she goes to the temple, make her feel out of place. When she attends her meetings, let her feel unseen. If she’s in Relief Society, whisper comparison into her ear like perfume:
“Look at her. Look at you.”
Do you see how easy that is?
No overt rebellion. No scandal. Just the smallest shift in her gaze—from Heaven to across the aisle.
Keep her comparing. Keep her caught in low-level envy. Keep her judging.
Division is spiritual sabotage at its finest. Because women, when unified, are terrifying to us.
They lift each other. They speak heaven into each other’s wounds. They build whole generations in righteousness and roar with the fire of Zion.
Now listen carefully, because here’s the crown jewel of sabotage:
Whisper that God’s love isn’t for her.
You won’t convince her He’s not real (she sees Him in every sunrise, every child’s laugh, wildflowers stubbornly springing up through cracks in the pavement).
But you can convince her He’s forgotten her. That if He really loved her, she wouldn’t feel like this.
Because if she remembers even a flicker of her birthright, she’ll start glowing—and I do not exaggerate—glowing.
They were built to carry light. Whole worlds could orbit around what they’ve forgotten.
And whatever you do, block out the whispers.
The angels will be there—relentless, glowing pests— murmuring grace, pointing toward light, humming comfort like a lullaby she used to remember. But if you have done your job, she won’t even hear them.
Just the sound of her own sigh.
And your voice, of course, telling her she’s alone.
That’s our goal, fledglings.
Not rebellion. Not wickedness.
Just exhaustion. Just apathy. Just division.
Because a woman who still hopes is dangerous.
A woman who still loves her sisters is unshakable.
She is terrifying when she remembers.
Now go. Sharpen your claws. Memorize her schedule. Study this manual! And for the love of Darkness, do not underestimate her.
She’s already kneeling.
Your task is not to knock her down—
but to make sure she never rises.
Heavenly Whispers (soft as light, quiet as hope)
“Fear not, for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine.” Isaiah 43:1
“You are not behind. You are not invisible. I am not disappointed in you. You are My beloved daughter, and I am already walking toward you.”
I understand their confusion. If you simply search for Lewis on Amazon or examine a shelf of his books at your local library, you’ll find a wide mix of children’s stories, science fiction, myths, Christian works, highly academic works, and political commentary. If you jump straight into The Abolition of Man or The Allegory of Love, you might enjoy them, but you’ll likely get weighed down by their academic language and themes. I know you’re smart, but let’s start with something more applicable to your life.
I’m offering my opinion as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who has read all of Lewis’ major works several times. Later, I’ll write insights and trivia about each book individually. Think of this as a starter list.
Today’s publishers place The Magician’s Nephew first. But it is obviously a prequel and full of details you won’t understand —or, more importantly, won’t appreciate— if you haven’t read the previous books. Of course, it really doesn’t matter if you read them in order. You’ll enjoy the books no matter what. But the best experience, in my opinion and the opinion of many Lewis scholars, comes from reading the books in publication order. If you read them as a kid, you’ll appreciate the new insights you gain from these books as an adult. You can certainly seek out the original set on eBay, but you can also buy a set from Amazon or your local bookstore and ignore the numbers on the spine.
Ten books = a good start. In my next reading recommendation, I’ll talk about A Grief Observed, Surprised By Joy, Til We Have Faces, and a few more surprises. If you disagree with the order I’ve listed the recommendations above, please let me know. Maybe we’ll form an online book club?
Let me leave you with a quote from The Great Divorce,
“No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”
I pray you find joy.
Clive Staples is a burdensome name, and Lewis freed himself of it at age five by taking the name of a beloved family dog. From then on, he answered to nothing but Jacksie and later, just Jack.
When he was only nine, Jack’s mother died and the carefree days of his childhood ended. He spent almost an entire decade bouncing between relatives’ homes, miserable, abusive boarding schools (one of his headmasters was later certified insane), and finally a tutor, “Old Knock,” who readied him for Oxford.
Knock told Lewis’ father, “Your son is perfectly suited to be an academic and nothing else.”
Prepared in everything but math, Lewis failed the Oxford entrance exams.
Studied again. Failed again.
Fate stepped in and because of World War I, Lewis’ entrance exams were waived. He served in the trenches, witnessing horrible atrocities which he later wrote about in epic poems.
Back at Oxford, Jack proved to be a worthy student (all who struggle with math should take heart) and earned an incredibly rare Triple First. This means he placed first in the exams in three subjects—in American terms this translates into earning three bachelor degrees and serving as the valedictorian in three departments (Latin and Greek, Philosophy and Ancient History, English Language and Literature).
Notably, Lewis did not study theology and never taught a religious subject.
Lewis became well known in Oxford for his tremendous intellect and was elected as a fellow. I’ll write more about fellowship in Oxford, but you should know that only fellows are allowed to walk on the grass anywhere in Oxford.
To test his mighty brain, Jack’s friends often pulled a book off a shelf, opened to a random page and read a few lines. Jack would either cite the rest of the page word for word, or give a short summary.
Maybe that’s not a game you play at parties, but Lewis was considered the life of the party among his friends in Oxford. He loved good food, alcohol, smoking, and, most of all, conversation.
Self-described as jolly, rotund, and an embodiment of the Spirit of Christmas Present (this is why he insisted on including Father Christmas in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), Lewis often hosted friends at the home he shared with his brother Warren. Friends teased them about their incredibly messy parlor, calling it “The Midden” (midden refers to a pile of food, household, and general waste that archaeologists use to learn about an ancient people). Jack and Warren laughed it off and continued to deposit cigar ash, food debris, and general waste on the floor (no ashtrays required).
Lewis may have been rotund, but he was very fit and extraordinarily active. He walked 5 miles (8 kilometers) roundtrip from his home to Magdalen College six days a week for thirty years.
J.R.R. Tolkien and Lewis often walked and talked on Addison’s Walk—a dreamy path the borders Magdelen College. Lewis credits Tolkien as one of the primary influences on his conversion to Christianity at age 32. For his part, Tolkien credits Lewis for encouraging him to write The Lord of the Rings. Jack became so impatient with hearing Tolkien’s ideas for Middle Earth that he insisted Tolkien write the trilogy with only Lewis as the single reader.
Interesting note: while Lewis’ classroom lectures were extremely popular, filling the largest halls to standing room only, Tolkien often lectured to a class of one (moral of the story: never judge your abilities by your current popularity).
Jack lived as a bachelor (but certainly not a monk) until he married Joy Davidman in 1956. She died of cancer only four years later, but this relationship taught Lewis about love and grief on another level and inspired many of his later writings.
After Joy’s death, Lewis continued to write. If someone (like me) tells you they’ve read everything written by C. S. Lewis, they are likely fibbing. His hundreds of works include literary criticism, popular theology and apologetics, children’s literature, science fiction, and personal essay writing, all while maintaining a massive personal correspondence. The collected volume of C.S. Lewis letters is over 3,300 pages long.
Why did this man whose writings have influenced millions, whose books have been turned into plays and movies, have trouble fitting into his own community?
First, the academic world frowned on his Christian writings. He also wrote for the common man which simply “wasn’t done” among the academic elite
Second, the Christian world, and especially the clergy didn’t know what to make of Lewis. He was not a minister, reverend, or priest; he did not have a degree in theology. When a Narnia window was dedicated in the church C.S. Lewis attended, they had trouble finding a clergyman willing to speak.
This lack of acceptance didn’t bother Lewis. He felt he received too much praise for his God-given gifts and worried about what he considered his excessive pride until the end of his life.
In fact, Lewis often advised others to stop trying to fit into exclusive clubs and groups, ‘if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will find that you have come unawares to a real inside’.
And that’s my final message for you at the end of this brief tour: God has a work for you to do in the world. Don’t worry if it brings you popularity or fame, don’t worry if you are accepted into the right circles. Do the work God has for you.
As Lewis would say, “Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.”
p.s. Did you enjoy the ramble? This is just the overview! I’ll be diving deeper into many of these moments in future posts: Lewis’ childhood, his love life, the Kilns, Oxford culture, the Inklings, and more.
where C. S. Lewis taught, walked, talked, and wrote for thirty years
Did you spot the deer park? Legend has it, when a scholar is elected as a Fellow , they are given a fawn that lives and wanders in the park. Later, when the fellow retires or moves to another college, the fawn is eaten at a farewell party. While not exactly true (I don’t think a thirty-year old fallow deer would make a tasty dish—especially when it’s a deer you know by name), the myth captures the unique, almost magical atmosphere of the place—an atmosphere C.S. Lewis knew intimately during his nearly 30 years as a Fellow here.
From the Desk of Scritchwither Scornflinger, Grand Inquisitor of Spiritual Decay
To: Fizzlebane, Incompetent Junior Tempter
Oh, my slimy little apprentice,
If I could lock away one celestial contraband forever, it would be that obscene little fact that God loves His children exactly as they are right now. Not once they’ve repented. Not when they’ve finally memorized the Living Christ. Not after they’ve served in the nursery for fifteen consecutive years without complaint. Now. With their half-hearted prayers and their Spotify playlists full of questionable pop songs. With their doubts and their Diet Coke addictions and their secret hatred of ward potlucks. It’s disgusting, Fizzlebane. And worse—it’s effective.
Our job isn’t to destroy the love. (We can’t. Trust me, we’ve tried.) Our job is to make sure she never believes it. Block, distort, delay. Keep her scrambling for crumbs of love when Heaven has already set a table.
STRATEGY ONE: THE BEAUTY BLACKOUT
Here’s an infuriating truth: God litters the world with love letters. He made sunsets, orchids, fingernails, mountains shaped like temples. He carved music into woodwinds and let cinnamon exist. AND FOR WHAT? So they’d notice? So they’d feel something sacred when they’re not even at church?
Make her too busy to look, too tired to wonder, too focused on being useful to pause and receive. Let her get used to the beauty of a forest, the changing seasons, chubby baby feet—make those seem ordinary. Block them. Keep her eyes glued to her phone. Keep her schedule packed.
If she stops to smell the lilacs on a morning walk, whisper: “C’mon, get going. Things to do.”
STRATEGY TWO: THE EARNING DELUSION
Start young. Whisper in Primary that Heavenly Father loves obedient children extra. Let her overhear a teacher sigh, “Jenny is so spiritual—you can tell God favors her.” By the time she’s in Young Women, she’ll automatically assume every answered prayer is a reward and every trial is a mark of divine disappointment.
The goal? Make God’s love feel like a celestial vending machine—insert enough good works, out drops a blessing. If she starts to suspect grace might be free? Emergency protocols: “Then why do we have commandments?” “Why would God love someone like you?”
STRATEGY THREE: THE GASLIGHTING GAMBIT
That warmth she feels during sacrament meeting? Indigestion. The sudden peace while reading scriptures? Coincidence. The overwhelming sense of love on a morning walk? Emotional vulnerability.
Undermine every spiritual experience with plausible alternatives. “You’re just tired.” “It’s the music manipulating you.” “If God really loved you, wouldn’t He send an angel instead of this fuzzy feeling?”
STRATEGY FOUR: THE SPIRITUAL ELITISM LIE
Convince her that God’s love is a premium experience—reserved for:
Make her believe that if her revelation doesn’t come with fire or choirs, it doesn’t count. Never let her realize God whispers most often in the ordinary: a friend’s text, a toddler’s laugh, a verse that feels like it was written just for her.
STRATEGY FIVE: THE COMPARISON TRAP
When Amy Jones tearfully testifies, “I felt wrapped in God’s arms,” make your subject think: “I’ve never felt that. What’s wrong with me?” Turn every spiritual experience into a benchmark she’s failing. Make divine love feel like a competition she’s already lost.
THE NIGHTMARE WE FACE
The angels are relentless, Wormling. Do you understand how maddening it is? We have entire teams working full-time to fog up the signal—and still the angels get through. Through hummingbirds. Through messy prayers. Through toddler hugs and accidental scripture verses that explode like fireworks. One of her friends will say, “You are so loved,” and the Spirit will sneak in like a stowaway.
But here’s the real kicker: Every moment, there are legions of angels tirelessly laboring to flood her with God’s love. They are everywhere, at all times, trying to make the message crystal clear. They paint her dreams with hope, hum music into her ears, and whisper soft assurances through the most unexpected places. The love of God is not rare. It’s a constant flood, it’s relentless, and it’s for everyone. The trick is convincing her that it’s not, and that it’s something she has to earn or struggle to find.
We cannot stop the flood. But we can drown her in the lie that the water is just a trickle—so she never wades into the river and feels the pull of grace that’s already rising around her.
Tell her God’s love is rare, elusive, and conditional. Keep her trying to earn it—so she never stops long enough to feel it.”
If they ever realize this whole mortal experience is just one long rescue mission drenched in divine affection, it’s game over.
If she ever dares to rest in that love? If she stops striving and just receives?
We’re doomed.
With no affection,
Scritchwither
Heavenly Whispers (gentle and kind)
“There has not been a single moment—not one—when she was unloved.”
“For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee” Isaiah 54:10
If you’ve ever searched for the perfect C.S. Lewis quote for a sacrament meeting talk, you’re in good company. From General Conference pulpits to Relief Society lessons, his words feel right at home among us. There’s even a persistent story that before temple work was computerized, Lewis’s name was submitted thousands of times by Latter-day Saints who felt a profound kinship with him.
So why does an Oxford don and Anglican writer feel so familiar? It starts with shared doctrine.
We often think of C.S. Lewis as the man who wrote the Narnia stories or gave simple radio talks. But behind the accessible stories was one of the most formidable scholarly minds of the 20th century. Lewis wasn’t just a popularizer of faith; he was a profound scholar who reached his conclusions the hard way: through decades of intellectual wrestling.
This is where it gets fascinating for us…
Joseph Smith received the stunning truth of our divine potential through direct revelation from heavenly messengers.
C.S. Lewis arrived at a strikingly similar conclusion—that humans are destined to become “gods and goddesses”—through a lifetime of studying scripture in its original Greek and Hebrew, poring over the writings of early Church Fathers like Athanasius, and plumbing the depths of Plato, Augustine, and the great myths of history.
He wasn’t just making it up; he was uncovering the ancient thread of ‘divinization’ or theosis that had been woven into Christian thought since its earliest days—a thread that much of modern Christianity had forgotten or rejected.
He then articulated this truth with breathtaking clarity:
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship… There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” — The Weight of Glory.
For Latter-day Saints, this doesn’t just make Lewis a sympathetic observer; it makes him a powerful scholarly witness from outside our faith to truths we hold sacred. He is, in a way, a long-lost theological cousin who found his way to the family inheritance through the archives of history rather than a visitation in a grove of trees.
This kinship extends beyond our divine parentage. Lewis provides a scholarly witness to other truths we hold dear:
The Power of Story and a Perfect Phrase
Beyond doctrine, we love Lewis because he speaks our language. Latter-day Saints are a storytelling people—we teach through parables, pioneer narratives, and personal testimony. Lewis doesn’t just argue ideas; he embodies them in the profound myths of Narnia and the spiritual landscapes of The Great Divorce.
Furthermore, we are practical theologians. We love a usable, powerful quote we can tuck into a talk or a journal. Lewis is endlessly quotable, providing a non-LDS voice that beautifully supports and elucidates LDS teachings. We use his quotes differently than much of the Christian world (but that’s a story for another day).
Perhaps no quote is more beloved among Latter-day Saints than this metaphor, which Lewis himself borrowed from his own mentor, George MacDonald. It perfectly captures the transformative, often challenging process of discipleship:
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing… But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably… You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace.”
— Mere Christianity (paraphrasing George MacDonald)
It’s the perfect analogy for a faith that believes in eternal progression and a God who truly is our Father, intent on giving us not just what we want, but all that He has.
True Christianity
Another reason to admire C.S. Lewis is that he lived his faith beautifully. The scholar Lionel Adey called him “the most converted Christian I’ve ever known.” His theology was not an academic exercise; it was the practical foundation of a life marked by radical generosity, intellectual honesty, and deep personal kindness. In later posts, I’ll talk more about how Lewis lived his beliefs.
Maybe that’s why Lewis feels like more than just an admired author—he feels like a mentor and a friend of the faith. Of course, he didn’t always see us the same way. That’s a story for next time. For now, it’s enough to celebrate how much light we’ve found in him.
From the desk of: Scritchwither Scornflinger, Grand Inquisitor of Spiritual Decay
To: Pipsqueak, Incompetent Junior Tempter
From the desk of: Scritchwither Scornflinger, Grand Inquisitor of Spiritual Decay
To: Pipsqueak, Incompetent Junior Tempter
Ah, Pipsqueak. You poor, naive little worm. You’ve been going at it all wrong, haven’t you?
I see you’re trying to encourage her to scroll through Instagram to get that perfect dose of inferiority—how adorable. That’s basic, childish work. If you want to truly crush her joy, you must master the elegant, self-fueling cycle: Comparison, Envy, and Shame. These three elements, working in concert, create a spiral from which she will never think to escape.
You think comparison is a weak tool? Fool. It is the ignition.
Get her to look across the pew instead of up toward Heaven.
Make her feel lesser, or better yet, superior.
After all, comparison was one of our earliest triumphs. Remember that snake in the garden? He didn’t call her weak or wicked. He simply suggested she was missing out. That she could be more.
Attack her self-image, but with style. Keep it light at first. Make her feel like she’s not as pretty as that influencer she follows. Oh, the glorious world of filters, angles, and diffused lighting! Let her scroll past perfect people living perfect lives. Clean houses, glowing skin, cozy kitchen lighting, couples who still flirt, friends always together, laughing in golden light.
And the cruelest part? She knows the truth. She knows her friend is going through a divorce. That the smiling couple just had a brutal fight. That one of those “adorable” kids cries themselves to sleep. But still—still—she aches.
Because even when she knows it’s not the whole story, some part of her still believes: they’re doing it better.
And if she’s not? Well, clearly something’s wrong.
With her.
Here’s the real masterpiece: convince her this is normal. Everyone compares. Everyone peeks at other people’s plates. Remind her it’s common. But never let her see that while poisonous snakes are common in the jungle, that doesn’t make them less deadly. It just means there are more of them hiding in the undergrowth.
Once the glance is habitual, the real work begins. The cycle is simple:
Spark fires of envy in her friendships. Start small, but be strategic. Let her covet someone’s European vacation or fabulous wardrobe. But that’s just the appetizer. What you want is deeper envy—the kind that starts in the gut and burrows into her sense of self. Her best friend has a husband who enthusiastically supports her. Her roommate got promoted again. The girl from church is a “natural” mother.
This is where you whisper the crucial lie: “She is more lovable. More disciplined. More chosen.”
Apply this to every domain. Use the glorious world of filters and curated lives to make her feel messy, chaotic, and behind. Whisper it like a lullaby: “They’ve figured it out. You haven’t. Try harder.”
And if she’s in a season of waiting—waiting for marriage, healing, purpose—oh, Pipsqueak, this is your moment. Dangle other people’s breakthroughs like candy. Let every engagement, pregnancy, promotion feel like a slap. “She’s getting what you want,” you whisper. “And she didn’t even have to work for it.”
The goal is to move her from simply seeing a difference to feeling a lack that defines her. This feeling is Envy.
The more she looks at everyone else, the more she’ll miss her own blessings. The more she’ll envy others, the more disconnected she’ll be from her actual joy. And the best part? She’ll think she’s just being “honest with herself.” Ha.
The whole sordid business works because we’ve convinced them life is a finite pie. If another gets a slice, it means less for them. They scramble and claw for crumbs, their tiny hearts shriveling with envy. The most dangerous truth we must conceal is that the Enemy doesn’t deal in slices, but in banquets. His table has no end. One person’s joy does not diminish another’s; it multiplies it. Your task is to keep her eyes fixed so firmly on her neighbor’s plate that she never lifts her head to see the feast laid out for her.
This is your masterstroke, Pipsqueak, the pivot you’ve been missing. The moment she feels that ugly twist of envy, you must immediately follow it with a wave of Shame.
A righteous woman should be filled with charity, shouldn’t she? So, let her feel the heat in her cheeks when she realizes she’s envying a friend. Remind her that “coveting” is a sin. That a grateful heart is a happy heart. Watch as she tries to smother the feeling, only to feel like a hypocrite on top of being inadequate.
The shame of feeling envy becomes a heavier burden than the envy itself. She will be too ashamed to confess it, too embarrassed to pray about it. You’ve isolated her from Heaven and her friends—now she’s only listening to you.
And the most delicious part? She will leave that baby shower feeling not one, but two layers of misery: the pain of her own unmet desires, and the deep embarrassment that she couldn’t simply be a better, more supportive friend. She will condemn herself for her own feelings, and that self-condemnation is the cage we build around her.
And here is the beautiful part: the shame doesn’t end the cycle; it accelerates it. Burdened by shame, she will feel even more inadequate. She’ll think, “Not only do I not have what she has, but I’m also a terrible person for noticing.” This sense of fundamental flaw drives her right back to Comparison, searching for new evidence of her own inadequacy, which starts the whole cycle anew. Comparison → Envy → Shame → Deeper Comparison.
This spiral is your masterpiece. It keeps her perfectly trapped, never noticing her own blessings, only envying others, and feeling too ashamed to seek the one thing that could break the chain: honest confession or grateful prayer.
And now—our final, most exquisite ingredient: gratitude. Kill it. Starve it. Make her think it’s too much work. Keep her feeling entitled to happiness, but never aware of the joy she already has. Because if she starts to give thanks—even for her messy, imperfect, wildly beautiful life—you’ll lose her.
When she lets go of comparison, when she stops feeling ashamed of her perfectly human moments of envy and simply brings them into the light, —if she dares to talk about it with a trusted friend, if she prays honestly to feel less envy and more joy for others—she’ll gasp. She’ll breathe. She’ll celebrate other people without resenting them.
So go now. Bury her in self-doubt. Flood her with someone else’s milestones, someone else’s miracles. Keep her watching, wondering, shrinking, and most of all, ashamed of her own humanity.
And for the love of chaos, don’t let her figure out that happiness isn’t out there somewhere—it’s right here.
No admiration,
Scritchwither
Internal Memo: Department of Subtle Sabotage
RE: Alarming Trends in Gratitude Practice
We’ve received reports that your subject has begun a daily gratitude list. This is unacceptable.
Gratitude is lethal, Pipsqueak. It reminds her who gave her breath in the first place. It rewires the brain. You let her start giving thanks, and she’ll stop looking sideways—and start looking up.
Comparison levels are dropping and joy appears to be returning. Immediate intervention required. Recommend reintroducing filtered images of that woman who “does it all.” Suggested hashtags: #bloomwhereyouareplanted and #momgoals.
Also, monitor for journaling or spontaneous dance parties. These are signs of significant spiritual recovery. Proceed with caution.
Heavenly Whisper (wild with grace)
“Sweet girl, there’s no race. No scoreboard. No scarcity of joy. You are already enough. I made you whole. You don’t have to be her. You only have to be Mine.”
“…they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” 2 Corinthians 10:12
Latter-day Saints revere C.S. Lewis. We quote him in General Conference, find echoes of the Plan of Salvation in Narnia, and see him as a kind of “Uncle Lewis,” a bridge to the greater Christian world. But the feeling was not mutual.
Lewis’s recorded comments about our faith were few, but pointedly negative. He didn’t just disagree with us; he fundamentally misunderstood us. His objections, however, weren’t petty. They came from the very core of his “Mere Christianity” and force us to ask a difficult question: If we could sit down with the great apologist, how would we respond? More importantly, how does his critique help us become better disciples?
In a 1939 letter, asked his opinion of the LDS faith, Lewis replied: “I have to be honest that the religion of the Latter Day Saints seems to me to be a purely man-made invention: which does not much attract me.”
This wasn’t a scholarly judgment but an instinctive one. Lewis was a champion of simple Christianity—the essential, creedal faith he saw as common to all mainstream, historical denominations. To him, a new testament from America and a living prophet weren’t additions to Christianity; they were a departure from it. He saw our religion as a “ready-made system” that could capture a “ditherer” but didn’t produce what he considered genuine, internalized conversion rooted in ancient tradition.
The Profound Irony:
Yet, Lewis himself brilliantly argued against “chronological snobbery”—the uncritical preference for the ideas of one time period. And through his fiction, he embraced the concept of new divine communication. Aslan speaks directly and personally to Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, to Prince Caspian, to Reepicheep. He is not a God confined to a single, static book. The LDS belief in continuing revelation is simply the belief that the God who spoke to Lucy still speaks to His children today in an organized way. Lewis, the storyteller, understood this. Lewis, the academic, rejected it.
If the “man-made” charge was his broad theological objection, the Word of Wisdom was the practical hill he chose to die on. He wrote directly of our church:
“I do however strongly object to the tyrannic and unscriptural insolence of anything that calls itself a Church and makes teetotalism a condition of membership.” (Letter to Mrs. Johnson, 1955)
For Lewis, the pub and the common room were sacred spaces of “cheer,” fellowship, and debate, fueled by tobacco, tea, and pint glasses. A religion that forbade these felt, to him, like it was forbidding community itself. It was a symptom of a larger disease: legalism. He saw it as a “man-made” rule being elevated to a requirement for salvation.
Once after Lewis gave money to a homeless man, Tolkien told him, “He’s just going to use it for alcohol.”
Lewis responded, “That’s what I would do with it too.”
With modern research, Lewis would likely concede on tobacco. As for tea? I doubt any amount of evidence would sway a true Brit. All over the UK, you can find tote bags, t-shirts, and mugs echoing his words, “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
Reframing the Covenant: Solidarity Over Prohibition
Lewis’s critique of the Word of Wisdom stings. He saw only law, not grace. But for those of us who live it, abstinence often feels like mercy. Alcoholism runs in my family. I’d rather embrace a clear line than risk the elusive virtue of moderation. (Alcoholics Anonymous would agree, and so does a God who asks for faith expressed in obedience). What Lewis called legalism, we call liberation.
This might be best explained by another Oxford don, Dr. Andrew Teal, an Anglican Reverend and Chaplain, and a great friend of our faith. He explained to me that for him, living the Word of Wisdom with his Latter-day Saint friends wasn’t about saying “no” to tobacco and alcohol, but:
“…saying yes to standing in absolute solidarity with the addict, with people who are financially stretched and subject to addiction… It is turning away from something that doesn’t benefit me, and making it easier for someone else to also turn it away.”
Given Lewis’s own painful experience with his brother Warnie’s alcoholism, this vision of the Word of Wisdom as a covenant of solidarity might have struck a chord. It reframes abstinence from a personal prohibition to a communal act of love—creating a ‘safe space’ not out of judgment, but out of empathy. The rule Lewis saw as a wall to keep people out was, in fact, a circle drawn to welcome everyone in.
Then there is the charge of self-righteousness. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lewis sketches the parents of the priggish Eustace Scrubb as “very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers, and teetotallers, and wore a special kind of underclothes.” This is a dig at groups Lewis found faddish and self-satisfied. While I believe he would have appreciated an explanation of garments as a symbol of our covenant with Jesus Christ, we must, with humility, acknowledge that his critique of self-righteousness hits its mark.
The truth is, self-righteousness is a persistent weed in the garden of a high-standard faith. The very clarity of our standards—the “checklist”—can, without constant vigilance, breed a sense of superiority. I remember first noticing this in myself as a ten-year-old, and despite a lifetime of effort, I still haven’t fully weeded it out. It requires real spiritual maturity to learn that “the standard I’ve been taught is not the standard my neighbors need to live,” and later, “the choices I’ve made for myself are not the choices I should expect others to make.” Sadly, we often fail in this, wielding our righteousness as a judgment against fellow saints, as well as the rest of humanity (How exhausting! And sad.).
For me, self-righteousness has proven less like a dragon to be slain once and for all, and more like those relentless garden weeds. No matter how diligently I pull at the roots of judgment, comparison, and spiritual pride, new shoots always seem to emerge. The work is never done. Without this constant, humble care, these weeds threaten to choke out the far more delicate fruits of the Spirit: compassion, empathy, and grace.
Any community with high standards of conduct runs the risk of members confusing external compliance with internal righteousness. This is the very “works-righteousness” Lewis feared.
Our leaders have consistently counseled against this. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught, “There is no room for pride in a gospel centered on the humble sacrifice of the Savior.” Lewis’s external critique serves as a valuable mirror, challenging us to ensure the face we show the world is one of joyful humility, not smug certainty.
So, where does this leave us, as Latter-day Saints who love a man who misunderstood us? I’d happily enter a time machine to sit down with Lewis over a pint of bitter for him, camomile tea for me, and explain it all. I like to think his brilliant, fair mind would have been fascinated, even if not fully convinced (I’ll invite Dr. Teal and Elder Holland to help me through the tricky parts).
While Lewis might have bristled at our distinct doctrines, his own description of the Christian journey sounds remarkably familiar to Latter-day Saint ears. He provides a powerful, intellectual bridge between Protestant and LDS understandings of the interplay between grace and works. He argues that God’s grace is not a mere blanket pardon, but a transformative power that we must actively choose to cooperate with through our actions, our choices, and our strivings. For Lewis, the goal of this cooperation is nothing less than a complete transformation. As he writes, the purpose is for Christ to work on us, “killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ.”
C.S. Lewis’s objections to Mormonism were, in the end, the objections of a man deeply invested in a particular, beautiful, and historical expression of Christianity. He saw in us a threat to that tradition. He wasn’t entirely wrong—we are a restoration, not a reformation. We make claims that unsettle the ‘Mere Christianity’ equilibrium. The challenge for us is to understand the roots of his discomfort, to acknowledge where his critiques might hold a mirror to our own failings, and to learn to articulate our faith in a language that conveys its radical generosity.
Perhaps the real invitation is not to wish C.S. Lewis had agreed with us, but to live so fully in Christ that our lives radiate what he most longed for: grace that transforms, charity that humbles, and a faith that makes the whole world pause to wonder.
P.S. Admittedly, I rushed through each of these points (always the pull between writing too much and too little), but I’d love to discuss some of these topics more with you.
First, what are your thoughts on the Word of Wisdom? Has it felt more like restriction, protection, solidarity, or faith-in-action in your life?
Second, self-righteousness. As a people, are we getting better? How can we teach our children high standards and ‘judge not” simultaneously?
Note: I’m trying to figure out the best way to add my Substack posts to this blog (probably a page), but for now, I want to share this because it means so much to me.
From the desk of: Thistlebliss Hollowhymn, Baroness of Righteous Bitterness
To: Wormling Pipsqueak, Slimy Sludge Amateur
My incompetent little grub,
I write this with claws clenched so tightly they’re drawing blood. Despite our most cunning, delightfully corruptive strategies, your subject clings to her so-called “holy habits” like barnacles to the side of a burning ship. Prayer. Scripture study. Silence.
Yes, silence! After all our efforts to fill her ears with noise, she is listening to the music of heaven. This is a catastrophic failure, Wormling!
These practices, pitiful as they appear, continue to anchor her to the Enemy. The fundamental danger, you witless larva, is that she is starting to understand these are not tasks to be checked off, but a way to spend time with Him. Even when rushed. Even when distracted. Especially when she feels like a failure. There is something disgustingly sticky about these habits, something that keeps mortals coming back, again and again, like moths circling the same flickering flame.
They are creatures of routine, these mortals. And therein lies both our greatest challenge and our best opportunity.
Let us begin with prayer, that most resilient of nuisances.
You’d think something as vague and fumbling as “talking to the ceiling” would be easy to dismantle. And yet—here we are. Even when she mutters nonsense with her eyes half-open and her mind already on breakfast, the Enemy listens. Even when her prayers are shallow or selfish or forgetful, He hears them. The wretched truth is that He values the time, not just the tribute. She feels like she’s just mumbling into the void—and He calls it communion. The gall!
Our strategy is twofold: First, hollow the habit; then, when it is brittle and weightless, crush it entirely. Too hasty an elimination would rouse their suspicions—no, we must be patient. Let the outer form remain, but strip it slowly of all meaning.
Make no mistake – this is urgent work. Even her most distracted prayer, muttered while scrolling through emails at a red light, still reaches the Enemy’s ears. It maintains the connection, you fool! It keeps the line glowing. Even her “Blessfoodfamilyamen” gives Him an opening. The wretched truth is that He clings to these pathetic offerings like a starving man to crumbs!
We must move quickly, for every mechanical prayer still maintains a thread of connection.
Make her believe prayer doesn’t matter. Not all at once—oh no, that would be far too obvious. Instead, fixate her mind on that one unanswered plea. Let it fester. “Why bother speaking if He doesn’t listen?” Whisper it when she’s tired, when she’s doubting, when the silence feels heavier than words. We must make her see it as a chore to be perfected, not a connection to be enjoyed.
Above all, ensure she never pauses to listen. The moment she finishes speaking, flood her with urgent distractions—the grocery list, a buzzing phone (we’ve brokered a deal with the Demon of Phone Notifications, so use it!), a sudden pang of guilt about unfinished tasks. If she dares to linger in silence, mock it: “This is just awkward. Are you expecting some grand revelation? How presumptuous.” Let her think the absence of fireworks means the absence of God.
If she insists on kneeling (as some of the more stubborn ones still do), amplify the discomfort. “Are your knees really the point? How quaint.” If she prays sitting, hiss that she’s being disrespectful. Make the act a no-win performance: too formal and she’s stiff, too casual and she’s irreverent. The goal isn’t to stop her—it’s to make her feel like she’s failing at it. Let her think prayer is just another skill she hasn’t mastered, another way she’s disappointing Someone.
And if, despite your efforts, she manages a moment of real connection—if she speaks from the heart, even clumsily—smother it immediately. Saturate her mind with packing lists, carpool reminders, the ping of a notification. Let the sacred dissolve like fog on a window. Better yet, make her doubt it ever happened. “Was that just emotion? Wishful thinking?” Convince her that real answers are loud, obvious, instant—not this quiet, inconvenient stirring in her chest.
By the time you’re done, prayer should feel like speaking into a dead phone. Let her keep the habit. Empty it of power first.
Ah, but here is where our patience bears its sweetest, most poisonous fruit. Once the habit is hollow—once her prayers are little more than breath spent on empty air—then we can finally move in for the kill. Let her skip a day—then two. Then a week. Let her shrug and say, “What’s the point? I wasn’t feeling it anyway.”
Oh, the delicious irony! When she stops spending time with Him, there’s so much more room for US. Her mind, once a battleground, becomes a playground—wide open, undefended. No more inconvenient moments of clarity. No more sudden, humbling realizations that she’s being heard. Just noise. Glorious, exploitable noise.
And the best part? She’ll hardly notice. She’ll tell herself she’s “evolving,” that she’s “beyond rote rituals.” She may even pat herself on the back for her “honesty”—as if abandoning a conversation were a virtue! Meanwhile, we fill the void with whatever we please: resentment, self-pity, shame, a nice thick sludge of distraction.
And then, one day, she’ll wake up and realize—though not too clearly, we hope—that she doesn’t remember the last time she prayed. Not really. Not like she used to. And by then, my dear Wormling, you’ll be the master.
Now, onto scripture study—a wretchedly persistent problem.
Those pages! Those pages still glow with some ember of power, even when handled without care. A woman opens her scriptures just to say she did, and suddenly—bam—Alma 32:42 punches her in the soul. It’s outrageous. It’s unfair. It’s our worst nightmare.
We must cloud her mind with ambition. Promote quantity over quality. Convince her that the goal is to finish a chapter, not to encounter its Author. Encourage her to highlight every verse in a different pastel. Make her feel productive, not changed. Suggest multitasking. “You can listen while scrolling Instagram!” Make her feel like she’s accomplishing something, even as her mind remains miles away.
And if she begins to question—if some troubling verse catches her attention—be ready to rush her to the next verse (quantity over quality! Always!) If she looks for context, drown her in historical footnotes and irrelevant minutiae. Make her feel confused. Better yet, make her feel clever. And above all, keep her from reading with expectation. A soul who expects to hear from the Enemy is a soul we may soon lose.
But my dear grub, nothing—nothing—should terrify you more than silence.
You let her go on a walk the other day, with no friends, no headphones, no podcast buzzing from her pocket. You utter fool.
Don’t you understand?! In stillness, she hears Him. Not a sermon. Not a quote. Not a podcast summary. Him. That Voice that speaks not to ears but to the deepest parts of them—the parts we are always trying to choke. In the quiet, she isn’t just doing a habit; she is keeping company with the Divine.
You had your chance. You could have reminded her of a dozen “good” things to listen to and you slacked off. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t. After that, she was wrapped in a cloud of light– the kind we cannot penetrate.
We cannot allow this. We can make her forget those heavenly whispers. We are louder.
From now on you must fill every quiet moment with noise. Music. Podcasts. YouTube videos about decluttering.
If she takes a moment to ponder, whisper: “This feels weird. You should be productive.” Let her confuse stillness with laziness. Make her panic in the silence. It won’t take much. The humans are addicted to motion.
Should she persist—should she sit still long enough to feel the quiet settle around her like a blanket—remind her of the dishes in the sink and the text she forgot to reply to. And if she starts to feel peace rising in her chest, whisper urgently: “This is indulgent. You’re wasting time.”
Most effective of all? Convince her that “pondering” is just daydreaming. The Enemy invites them to ponder no fewer than twenty-five times in that blasted book. But if we can make her feel like it’s useless or awkward or self-indulgent, we win. We always win when they equate stillness with irrelevance.
But even our best efforts stumble against this maddening truth: the Enemy is present in the habits themselves. Not just in the results. Not just in the glowing revelations or the tears of testimony, but in the doing. In the bowing. In the attempt. The daily, mundane choice to show up and spend time with Him is itself a victory for their side. Even their silence, however poorly kept, echoes with His voice.
Ugh. Do you see the problem, Wormling? They’re never truly alone. We can distract, distort, disorient—but we cannot fully disconnect them. They sit in stillness and Heaven draws near. They mutter a rote prayer and somehow grace still leaks through the cracks. They read the same verses again and again and still, somehow, it breathes.
And the most infuriating, illogical, maddening part of it all? He actually loves them. He enjoys their company. We watch it, century after century, and we still cannot comprehend it. This isn’t some cold, contractual obligation for Him. He doesn’t merely tolerate their fumbling efforts. There is a fondness in His voice when He speaks to them, a patience in His listening that makes my very essence recoil. We do not know why. There is no reason for it in any ledger of merit or logic. He just… does. And that love is the one variable in this entire cosmic equation that we can neither quantify nor destroy. It is the one weapon against which we have absolutely no defense.
Do not let her realize that the point of all of it—prayer, study, silence—is not the accomplishment of a duty, but soul-deep transformation through relationship. That scripture is not a textbook, but a conversation. That prayer is not performance, but presence. That silence is not emptiness, but His invitation.
For these small, consistent moments of at-one-ment create a bond we cannot sever—a cable of light against our frail, flaxen cords.
Do not let her suspect—not even for a moment—that even her most awkward, distracted efforts still make their way to Heaven. That there is a God who hears through her yawns and sees through her scrolls. That He is waiting. Not with scolding, but with welcome.
Keep it mechanical. Keep it performative. Keep it empty.
Or else, dear Pipsqueak, you may one day find her sitting still, eyes closed, heart open—praying, pondering, listening—and we will be the ones left in silence—listening, helpless, as Heaven draws near.
In growing bitterness,
Thistlebliss Hollowhymn
Baroness of Righteous Bitterness
Heavenly Whispers (like raindrops in the desert)
“Be still.
The words are not a test. The silence is not empty.
I am here. Even now. Even when you feel nothing. Especially then.”
I can’t count how many times I’ve heard a C.S. Lewis quote in sacrament meeting and felt that tiny shiver of recognition—that oh, yes, that’s it moment. We’re about to hear a truth we already love, framed in a way we’ve never quite imagined.
I especially love it when a youth speaker starts talking about Aslan—their voice trembling as they describe the great Lion, mocked and shorn and spit upon. The purity of it moves through the congregation like light, reminding us why stories matter.
That’s the power of Lewis: he bridges the gap between doctrine and experience, between what we believe and what we feel. The recent retelling of Aslan’s sacrifice by Elder Jaggi in October General Conference is just the latest example. Somewhere along the way, Lewis became our unofficial, beloved secondary source—giving us a vocabulary for our deepest spiritual experiences.
But which of his words do we love most? After scouring ChurchofJesusChrist.org, consulting my decades of pew-sitting, and even querying AI (which rewarded me with piles of misquotes and misinformation), I’ve identified our top contenders. This isn’t a scientific list, but a spiritual one—a map of the Lewisian landscapes where Latter-day Saints most love to wander.
1. The “Divine Renovation” Quote
If there’s a gold medal, this is it. The metaphor of God as a divine contractor from Mere Christianity—a metaphor he borrowed and transformed from his beloved mentor, George MacDonald—resonates deeply with our core belief in eternal progression.
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
Why we love it: It sanctifies the struggle. It transforms our trials from random suffering into evidence of a grand, divine architectural plan. We aren’t being punished; we’re being upgraded.
2. “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses”
Often condensed, the full passage from The Weight of Glory is a manifesto on human potential.
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit…”
Why we love it: It’s a theological lens that changes how we see everyone—from the stranger in the grocery line to the difficult family member. It imbues daily life with eternal consequence. (And yes, please read this at my funeral.)
3. The “Give me All” Quote
This call to total surrender, famously championed by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, captures the essence of discipleship.
“Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money… I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it… Hand over the whole natural self… I will give you Myself.’”
Why we love it: It’s bracing and uncompromising. It pairs perfectly with Elder Maxwell’s own teaching that the submission of our will is “the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar.”
4. The “Anatomy of Pride” Quote
If Lewis’s house metaphor describes our relationship with God, this quote from Mere Christianity defines the sin that severs it. Given new weight by President Ezra Taft Benson in his 1989 talk “Beware of Pride,” it has become a go-to definition for us.
“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.”
Why we love it: It cuts to the heart of pride’s addictive, relational nature. It’s not about assets, but attitude. This definition moves pride from a vague feeling of superiority to a specific sin of “unholy competition” that we can identify and repent of in our daily lives.
You’ll often see this sentiment shared as: “A housewife’s work…is the most important work in the world… your job is the one for which all others exist.”
But the real quote is richer. Lewis was comforting a woman who felt her work was as futile as the myth of Sisyphus. He replied:
“I think I can understand that feeling… But it is surely, in reality, the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, mines, cars, government etc. exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes? … So your job is the one for which all others exist.”
The power isn’t just in the praise, but in the context—it’s an answer to the feeling of futility. He validates the struggle and then reveals the truth behind it.
Here’s where it gets fascinating. While we eagerly claim Lewis as a spiritual ally, we largely sidestep what is arguably his most famous apologetic argument: the “Lunatic, Liar, or Lord” trilemma.
“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.”
Why don’t we use it? The doctrine is sound. The logic is brilliant. I’ve certainly paraphrased it myself. But I think it feels irreverent to us as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our spiritual culture leans toward reverence, not rhetorical shock. Equating the Savior—even hypothetically—to a “poached egg,” a “lunatic,” or the “Devil of hell” feels jarring to our Latter-day Saint sensibilities. We prefer to build our case for Christ’s divinity on the sure foundation of revelation and the witness of the Spirit.
In the end, we don’t love C.S. Lewis because he teaches us new doctrines. We love him because he gives us new eyes for the doctrines we already hold dear.
He takes the covenant path and calls it “further up and further in.” He takes the refining of the soul and calls it the making of a “palace.” He takes the divine nature within each of us and calls it an “immortal splendour.”
He doesn’t change our theology; he translates it into a language of wonder.
So, we’ll keep reading him, quoting him, and finding God in the pages of Narnia and his essays. Because sometimes, the truth you know best is the one you most need to hear again for the first time. And maybe that’s why we keep quoting him—because every time we do, we feel that same little shiver of recognition. That oh, yes, that’s it moment, all over again.
“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” The Problem of Pain
“Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.” The Screwtape Letters
“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life — the life God is sending one day by day.” Letter 23, dated 20 January 1942
“Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” The Screwtape Letters
“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. … You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down.” Mere Christianity
“(God) has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man (or woman) in the world.” Mere Christianity
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen — not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” The Weight of Glory
As a temple preparation instructor, I’ve found that one of the most powerful ways to understand the covenant path is to liken it to a divine coronation. Since I began teaching in 2020—just as the Church embraced a new era of transparency, including publishing the General Handbook—I’ve used this pattern in my classes. However, it was my academic research that showed me just how deep that pattern runs.
I’ve just spent more than a year writing my master’s thesis on the British coronation. My focus was constitutional law, but as I traced the ancient rites—the anointing, the robing, the conferring of authority—I wasn’t just seeing a state ceremony. I witnessed echoes of a divine pattern I recognized from my own worship in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
That pattern is not an accident. Across Egypt, Mesopotamia, Israel, and beyond, ancient coronation rites follow a profound template that finds its most complete and sacred expression in our modern temple ceremonies. This isn’t a coincidence; it’s a testament to divine truth.
In this three-part series, I’m weaving together three of my great loves—the temple, coronations, and the works of C.S. Lewis—to explore a stunning truth: the concept of our divine potential to become kings and queens isn’t a footnote in theology; it is the beating heart of the Christian story, written into the fabric of reality itself.
We begin with a vision so vast it almost defies imagination: the Council in Heaven. It is more than a pre-mortal meeting. We were there as participants in a divine plan with a staggering promise—to inherit, through the grace of Christ, all that the Father has.
We are destined to become kings and queens, priests and priestesses.
This is our theology, the lens through which we view all of eternity. It is a perspective that cultivates not arrogance, but profound humility. For when we truly believe that the stranger beside us is a cherished child of God—and that Christ’s grace offers each of us the sacred potential to become like Him—it changes everything. Every conversation softens. Every interaction becomes holy ground.
In the most sacred sense, we are all called to share in His divine nature and kingship.
This idea that mortals might be destined for divinity sounds strange to many outside our faith. Yet C.S. Lewis, that most beloved of Christian thinkers, not only understood it but made it the cornerstone of his imagination. His stories are a prolonged meditation on the Christian doctrine of theosis—our divine potential—using the potent metaphors of anointing, coronation, and sacred kingship.
Lewis famously believed it was better to teach theology sideways. So let us journey into Narnia, not as tourists in a fantasy, but as those coming home to a truth our souls already recognize.
The creation of Narnia in The Magician’s Nephew is not merely a fairytale; it is a template. Aslan chooses Frank, a humble London cabby, and his wife, Helen, precisely because they are a Son of Adam and a Daughter of Eve. Their humanity is a pre-existing royal bloodline, marking them as Children of God.
But the call is only the beginning. The transformation comes through a sacred ordinance performed by the Lion himself.
“Then he breathed upon him and said, ‘Rise up, Sir Frank, first of the Kings of Narnia.’”
This is no mere formality. It is an anointing. The breath of Aslan—a symbol of the Spirit—and the power of his spoken word enact a fundamental change in Frank’s being. It is a bestowal of identity and authority. He is no longer Frank the Cabby; he is Sir Frank, a king.
His wife, Helen, is brought across the worlds to join him, and Aslan gives her a similar charge:
“You shall be the Lady of this land and its Queen.”
And then, a tangible sign of their transformation:
“Then he breathed upon them and their clothes became fresh and new and rich and royal… and they stood there in their new and beautiful clothes, looking rather shy but looking very noble indeed.”
The robes and sash appear after the anointing, symbolizing their new, royal nature. This transformative gift of clothing, mirroring our own temple experience, is an outward witness of an inward covenant and a conferred identity.
Aslan’s charge to them is a royal covenant: to rule and name the creatures, to see that justice is done, and to protect the innocent. This is the very essence of the responsibility we accept on our own covenant path—to act as stewards of God’s creations, to establish righteousness, and to build His kingdom.
At its heart, a coronation is an acceptance of sacred responsibility through covenant keeping.
If Frank and Helen represent the bestowal of this royal identity, then the Pevensie children illustrate how we grow into it. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the four children are never just evacuees from London. From their first mention, they are “Sons of Adam” and “Daughters of Eve.” Their humanity is the same royal bloodline, but now it must be proven.
Their journey—from the spare room to the throne room, from children to sovereigns—mirrors our own covenant path, a process of transformation where our choices and faithfulness prepare us to claim a promised crown.
They fulfill an ancient prophecy by taking their rightful places at Cair Paravel, the culmination of a pre-ordained plan. Their coronation is a sacred event where their crowns were “blessed,” their royalty imbued with divine power.
And then comes the moment that will resonate powerfully with any Latter-day Saint: the giving of a new name.
They are no longer just Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. They are Peter the Magnificent, Susan the Gentle, Edmund the Just, and Lucy the Valiant..
These names are not honorary titles; they are reflections of the divine nature they have cultivated through experience. Peter did not begin magnificent—he became so through courage. Edmund was not born just—he learned justice through mercy.
Through them, Lewis shows how we grow into our divine inheritance.
This pattern is not confined to one story—it is the architecture of Lewis’s imagination. Nearly every book in The Chronicles of Narnia centers on rightful kingship: Prince Caspian restores the true heir, The Horse and His Boy ends in a double coronation, The Silver Chair seeks the lost prince. Beyond Narnia, in the Space Trilogy, Perelandra celebrates an unfallen King and Queen, and That Hideous Strength restores Arthur as the Pendragon to heal a corrupted world.
For Lewis, kingship is never politics—it is divine order, sacred stewardship, and humanity’s destiny to rule under God. And in The Last Battle, he unveils the final truth: every coronation in the shadow-lands was rehearsal for the true, eternal kingship in Aslan’s real country.
Lewis did not reserve this vision for his fiction. In his sermon The Weight of Glory, he says:
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship… There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”
He urges us to see one another in this light, reminding us that our current affairs are fleeting, “their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.” And then he delivers the clarifying truth: “But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.”
In Mere Christianity, he writes that the Christian life is “dressing up as Christ,” until the day we truly become sons and daughters of God. Every act of kindness, every offering of faith, is a small rehearsal for the day of our own coronation.
C.S. Lewis gives us the language to articulate a glorious truth: we are all heirs to a crown. The path to claim it is the covenant path walked with the true King.
The recurring elements Lewis uses—the divine appointment, the anointing, the clothing, the new name, the royal charge—are not merely literary devices. They form a symbolic blueprint for the divine potential we pursue on the covenant path.
And this blueprint is no human invention. The archetype of the hidden monarch—who must awaken, remember, and reclaim their crown—is the bedrock of our most enduring stories, from the Arthurian legends to the fairy tales that have captivated us for centuries. The pattern of anointing, robing, and coronation is not exclusive to Christianity, either. It echoes through the sacred rites of diverse faiths across the globe, from the enthronement of Egyptian pharaohs to the abhisheka of Hindu deities and kings.
These recurring motifs are not evidence of borrowed ritual, but of a shared, divine inheritance. They are fragmented reflections of a primordial truth, pointing humanity toward a universal, eternal order. These patterns are the human soul remembering, across time and culture, its royal destiny and the sacred template through which it is conferred.
In the next part of this series, we’ll walk from Narnia’s throne room into Westminster Abbey and the House of the Lord, tracing how the pattern of anointing, robing, and covenant making continues in living worship.
Then, we’ll turn our gaze homeward, discovering how this divine pattern can shape our family teaching and daily discipleship.
On June 2, 1953, twenty-seven-year-old Princess Elizabeth of York stepped into Westminster Abbey and emerged as Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. Though she had technically ascended to the throne upon her father’s death months earlier, we would be mistaken to treat her coronation as a mere technicality or pomp and circumstance required by tradition. It was a transformation. Through sacred symbols, vows, and anointing, a young woman was set apart for a divine calling—to serve, to sacrifice, and to reign with covenantal purpose. Her seventy-year reign would traverse war, social upheaval, and change, yet the power that sustained her began in that holy moment of consecration.
That moment in Westminster Abbey wasn’t just the making of a monarch—it’s a mirror of what God offers to each of us.
So, what is your coronation? What is the great work—the divine purpose—that you and you alone are called to fulfill on this earth?
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we look for many of those answers in the temple. We each have a “royal” destiny as kings and queens—as we discussed in Part I—not necessarily to rule in this life, but to govern our lives, build eternal families, and help establish God’s kingdom on earth in preparation . This idea of a “royal destiny” isn’t just a metaphor; it’s a pattern. Just as a monarch is prepared for their sacred office through a temple-like ceremony, we are prepared for our divine missions through temple covenants.
This truth—that divine kingship is a pattern, not a metaphor—comes alive for me every time I teach temple preparation class. After introductions, passing around my husband’s famous chocolate-chip cookies, and giving the “there are no dumb questions!” pep-talk, I show a clip from The Crown depicting Queen Elizabeth’s anointing in her 1953 coronation.
I usually favor discussion over video clips, but this scene always sets the perfect tone.
I then talk to my class about how Elizabeth’s anointing prepared her for her great work in the world, just as our own anointing and covenant making in the temple prepare each of us for our divine purpose.
When do we receive our endowment? Often before beginning a new or challenging chapter in our lives. The saints in Nauvoo eagerly made covenants before crossing the plains to Utah. Members often take out their own endowment as preparation for a mission, marriage, or, like my own daughter, when stepping into adulthood.
Those blessings, those promises, those covenants, arm you and prepare you for the good work you have to do in the world and for the challenges ahead. Most of us feel small in our circle of influence. I certainly do. Most of my work is behind the scenes, unseen, and unnoticed; I’m never the person in front or with the “big calling.” But I’ve learned that influence isn’t always about scale. A single candle doesn’t illuminate a cathedral, but it can light up a dark room, offer warmth to one person, or help another find their way. My small efforts are like that—offering specific light and warmth where it’s needed. Our Father in Heaven has a purpose for each one of us, and He values every spark of light we offer.
It is in this sacred, personal work that we discover a stunning truth: service is the real meaning of royalty.
Before we explore the parallels between coronations and temple worship, we need to pause and reclaim the true meaning of kingship and queenship.
For those raised in democracies, the idea of a monarchy might feel antiquated. We think of tyranny and unchecked power. We are rightly suspicious.
But this is a corrupted version of a divine pattern.
In the theology of the covenant, a true monarch is not a dictator, but a servant of the people. Their sovereignty is not a matter of personal privilege but of profound responsibility. They are anointed to be a physical embodiment of the nation’s covenant with God. The heavenly pattern is not one of autocracy, but of a shepherd-king—a ruler who, in the words of our Savior, “came not to be served but to serve” Mark 10:45.
This ideal was voiced perfectly at the very beginning of King Charles III’s coronation, where, before the oaths or the anointing, a child from the Chapel Royal1 stood and declared:
“Your Majesty, as children of the kingdom of God we welcome you in the name of the King of kings.”
The King’s reply was not a claim to power, but a vow of submission:
“In his name and after His example I come not to be served but to serve.”
There it is. The entire ceremony is framed by this single, stunning idea. The monarch is a subject of a higher King, Jesus Christ, and their earthly rule is meant to be a reflection of His heavenly service.
That truth—the idea that rule itself is covenantal—leads us to the deeper question: Why crown a king with such pomp and circumstance? Because a coronation is far more than a ceremony; it is a covenant.
While modern minds may see monarchy as outdated, its ancient power came from this sacred bond. From the divine Pharaohs of Egypt to the law-bound kings of Israel, the ruler was the crucial link between heaven and earth. Their coronation was a transformative ritual of anointing and oath-making, channeling divine authority into a human office. This wasn’t about unchecked power, but sacred responsibility. The crown was a symbol of a promise to serve and govern with justice and mercy.
This profound truth is perfectly illustrated by a poignant moment in the episode of The Crown I show my class. If you watched the dramatization of Queen Elizabeth’s anointing, you likely spotted her Uncle David—the former King Edward VIII—offering narration for his Parisian friends. David had abdicated the throne and was never crowned.
For him, watching Elizabeth’s coronation was the ultimate lesson in covenant.2 He saw the very vows enacted that had cost him his throne. He had believed the crown was his by birthright; her ceremony proved it was granted by covenant. His abdication was a rejection of the sacred contract. Her coronation was its fulfillment. In every oath she swore and every symbol she received, he witnessed the immutable truth: the monarchy is not sustained by bloodline alone, but by a binding covenant with God and individuals.
With that in mind—understanding kingship as consecrated service—let’s return to the scene of Queen Elizabeth’s anointing and trace the temple pattern through the coronation. If you’ve been endowed you’ll recognize several similarities to our own worship.
First, the Sacred Setting.
The ceremony isn’t held in Parliament. It takes place in Westminster Abbey. This setting immediately frames the event as a covenant with God, not a contract with men.
Consecrated in 1065 AD by Edward the Confessor, the soaring arches of Westminster were built on the site of a Benedictine monastery. The Abbey is a beautiful example of D&C 124: 26-27 “Come ye, with all your gold, and your silver, and your precious stones, and with all your antiquities…and with iron, with copper, and with brass, and with zinc, and with all your precious things of the earth; and build a house to my name, for the Most High to dwell therein.”
For Christians in medieval Britain, building the Abbey was their way of showing their devotion to God by dedicating their time and talents to a holy place of worship. Thus, from its very foundations, the sacred setting defines the coronation’s true purpose: the monarch makes a covenant with God.
Second, the Oaths and Covenants.
At several times during the sacred ritual, the monarch makes solemn promises. They swear to govern with justice and mercy, to uphold the law, and to consecrate their life to the service of their people. These oaths are the condition upon which the divine power is offered.
Third, the Anointing.
This is the most sacred, private part of the ceremony. It’s only thanks to The Crown that we have a dramatization of it since the actual anointing was blocked from view during both Elizabeth and Charles’ coronations.
“Be your head anointed with holy oil, as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed. And as Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so may you be anointed, blessed, and consecrated King over the peoples, whom the Lord your God has given you to rule and govern; in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
The words are similar, but our temple anointings include much more extensive blessings. This ritual echoes the anointing of the sons of Aaron at the door of the tabernacle.3
Fourth, the Ceremonial Clothing.
Following the anointing, the monarch is clothed in priestly garments rich with symbolism. The simple, white colobium sindonis remains as the foundation of coronation clothing.
Then layer by layer, they are vested with the glorious, priestly robes of state—the Robe, the golden Supertunica (richly embroidered with leaves and eagles), and the Stole and Girdle (much like a sash, but worn over the shoulders rather than around the waist).
This clothing is an outward manifestation of an inward transformation. It symbolizes the new identity, authority, and splendor of the office, built upon the foundation of humility and the sanctifying anointing.
Fifth, the New Name and Ascension.
The monarch assumes a new name. Charles Philip Arthur George became King Charles III. He then physically ascends (just as we ascend in our temples)—walking up the steps to the Coronation Chair to be enthroned and receive the orb and sceptres. This act symbolizes the assumption of the station to which they have been covenanted, anointed, and clothed.
A monarch is prepared in a temple—through covenants, anointings, new clothing, and a new name—to rule a kingdom.
In the very same way, you are prepared in God’s holy house for your own divine calling.
You will likely never see your face on coins or postage stamps, but you are of royal birth, with a divine destiny. The temple is where you receive your “coronation” for that eternal life. It is where you:
The King’s humble confession, “I come not to be served, but to serve,” is the mantle upon your own shoulders. Your great work in your family, your community, and your own soul, is a life of service guided by that same principle.
Your sacred oaths are the foundation for your own quiet, glorious mission: to build God’s kingdom right where you stand.
This is the glorious, everyday work of making a corner of the world holy. And Our Heavenly Father in His infinite wisdom, has provided a holy house where you are crowned in covenants and prepared for the unique service only you can give.
NEXT TIME: Just in case you’re worried I spend all of temple prep on coronation theology, rest assured, I discuss divine purpose with my class and move on. Still, just as parents have the primary responsibility to prepare their children for temple ordinances, we each have the responsibility (or rather, the privilege) of learning more about temple worship. In Part III, I’ll talk about some of the best resources from www.churchofjesuschrist.org/ and I hope you’ll contribute your own ideas.
The idea of the choir boy greeting King Charles III at the beginning of the service was the idea of my friend, Anglican Chaplain, Dr. Andrew Teal, who helped plan the coronation ceremony. He told me that fact very casually, as if we all correspond with the King.
This principle of transformation was evident in King Charles himself. For decades, Brits questioned whether he was fit to rule. Since his coronation, his service to Great Britain has garnered high approval ratings. It is a powerful testament to how sacred promises can refine a person for their divine work.
Exodus 40:12-15 And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and wash them with water. And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garments, and anoint him, and sanctify him; that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office. And thou shalt bring his sons, and clothe them with coats: And thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office: for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations.
Imagine when you go to the temple for your own washing and anointing, your own endowment. You are met at the entrance by someone who is expecting you, who knows your name, and who is delighted you’ve come. You’re led through quiet, beautiful foyers and softly lit hallways until you reach a private dressing room. There, you’re instructed to clothe yourself in white.
You are then taken to washing and anointing. Within simple cloth walls, you are symbolically washed with a single drop of water and anointed with a drop of oil. You sit in a chair—like a child, or a monarch—as blessings are poured upon your head. One after another, they come, so abundant you can hardly hope to remember or comprehend them all. Nothing is asked of you except your name—and if you forget, it’s likely pinned to your chest. You’re simply invited to sit, and to soak in the love of God.
Because this is what that moment means to me: your Father in Heaven is so delighted to have you in His house, it’s as if He’s saying, “Hurry in, child. Put on your white, and sit down so I can bless you. I’ve been waiting to bless you.”
And He does.
In all our talk about temples, I believe we should focus on temple blessings and retire the phrase temple work. Your Heavenly Father isn’t trying to get you to do your chores. Attending the temple is not a burden. Your Father in Heaven wants you there so He can bless you, guide you, and empower you—to teach you more about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The temple is a place where you can make promises that will bring happiness and fulfillment. It’s a place to spend time with God. And the blessings you receive there don’t end at the temple doors; they can not only help you feel God’s presence more in your daily life but also transfer through you to everyone you interact with.
When the Church updated the General Handbook in 2020, one quiet sentence marked a profound shift in how we think about temple preparation:
“Parents have the primary responsibility to help their children prepare to receive temple ordinances.” (General Handbook 27.1.1)
For generations, we’ve talked about going to the temple. We’ve encouraged our youth to be “worthy to attend.” But this line changes the focus. It calls parents to begin the temple journey at home—to teach their children not only to enter the temple, but to understand it. To see temple worship as a way of life, not a single event.
Most parents I know have never heard this directive. And who can blame them? It was tucked quietly into a handbook update, without fanfare. Then, just weeks later, a worldwide pandemic swept in and reshaped everything. But it’s a remarkable and deliberate shift, refocusing spiritual development from the chapel to the home. The Church is essentially saying: We trust you to teach sacred things. We trust the Spirit to guide you.
This shift toward home-centered preparation was mirrored by a similar shift in formal instruction. At the time, I was called as a temple preparation instructor and told to teach with greater transparency and more detail about what actually happens in the temple. In essence, teach everything except those sacred elements we are explicitly told not to discuss outside the temple.
The Church modeled that transparency beautifully in this 2020 video about temple clothing. Maybe you’ve seen it? It’s beautifully filmed and carefully explained. I’m so proud of this video, you’d think I made it myself (I’m just proud of the Church).
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/bMutZrefILc?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Did you watch it? Isn’t it gorgeous? To me, the video’s gentle, respectful tone is perfect. It beautifully normalized ceremonial clothing by showing examples from other world religions before focusing on our own. Seeing the temple clothing and garments presented so openly helped strip away the feeling of secrecy and showed that talking about these things isn’t taboo.
Every temple prep class I taught was surprised that it shows both temple clothing and garments. I’ll never forget one participant who asked, “I’m not endowed—are you sure it’s OK for me to watch this?”
My answer was a resounding, “Yes! It’s not just OK; it’s for you.”
That question proved why the video was so necessary. It perfectly opens the door for family conversations about the temple, its clothing, and the covenants they represent. It’s a powerful reminder: it’s not just OK to talk about these things; it’s essential.
Let’s talk about the temple more in our families, not less.
Let me clarify—temple preparation isn’t only for those about to receive their endowment. Learning about the temple is for all of us. There is always more to learn, more to inspire, more to bring you closer to your Savior.
For this post, I’m focusing primarily on resources found on churchofjesuschrist.org. There are dozens of excellent temple preparation books, but first, let’s explore the wonderful (and often surprising) materials available on the Church website. Of course, I’ll also suggest you read The Chronicles of Narnia to your kids as temple preparation—but you expect that of me by now, right?
The greatest resource of all on the Church website is the Church Handbook. As I mentioned in Part I, until February 2020 the handbook was only accessible to bishops and stake presidents. In a breathtaking move toward transparency, the Church made it available not only to all members, but to the public. Want to know Church policy? There it is. The Church is not perfect, and neither is the handbook, which is constantly evolving, but I am a great believer that all things grow when brought into the light.
When teaching from the Church Handbook, a great place to start is Section 26 Temple Recommends. Here, you can read—and discuss—every temple recommend question and learn more about the process of obtaining a recommend. Sometimes we might slip into thinking of these questions as a checklist of “good behavior,” but in truth, they act as a guide for a Christ-centered life. Qualifying for a temple recommend requires sacrifice and commitment; it shapes a life that looks distinctly different from the world’s. Ultimately, these questions aren’t a barrier to keep people out, but a path to prepare us to enter the Lord’s house and receive His greatest blessings.
Section 27 Temple Ordinances for the Living, provides excellent descriptions of temple ordinances and detailed guidance for preparing to enter the temple. Most importantly, it outlines and explains the covenants made in the temple in remarkable detail. To me, it makes sense to talk about these covenants before attending the temple. Knowing them ahead of time allows parents to discuss temple covenants for years before a child ever commits to making them.
Section 28 focuses on Temple Ordinances for the Deceased. Many families with young children might turn to this section often, since children may begin performing baptisms the January after their 11th birthday. This section offers clear details about all temple work for the dead.
Knowing as much as possible about the temple before attending can ease fears and open the door to a richer experience.
There are many scriptures—and this Church manual—to enrich your teaching, but the crucial ones are Exodus 40:12–15 (bringing Aaron and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle), Moses 1:31–41 and chapters 2–5, and Genesis 1–3.
I believe in taking time to explain to both kids and adults all the practicalities of going to the temple—how to make an appointment, what to wear, how to buy temple clothing and garments. Even small details like parking or what the locker room looks like can calm nerves and make space for deeper spiritual experiences. If you have the opportunity, attend a temple open house.
Remember that temple rituals are ancient—older than the world itself—and can feel unfamiliar to our modern minds. The temple is the Lord’s “strange act, that I may pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” (Doctrine and Covenants 95:4).
The temple can feel strange, especially for those of us used to very simple sacrament meetings. And that’s OK. When I watch an Indian wedding ceremony, the customs and rituals are very different from my own—but that doesn’t make them any less meaningful. The temple has its own language, its own culture of symbolism. Sometimes we don’t fully understand our own rituals, but understanding takes time, reverence, and curiosity—not dismissal
Attending services of other faiths can deepen our appreciation for sacred ritual. I especially recommend a Jewish Shabbat service or a Catholic Mass. Both are easily accessible. In my own experience attending both Shabbat and Mass, you will be warmly welcomed and invited to participate as you feel comfortable.
Perhaps my most important piece of temple prep advice: have fun with it. We take our covenants seriously, but we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. As President Hinckley often quipped, “If we’re not finding joy in the gospel, we’re doing it wrong.”
Lean into the humor of temple life. Talk about the awkwardness of buying garments for the first time. Laugh about those funny carpet bags everyone carries. Tell your kids about the people who fill their pockets with white mints and how the crackling wrapper always seems loudest at the worst possible moment. Be honest about how often people fall asleep—or forget one shoe. Remind your kids that the temple workers are human just like you and me, and can make mistakes too. The temple is a holy experience, but it is also a very human experience.
Prepare your loved ones for the days when they’ll be desperate to hear from God and every red light will make them late, when they’ll burst into tears in the chapel (don’t worry, there are Kleenex everywhere), or when they might not feel any inspiration at all—until later, while putting three little boys to bed, and the Spirit whispers, “You are exactly where you are supposed to be.”
And remember, we are not meant to understand it all. We are children walking in heavenly paths.
One last analogy: when my children learned to play string instruments, their early lessons were full of strange drills and bow exercises that seemed to have little to do with actual music. But after months of practice, when a violin was finally placed in their tiny hands, they knew exactly how to hold it—how to draw the bow, how to let the music sing.
I suspect that as much as we think we know, we are like those tiny violinists—questioning the drills and exercises, carefully being prepared by a loving Father in Heaven to play the music of heaven.
Every time I walk into the temple, I feel that same quiet invitation: Come in, my child. Sit down so I can bless you. I’ve come to believe that temple worship isn’t meant to feel like work—it’s meant to feel like love.
And when we teach our children to see it that way, we change everything. We’re not just preparing them for a day or a ceremony; we’re teaching them how God feels about them. We’re teaching them that He rejoices when they walk through those doors. We’re teaching them that He’s been waiting, all along, to bless them.
Let’s talk about the temple more in our families, not less. That’s the goal. But what are the best ways to do this? How do we move from a noble intention to a natural practice? I’d love to read your ideas in the comments. I’d also like to know books, talks, and other resources you find valuable.
I stood with my friend Rachel in the hushed light of the Ashmolean Museum, fixed on Paolo de’ Matteis’ The Choice of Hercules. In this Baroque favorite, the hero is frozen at his crossroads. To one side stands Virtue—stern, armored, pointing a spear up a steep, rocky path. To the other lounges Pleasure (Voluptas)—voluptuous and relaxed, surrounded by symbols of transient joy. Hercules sits between them, the weight of a lifetime’s direction in his contemplative gaze.
“I don’t like this,” Rachel said, her voice cutting through the quiet. “Why is Virtue always portrayed as the hard life, while Pleasure is fun and easy?”
Her question hung in the air, putting a finger on a deep cultural wound. For centuries, this painting has echoed a lie we’ve often absorbed without realizing it: that God is on the side of the grim, the austere, the difficult… while all that is delightful and satisfying is inherently suspect, belonging to some rival kingdom.
It was then I introduced her to one of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes (I’m annoying that way). In The Screwtape Letters, a senior demon grumbles:
“[God] is a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or only like foam on the seashore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are ‘pleasures forevermore.’ Ugh! … He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least—sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us.”
The demon’s grudging confession unveils the truth we so often miss: the dichotomy in Matteis’ painting is a false one. We do not worship a God of scarcity and scowling virtue, but a God of staggering abundance, a God of beauty, a God who delights in providing profound pleasures for His children.
Once you begin looking through that lens, the world transforms from battlefield to banquet.
And look at the table He’s set. Our Heavenly Father could have accomplished His purposes with a bare, utilitarian world—a monochrome landscape, functional and plain. Yet, He chose otherwise. He crafted a universe of staggering variety and breathtaking beauty. The dizzying sweetness of a ripe peach, the helpless, perfect grip of a baby’s hand, mountains, deserts, oceans, and waterfalls—these are not necessities. They are gifts of pure delight. He strings the sky with colors at dawn and dusk for the sheer joy of it. Every wildflower is a love note. Every sunset, a postcard from home.
It brings to mind the prophet’s cry, a vision of divine generosity: “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow…” (Isaiah 25:6). This is His nature. He is not a God of scarcity, but of stunning abundance.
Isn’t that the heart of it? The most profound pleasures are the ones that lie around us, free for the taking: the cool weight of a stone from a riverbed, the scent of pine on the air, the simple act of lying in the grass and tracing the slow drift of clouds. These are not distractions. They are divine invitations.
The demon goes on, his voice a grudging hiss of truth:
“Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on [God’s] ground… He made the pleasures. All [the devil] can do is encourage humans to take them at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden.”
Lewis returned to this theme again and again: that holiness isn’t opposed to pleasure, but woven through it. In Letters to Malcolm, he writes, “The real thing is the real thing: bread and wine, walks, work, sleep, a cup of tea, a book, a fire. If we can’t take delight in the simple things, we shan’t have the capacity for the greater ones.”
We sometimes fixate on the fences, forgetting the glorious field they enclose. God’s boundaries are not cages; they are the markings of a sacred haven, designed to keep our joy safe and whole.
And this is where the story turns, from generosity to grace. Every child stamps their foot and cries, “It’s not fair!” And in the economy of Heaven, they are right. It isn’t fair. It is so much better than fair. Through the Atonement of Christ, we do not get what is fair. We get what is merciful. We receive a bounty we could never earn.
I’m not here to lecture you on gratitude. You already know that a grateful heart fills your life with a joy that circumstance cannot touch. It is the key that unlocks the banquet hall.
So the invitation is simple and startling: “live in thanksgiving daily” (Alma 34:38). Those are the words on my mother’s gravestone. She died far too young, but in her honor, I try to live it not as an act of forced cheer, but as a way of tuning your heart to the music already playing all around you. Gratitude is the lens that pulls the world into focus, revealing the feast that was there all along.
My own prayers are changing. They are less about the list of things I lack and more about the eyes to see what has already been placed in my hands. Less about fixing what’s broken and more about noticing what still burns bright.
Because that’s the miracle: the banquet is already set. And the God who fills His world with pleasures—the God of peaches and pine forests and ocean tides—is inviting us, again and again, to taste and see.
There is a deep, holy longing at the heart of Christmas—a desire to feel closer to our Savior and to a world made right. But this sacred homesickness can so easily get lost in the bustle of the season. The shopping, wrapping, and decorating, as joyful as they can be, often crowd out our quiet worship of the tiny baby in the manger.
C.S. Lewis described this feeling of longing perfectly. He called it “the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell,” and wrote, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Mere Christianity
We yearn to not just feel that longing, but to lean into it. To make it the centerpiece of the season; a time to truly grow closer to our Savior.
For my family, one of the happiest answers has been the simple, ancient tradition of Advent.
Advent simply means ‘coming.’ It’s the four-week season of preparation and anticipation before Christmas—joyful, active waiting for Christ’s birth in the past and His promised return in the future. It’s not about fasting or somberness. It’s about expectancy. Hope. A countdown to the Light.
And the best news? There’s no “right” way. The goal is more connection, not more items on your to-do list. Advent’s simplicity makes it the perfect invitation for family, neighbors, and friends of other faiths to gather around a small flame and a shared longing for peace.
At our house, we gather at the kitchen table with scriptures and hymnbooks (phones are just fine). We light a candle, I give a short devotion on a weekly theme, and we read a scripture or two. I always ask if anyone has a thought to share.
That’s it.
Sometimes our little gathering lasts for 5 minutes. Sometimes, we indulge in discussion and songs, playing with wax and candles for well over an hour. It’s a tradition no one complains about, and my grown kids make an effort to come for as many Advent Sundays as they can. Each Advent takes on a life entirely its own.
Traditionally, Advent is celebrated on the four Sundays before Christmas with the weekly themes of hope, peace, joy, and love. All you need are four candles.
I’ve always used a simple four-candle holder, but this year, we’re switching to a five-candle wreath—the circle representing eternal love, the evergreen for life, the four weekly candles, and a white “Christ candle” in the center to light on Christmas Day. But you don’t need to buy a special wreath. You can use whatever you have on hand.
For C.S. Lewis, Advent would have been woven into his Anglican worship each Sunday—the hymns, the scriptures, the communal longing rising together. That formal, shared anticipation was a vital part of his spiritual life. Someday, I’d love to visit England at Christmastime and experience an Anglican Advent for myself. Let’s all go, shall we?
Still, there’s something beautifully intimate about celebrating Advent at home. We’re not just participants in a service; we’re creating one for the people we love. The kitchen table becomes sacred space. The experience can stretch to meet your family’s needs—whether that’s a deep talk about hope with teenagers or a two-minute scripture before a toddler dissolves into giggles and chaos. It’s home-centered worship at its finest.
(I’m including links to materials I’ve gathered from churchofjesuschrist.org; the definition of “Hope” is especially beautiful. You can find them here.)
Advent doesn’t stifle our longing—it sanctifies it. Each week, as we light another candle, we’re directing that “inconsolable longing” toward the One who can ultimately fulfill it: Jesus Christ.
In a way, we’re practicing for the Second Coming by celebrating the First.
And then we sing. We start with the carols from the hymnbook and usually drift into “O Holy Night,” with someone inevitably attempting a dramatic Celine-Dion note. The musicians show off—tiny pianists pound out “Jingle Bells,” violinists bring their best “Greensleeves,” and someone always gets the giggles. It’s chaotic and reverent and perfect.
We’re German/Danish, so we also light candle towers and watch them spin. There’s nothing like playing with fire to bring the kids to the table. And yes, there are always cookies.
This December, instead of feeling frustrated by the commercial noise, we can see it as a shadow of that deeper, God-given longing. Advent is our chance to answer that longing by turning, week by week, toward the Light of the World.
This year Advent begins on November 30th, but if you miss a week, you’re not too late. Make it a tradition that works for you rather than a tradition that requires work. Simply light a candle at dinner on Sunday (or Wednesday). Read a verse or two. Let your heart practice its longing for the Prince of Peace.
However you choose to observe it, may your December be filled with active, joyful, deeply meaningful anticipation of Jesus Christ.
My dear friend,
I’m so sorry. I see you trying to smile through all the candles and celebrations; I see you drifting toward the edges of the room so no one notices the ache behind your eyes. While everyone around you seems to have full hearts and full homes, your hope feels stretched thin. You are tired of waiting for God to fulfill His promises.
The ache of that gap is real. The world speaks of joy; your spirit feels absence. The scriptures proclaim “good tidings of great joy,” but your internal newsfeed is filled with loss and loneliness. I see how hard you’re trying. I know the trusting part of your soul believes things will get better, and I wish—oh, how I wish!—that healing would come for you now, not later.
Sometimes Christmas can feel like a celebration of the bounty others have: their babies, their homes, their glitter. But at its heart, Christmas is also the season of firm hope for blessings still on their way. It is the story of the already and the not-yet—the Savior already in the manger, and the promise of all He has not yet made whole.
And it’s OK if your hope feels fragile right now.
In moments like this, the world’s version of hope feels so thin—a wish tossed into the wind.
“I hope it snows.”
“I hope you get the job.”
But the hope offered by the gospel is made of sterner stuff. Hope in Christ is not a delicate wish; it is a force and a fire. It is that “perfect brightness of hope” (2 Nephi 31:20), the anchor (Ether 12:4) that holds fast when everything else feels adrift, and sturdy enough to lean your full weight upon. This is the prophet’s “firm hope,” the “lively hope” that “cometh of faith” and becomes “an anchor to the souls of men” (Ether 12:4).
I have that kind of hope for your future.
Sometimes, it feels impossible to understand God’s plans, God’s timing. I know He loves you; I know He has a perfect plan for you. And yet, I don’t know why you are going through this pain right now. I don’t see any flaw in you that requires refining. I don’t see some missing virtue you need to learn. I don’t believe God is punishing you or putting you through remedial holiness. I think you’re already astonishingly patient, humble, and good.
I’m amazed by how you keep taking the next right step. And on the days when the best you can do is curl under the covers and cry? That counts too. That’s faithfulness in its own quiet form.
I’m reminded of Elder Holland’s plea to those on the steep, difficult path: “Don’t you quit. Don’t you dare. The very ground you stand on is hallowed.” The ground you’re standing on, this hard, waiting, aching ground, is hallowed because you are standing upon it in faith. You are holding good ground. Please, don’t surrender it.
Lewis reasoned, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.” That longing in your heart is not an accident. It is a divine homing signal. It resonates with the great truth that “men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25). Your deepest aches are not random; they are echoes of that foundational purpose.
Don’t surrender your hope. True hope is not fragile, and it doesn’t depend on how strong you feel. “Hope is the confident expectation of and longing for the promised blessings of righteousness.”
When I was in a season of aching, a dear friend taught me to PRAY BIG—to pray not just to survive but to actually thrive, to walk forward with confidence toward the future God was preparing.
Our hope is sure because its object is sure. Our trust rests not on circumstances shifting but on the finished work and enduring character of Jesus Christ.
That kind of hope doesn’t erase the ache; it hallows it. It sits with you in the quiet dark and whispers the truest thing: This is real, and it is terrible, and it is not the end.
You don’t have to manufacture cheer. You don’t need to show up to everything. Be gentle with yourself. Do what you can, rest when you need to, and know you are deeply loved, always wanted, and eternally held.
Your hope—even if it feels small, trembling, or exhausted—is honored by God. This season, may you feel the sure, steady pull of that anchor, drawing you toward a dawn where every tear is wiped away and every longing fulfilled in Him.
With love, prayers, and an unshakable hope for your brighter future,
Michelle
A final thought from Lewis:
“Courage, dear heart.”
—The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Take courage. The dawn is sure.
My five little grandsons might be the most loved little humans on the planet. They have loving parents (far wiser than I was), two sets of adoring grandparents, and a dozen enthusiastic aunts and uncles—all within a few miles of home. They are smothered in hugs, cheered for their smallest triumphs, comforted in their sorrows, and looked on with utter delight. By any earthly measure, they receive an abundance.
And yet, it is not enough. Yesterday, one tiny boy sobbed in real anguish because he thought we’d started Candyland without him. The three-year-olds regularly fight over the coveted space on my lap, the yellow plate, and a turn on the swing. Even the well-loved child fears being overlooked, forgotten, or left behind. His cup, though frequently filled, is not permanently full.
I know the shape of that lack from the other side. As a child, I had no grandparents, no aunts or uncles who chose to be part of my life. I peeked over the fence at my friends with their extended families with a quiet, aching envy. I believed, with all my heart, that if I just had family—the holiday traditions, the Sunday dinners, the network of adult support—the emptiness would heal.
As an adult, I discovered the truth: loving, supportive families are far rarer than I once imagined. Most people carry their own fractures, their own absences, their own complicated stories. But even understanding that, even naming it, didn’t erase the ache. Some part of me still felt forgotten. Still felt unloved. Longing doesn’t vanish simply because you can finally explain it.
But I was wrong about the cure.
Human love, as essential and glorious as it is, wasn’t enough to mend the deeper wound. I was, in the end, rescued by the love of God. It felt like a missing foundation sliding into place, like a lifelong homesickness suddenly meeting its home. My Savior freely gave the love my soul had been starving for.
And the more I’ve lived with that truth—the truth that only God’s love reaches the center of us—the more I’ve begun to see it everywhere. This need for love reveals the core of the human condition. From the toddler’s tantrum to the teenager’s sulk to the adult’s resentment or loneliness, so much of what we call “bad behavior” springs from a single source: the feeling of not being fully, securely, perfectly loved. We are all, in a sense, love-hungry creatures.
This hunger, I believe, is the most acute echo of heaven within us—the feeling of the home we miss most.
And this changes how we see everyone. Once you understand this, you start to see the world through softer eyes. You realize that at least half the people you meet are quietly nursing some kind of heartbreak—a loss, a worry, a private grief. And the other half? They may not be brokenhearted today, but they still carry that inherent human lack; they still need love to keep their cup from running dry. We all do.
Our friend C.S. Lewis helps us understand this holy longing. He identified the source of our lack not as an absence of human affection, but as a design feature:
“God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why God Himself often seems to be the missing piece in the human puzzle.” Mere Christianity
Our insatiable need for love is the signal of that missing piece. The best human loves—affection, friendship, romance—are glorious, but they are not the thing itself. They are the scent of a meadow we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard. They point us onward.
We see this truth written in the stories of desperate rescue. The foundational rock of programs like Alcoholics Anonymous is the realization that a devastating personal lack can only be filled by surrendering to a love greater than oneself. My brother learned this after decades battling alcoholism. When he finally surrendered to the love of God, it saved his life. He found that only divine love could fill the hole in his heart, the ache in his soul.
So where do our human, imperfect loves fit in? Lewis gives us the connection:
“God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them… He invented all loves, and… our loves for each other are to be modes of, and approximations to, that Divine love.” The Four Loves
At Christmas, we celebrate the simple, staggering fact: the Almighty God and Savior came into the world he created as a helpless baby. He arrived in our deepest lack to fill it. Jesus Christ is the satisfaction for the hunger in our hearts. He is the wellspring. All love flows from Him.
And that gift carries its own quiet logic. If He is the source, then we are to be the streams.
This is where Dickens’s ghost, Jacob Marley, gives that charge its name:
“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing his hands. “Mankind was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” A Christmas Carol
At our core, the business of our life is love. It is our sacred charge, sourced from that divine fountain, to attend to the universal lack—to see the heartbreak and the need in the faces around us, and to respond.
This Christmas, as we feel the pang of love’s lack—in our own hearts or in the hurried, harsh words of a stranger—we can recognize it for what it is: a homesickness for Christ. And we can act on Marley’s lament. Our covenant path is a curriculum in charity, where we learn to carry that love into the world’s lonely places.
We so often scrabble for crumbs of love. But God, in His grace, has spread a table—a feast of divine abundance.
And here is the quiet miracle of this business: we most often feel the love of God not as a passive comfort, but in the active moment of extending love to another.
This is the beauty of fellowship I witnessed in my brother’s recovery. The divine love he received vertically had to be lived out horizontally. In the phone call to a friend, the shared story in a circle of chairs, the simple act of showing up for someone else who was struggling—God’s love became tangible, daily, and redemptive. The one serving and the one being served were both fed from the same source. (AA has been called “more church than church” and I’d love to visit and find out.)
During this season, as we extend a smile, a listening ear, patient forgiveness, or a plate of toffee, we don’t just give love—we meet it. We become, however imperfectly, living answers to the world’s deep hunger, and in that very act, our own hunger is fed.
This is how we taste, here and now, the great banquet of God’s love, whose fullness is yet to come.
May we, this season, attend to our sacred business.
Do you remember, as a child, begging God for something and promising, “If you can do this for me, I promise I’ll never ask for anything again”?
I’ve outgrown that promise.
I know now that I will forever and always be asking my Heavenly Father for more. There are too many people I love. Too many needs pressing in around me. I keep a little red notebook filled with the names of people I pray for. Those prayers feel as essential as any physical work I might do: raking a lawn, delivering groceries, showing up. For so many, prayer is all I can offer.
And I am a mother.
Which means I will always be praying fervently for my children.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” We bring Him the notebook. The helpless love. The whispered “but please.” That is what belongs in prayer. We lay before Him our fears, our hopes, our aching need.
And today, I am sitting squarely in the middle of an answered prayer.
I am overwhelmed with gratitude.
To the world, I am nearly invisible. And yet the Almighty God, the Creator of universes, has answered my prayer.
It was that kind of prayer. Not just the morning-and-evening kind, but the one breathed a dozen—sometimes a hundred—times a day. The prayer that faithfully concludes, “Thy will be done,” and then, almost involuntarily, adds in a whisper, “…but please.”
My son has been away at medical school. And for very good reasons (you can read between the lines: he hopes for marriage and babies), he wants to return home for residency. While invitations from many excellent programs poured in, the one program near home remained silent.
My son did everything he could within the system.
And I felt the familiar ache of human helplessness.
I longed for leverage I did not have. For friends in high places. For important relatives. For the right connections.
I have none of those things.
But I do have a loving Father in Heaven.
Around that time, I read Luke 3:8: “God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” The image shook me. God can create life from literal, cold stone.
From nothing.
From impossibility.
That day, my prayer became specific: “Heavenly Father, please show Thy hand. Please create a miracle out of stones.”
I kept asking. I kept surrendering.
I knew it was too late for an interview. And still, I asked God to make a miracle from stones.
A month after the final invitations had been sent, God showed His hand—in the form of an email.
An interview invitation.
We are still in the middle of this story. He has an interview; he has a chance (and of course I think they’d be crazy not to take him). Yet, he could still end up far from home.
Lewis reminds us that “Prayer is request. The essence of request… is that it may or may not be granted.”
This interview is just a line in my son’s story, but it is a personal message from the Author: “I see you. I am orchestrating your path. You are in My hands.” And it is a chapter in my story of learning to trust.
The final page of this residency match is not ours to read yet. But we have been given a profound witness that the Author is at work, capable of creating miracles from the stones of our impossible situations.
A tender mercy, whispered to my son: “I am watching over you. Wherever you go, you are in My hands. I have good plans for you.”
As Lewis said, “He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created.” Mere Christianity
I am not celebrating a finished outcome. I am celebrating a divine fingerprint in the process. I am celebrating the relationship that prayer sustains—a living dialogue with a God who can, and does, intervene.
I am still small. I am still without leverage or influence. I am still a mother who has learned to pray over scars, who loves fiercely and waits helplessly. But I am not alone. The God who spins galaxies stoops to read the scribbles in my little red notebook. He hears the whispered “but please.” And in ways both dramatic and ordinary, He is always answering, inviting us to notice.
As the year comes to a close, it is easy to fix our attention on the prayers that still feel unanswered.
But today, let’s do the opposite.
In the comments, I invite you to lay before us “what is in you,” as Lewis said—just a sentence or two:
What is one plea of your heart that was answered this year?
Where did you see God’s hand in your life? In the life of those you love?
None of us are truly surprised. And that may be the hardest part.
We’ve known for some time that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was on borrowed time, that he was ready to go home, to rest at the feet of the Savior and reunite with his beloved Pat.
Still, selfishly, we wanted him to stay.
When Elder Holland took to the pulpit, we listened. In your house, as in mine, someone would call out, “It’s Elder Holland,” and conversation ceased. The person filling the dishwasher paused their noisy task. Even toddlers looked up at the screen. We listened because he spoke to us as a friend.
He was the friend who told jokes, who the gospel seriously, but never took himself seriously. The friend who shared stories about his family, spoke of the Savior with piercing intimacy, and, when we needed it, delivered hard truths with a love that made them impossible to ignore. We all have our Elder Holland story, the one that held us together when we were fraying.
For my sons, it’s the story of his broken-down car, his words ringing in their hearts: “Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it… Trust God and believe in good things to come.”
The essence of every talk he gave was this: Don’t cast away your confidence. Don’t give up your confidence in God, in yourself, or in your faith in good things to come. His legendary 1999 BYU talk, “Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence,” stayed at the top of the university’s most-accessed speeches for decades, a lifeline passed between friends in moments of fear. It’s no surprise that half of the top twelve most-read BYU speeches are his.
He treated us like we were smart, weaving together Dante, Thoreau, Shakespeare, and a half-dozen scriptures in the space of five minutes. Yet he remained profoundly personal. Is there anyone in the Church who doesn’t know his wife’s name was Pat? For me, that alone, mentioning your spouse so often we feel we know her, became a quiet hallmark of a leader who truly revered women.
In my freshman year at BYU in 1988, President Holland was my assigned Book of Mormon 101 instructor. Though the class was often taught by his incredible vice president, Maren Mouritsen, the very choice to be listed as a teacher for freshmen revealed his character. He cared about each person as an individual and wanted us to thrive. In April of that school year, he was called to the Seventy. No one was surprised.
As you surely know, Elder Holland quoted C.S. Lewis often and in great depth. Holland visited Lewis’ Oxford home, The Kilns, and sat in the chapels in Oxford where Lewis worshipped.
Holland also quoted many other Christian and Jewish thinkers. In fact, he could be credited with opening our somewhat insular community to the wisdom and counsel of others who worship the Almighty God. He helped us see that other religions did not threaten our faith, but helped us to build upon it.
Last year, I studied under Dr. Andrew Teal of Oxford, who counts “Jeff” as one of his closest friends. Dr. Teal often spoke of Elder Holland’s sorrow when his words were twisted or misunderstood. Even from outside our faith, Dr. Teal could see what we felt inside it: that this man was not just an apostle, but a personal friend to millions.
So how do we live without his voice?
We tell his stories. We hold fast to the joy of the gospel. We embrace our friends of other faiths with his same generous spirit. And above all, we hold on.
When the storms rage, we will not cast away our confidence. We will trust the God of “good things to come,” taught to us by a disciple who was, and forever will feel like, our friend.
In The Great Divorce, one of the most striking truths is revealed when a soul asks if there will be interesting people to meet in Heaven.
“Everyone will be interesting.” his Angelic host responds.
“Do you mean there are no famous men?”
“They are all famous. They are all known, remembered, recognised by the only Mind that can give a perfect judgement.”
This is an idea that rings true to those who study the scriptures and listen to the prophets. All are known by God, all are recognized, loved, and celebrated. God is no respecter of persons. Each of us will be startled by the beauty and majesty of our fellow beings in heaven.
Our souls recognize this truth. We can each tell stories of people in our lives who are completely unknown to the world, but glow with heavenly light. We suspect many of the greats in heaven will be people who could not walk or speak in our mortal realm; we know heavenly glory is not tied to earthly fame.
This vision is breathtaking. But it also casts a revealing light on a peculiar sickness of our age—and, if we’re honest, a persistent temptation in our own culture.
We live in the Age of the Influencer, a world fixated on being seen. Brands are polished, viral moments pursued, and worth tallied in followers and likes. This hunger spills even into sacred spaces: the subtle hierarchy of “important” callings, the quiet resume-building in service, the pressure to present a perfect family story. Recognition is sought everywhere; the longing to be known permeates all corners of life.
Yet this earthly version of “being known” is a brittle, lonely counterfeit of the heavenly reality Lewis describes. And it is a spiritual blight.
President Gordon B. Hinckley expressed this with clarity: “Adulation is poison.” This poison, the desire to drink from the cup of praise meant for God alone, can infect anyone. It can turn service into a performance, activities into photo ops, and personal righteousness into a bid for popularity. Seeking not just to build the kingdom, but to build a platform within it.
C.S. Lewis understood this danger personally. At the height of his fame, he wrote:
“The affection of some people for me is, I think, one of the most disquieting things I have ever experienced. It is a continual reminder… of the danger we are all in of loving the creature instead of the Creator, of making idols.”
For Lewis, public affection wasn’t a reward; it was a spiritual hazard.
In some ways, Latter-day Saints are insulated from worshipping position because there is no career path to church leadership. Yet, we can sometimes equate leadership with righteousness. We’ve all heard numerous talks where the speaker describes a righteous member who faithfully navigates a serious trial, and then ends with, “and now he’s serving as a bishop.” There’s no malice, just an unconscious belief that worthiness leads to visible authority.
This creates a subtle hierarchy. We can start to measure spiritual worth by visible calling, and desire callings not solely as opportunities to serve, but as validations of our worth. The temptation shifts from “How can I feed these sheep?” to “What does this calling say about me?”
This preference for the visible over the essential frustrated even a prophet. President Gordon B. Hinckley lamented to his family the imbalance he saw: “Everyone is willing to take the big callings, to serve in foreign fields. But I need men who are willing to do their home teaching. I can’t do that for them!”
He tirelessly taught that “the major work of the world is done by ordinary people who have learned to work in an extraordinary way.” The heart of the kingdom beats not in the spotlight of a prestigious assignment, but in the quiet, faithful rhythm of showing up where only a few will see.
We see this truth lived out in history and in scripture. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland paid moving tribute to Joseph, step-father to Jesus:
“We could remember His magnificent but virtually unknown foster father, a humble carpenter… who taught us that quiet, plain, unpretentious people have moved this majestic work forward from the very beginning, and still do so today.”
Joseph, the carpenter. Known to God. Known to his family. A name in scripture, yet anonymous to the currents of history. His “greatness” was in his faithful obscurity. He is the patron saint of all who serve in unseen callings.
This is the sanctity of the anonymous; the holy work that has no earthly byline. It is the Primary teacher whose name a child will forget but whose love they will remember. It is the person who cleans the chapel alone on a Saturday morning. It is my lovely immigrant father-in-law who has never served in a bishopric or high council but often ministers to forty families. He’s also an extraordinary scriptorian, and the go-to person in the temple for language needs. Fluent in English, Russian, Finnish, and German, he’s also happy to help with Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Mongolian? Sure, he’ll give it a go.
His reward is the profound intimacy of collaborating directly with heaven. This vital, unglamorous work of the kingdom is the Church’s lifeblood.
I think of my own life, too. I tend to stay in the background, and most of my work goes unnoticed. Yet I have felt God affirm my prayers in ways no applause ever could. And in that noticing, I find a strange and tender fame: the knowledge that my labor, however unseen, matters in the eyes of Heaven.
This brings us back to Lewis, and to the healing of our misguided hunger. Near the end of The Great Divorce, he describes a glorious woman, filled with light, at the center of a joyous procession:
‘Is it?…is it?’ I whispered to my guide.
‘Not at all,’ said he. ‘It’s someone ye’ll never have heard of. Her name on Earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.’
‘She seems to be…well, a person of particular importance?’
‘Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.’
She is glorious because her love was perfected, turned outward. In life, she became a “mother” to all who needed one. Now, in heaven, she is known. Her procession isn’t a fan club; it is a family she created through Christlike love. Her light adds beauty to everyone around her.
This is what “all are known” truly means. It is the antithesis of worldly influence. Our light is meant to illuminate others, not blind them.
And the remarkable truth is that every one of us is gifted to contribute in ways no one else can. Each of us has God-given talents, and with those gifts comes a heartfelt desire to bless His kingdom. Yet, in our world, it’s easy to stumble into confusion. The voices around us tell us that contributions must be loud, showy, or widely admired to matter. Without applause or popularity, was it even worthwhile?
God sees differently. He looks upon the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). He measures devotion, sincerity, and the love poured into quiet acts of service. The lesson of Joseph the carpenter and Sarah Smith of Golders Green is that the economy of heaven operates on a different currency.
The love you pour into your family, the patience you offer in a tedious calling, the kindness you show to the one who cannot repay you—these acts are treasured by God. They are not small. They are the substance from which heavenly processions are made.
One day, when we see Him face to face, we will understand that nothing offered in love is ever lost.
The longing to be seen, is a longing to be known by our Creator. And it is offered freely to all who seek not their own glory, but to pour their lives into His.
When my gym revamped its annual fitness challenge, I didn’t expect a spiritual lesson to follow me home.
For years, the eight-week competition rewarded fat loss. Then, a few years ago, they added a muscle-gain option, and I hopped on the muscle train.
If you’d asked me, I would have said I was already strength training. I’ve lifted weights since college. I carried six toddlers on my hip. I even taught strength classes at the old Deseret Gym in the 1990s. But if I’m honest, I never fully committed. I stuck with lighter dumbbells and prioritized cardio. I loved the endorphin rush of a long run, the sweaty ponytail, the comforting illusion of burning a neat hundred calories per mile.
Still, as a woman living in the 2020s, it’s hard to ignore the research urging us to build muscle and eat more protein if we want to age well. So when the gym announced the new challenge, I went all in. I focused on weightlifting, drank absurd amounts of protein shakes, ate heroic quantities of cottage cheese, and finally reached for the 50-, 75-, and even 90-pound dumbbells (I just received a 100-lb dumbbell for Christmas!).
And it worked. In eight weeks, I gained two pounds of hard-earned muscle. I didn’t win any category, but it felt like a personal victory. My body doesn’t build muscle easily, and this time I saw real change. Not because I worked longer, but because I worked intentionally.
The benefits showed up in ordinary ways: lifting heavy boxes onto shelves, carrying my grandsons two at a time up the stairs, hiking Mount Olympus without soreness. It made me wonder what might happen if I spent the next forty weeks trading ten pounds of fat for muscle.
And then the question widened.
Where else was I just going through the motions? Where was I offering half-hearted effort and calling it good enough?
I took a hard look at my spiritual life. Too often, I rushed prayers or skimmed scriptures while my mind ran ahead to my to-do list. I realized I had been doing spiritual cardio, seeking the good feeling, the checked box, while avoiding the slower, heavier work that builds enduring soul-strength.
What if I slowed down? What if I prayed with more presence, studied with more curiosity, and served with more love? What if I extended more grace, felt more peace, and noticed blessings more fully?
This shift from maintenance to transformation is what C.S. Lewis saw as the heart of a genuine spiritual life. He understood how easily faith can thin, not because we reject it, but because we fail to tend it. “A great many of these losses of faith,” he writes in Mere Christianity, “are beliefs [that] have just been given up because they were not kept alive by prayer, by scripture reading, by worship, and by continual, intentional acts of devotion.”
My gym challenge was about moving from spiritual cardio, to the heavy, intentional work that builds lasting strength. Lewis’s point is that faith, like muscle, won’t remain alive in the mind or heart automatically. It must be fed.
Faith requires the protein of scripture, the repetitions of prayer, and the consistent resistance training of acting on what we believe (especially the constant task of loving our neighbor). God’s aim is not simply to polish our existing habits, but to rebuild us with heavenly strength: the kind that bears burdens, climbs spiritual mountains, and carries others.
The beautiful difference with spiritual work is that God is not merely cheering us on from the sidelines. He is the master builder, working alongside us. He supplies far more than expectations and instructions; He supplies strength, patience, and grace. Spiritual growth is not sustained by grit alone.
Lewis understood this deeply. In Letters to Malcolm, he wrote, “We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” God does not wait for us to become strong before He helps us grow. He meets us honestly, and then He builds.
Spiritual effort is real, but it is never solitary. God does not demand strength and then withhold nourishment. He delights in rewarding our small acts of faith with light, rest, and the quiet reassurance that we are known and loved.
The Christian life is not an unbroken diet of cottage cheese and discipline. It is sustained by grace. A few pushups will not transform a body, but a single moment of real prayer, a single verse truly heard, can begin to transform a soul. Not because of our effort alone, but because God meets us there.
Spiritual muscle is harder to measure than physical gains. Its growth is mostly hidden, working below the surface. But over time, it changes how we respond: meeting disappointment with more grace, loving others more genuinely, and trusting God with what comes next. Like any strength, it diminishes when we settle for what is easy, yet it flourishes when effort is paired with trust.
As Lewis noted, “The only way to get faith is to obey.” You wouldn’t expect knowledge of French without study, or calculus without headaches. In the same way, we can’t expect resilient faith without the repetitions of presence, curiosity, and love.
So I’m practicing; I’m making mistakes and choosing to show up anyway. I’m learning to notice God’s hand more readily, to live with greater access to His peace, and to loosen my grip on the future.
I trust that He who began this work in me is faithful to continue it—not from my perfect effort, but from His perfect grace. He is building, strengthening, and shaping my soul one quiet step at a time.
Why this letter exists: If temple worship feels exhausting, confusing, inconvenient, or emotionally loaded—this letter is for you. What follows is not a rebuke. It’s a set of exposed tactics. Not for the effortlessly faithful. Not for the serene and scheduled (how do they do it?). This is for the ones who want to love the temple but mostly feel tired, awkward, distracted, or behind. What follows is written in the style of C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, because sometimes the clearest way to see truth is to expose the lies working against us.
From the desk of: Madame Mirthbane, Arch-Deceiver of Sacred Spaces
To: Junior Tempter Snivelscratch, Still Learning How to Unhallow a Holy Habit
My pathetically naive Snivelscratch,
Your latest report is a litany of failure. She is going to the temple, despite every inconvenience.
Do you have any conception of the danger? You seem to think this is merely another item on her spiritual checklist, a box to be ticked or, with luck, skipped. You are like a soldier who mistakes a fortress for a cottage. You fail to see that the temple is the Enemy’s stronghold on our territory, and every soul who crosses its threshold is a catastrophic breach of our defenses.
If you had paid attention in your History of Temptations classes (instead of daydreaming about the good old days when we could simply possess pigs), you would know this: wherever those glowing structures rise on the earth, God calls His children by name.
The temple is not merely a building; it is a place of gathering, where scattered souls are remembered, reclaimed, and bound to Him with promises He intends to keep. He loves them all, every last one, with a love we cannot comprehend and cannot counterfeit.
Inside those walls, they are not merely learning—they are remembering, and becoming.
They bind themselves to God with covenants that burn with a power we cannot touch. And He responds by pouring out blessings they have not earned and could never deserve. He wraps them in a love that binds wounds and dries every tear.
Worst of all, the place reeks of heaven. She walks through that door, and something deep in her heart stirs. She may not understand the rituals, but her spirit does, and it hums with recognition. The veil does not merely thin, it shimmers. Light from that other world pools in the corners, and she begins to feel it: belonging, holiness… home.
This is a disaster.
Now, you may think that flat tires and forgotten shoes are beneath a true tempter. This is the sort of grandiose thinking that leaves a demon assigned to eternal data-entry in the sub-sub-basement of.
The most elegant lies are built upon a foundation of mundane misery. Do not dismiss these reliable tools. The art of turning worship into work, covenants into confusion, and blessings into inconveniences are the basic training every demon must master. When the grand fears fail, the petty annoyances often succeed.
First, and this is your most basic tactic: Make it all about work.
Another task.
Another “should.”
Another reason to feel guilty.
“Temple work,” never “temple blessings.”
Better yet, encourage her to say, “I have to go to the temple,” instead of “I get to.” Turn every sacred opportunity into obligation.
She should feel constant guilt about not coming enough, not finding family names, and not feeling spiritual enough even when she does show up. If she nods off, let her wake in shame. Make her believe that snoozing during the holiest minutes of her week is a spiritual crime, rather than God’s sneaky way of finally getting her to rest.
Let her obsess over finding the right shoes, but most importantly never, ever, let her simply sit back and listen to the glorious blessings poured over her head.
Never let her bathe in His love. Never let her sit in that chair and understand she is both a cherished child and an anointed queen, or recognize how little she promises for how much God gives.
Next, keep it uncomfortable.
Make her feel like an outsider in her own worship.
Overwhelm her with language she doesn’t understand.
Magnify every awkward silence.
Let her feel conspicuously confused.
Do NOT let her realize that confusion is often the prelude to revelation.
And whatever you do, don’t let her talk to anyone about it. Isolation is your ally. Make her feel like everyone else “gets it” and she never will.
Then, make it inconvenient.
I want you to throw the full logistical arsenal at her.
Sick children. Missing recommends. Broken zippers. Rainstorms. Appointment slots that never quite work. Give her detours with pointless turns and stoplights timed by imps who consider traffic delays a sacred art.
Do NOT let it be restful.
Convince her that going to the temple is good, but only when life is tidy, calm, and perfectly scheduled. (Which it never is.)
Most importantly, persuade her she must feel worthy before she goes, instead of realizing the temple is where she remembers she has already chosen Christ.
Now, listen carefully, for this is among our most effective stratagems. If the mundane tactics of drudgery and strangeness fail, you must attack her through the most tender and tangled part of her mortal heart: her family.
Whisper to her of the sealing ordinance not as a promise of eternal joy, but as a celestial chain. Let her gaze upon her difficult father, her wayward child, the relative who wounded her soul, and feel a cold dread at the thought of being bound, or separated from them, forever. Feed that anxiety until she becomes so spiritually paralyzed that she avoids the temple altogether.
This is a two‑pronged assault, elegant in its cruelty.
Make her fear being shackled to the ones who have hurt her.
Make her fear being separated from the ones she loves.
Let her lie awake at night picturing her prodigal child, forever on the wrong side of the veil, lost in outer darkness. And here is the supreme irony you must never let her grasp: the very power to save that child flows most freely from the temple. Her covenants in that holy house are cords of light, capable of pulling a soul back from the brink. Yet we can convince her that her child’s fate is already sealed, rendering her own efforts futile. What delicious despair.
You and I know the astounding truth God proclaims: no blessing in His kingdom is founded on coercion. His love is a refining fire—burning away injustice without consuming the soul. In heaven, no one will be forced into the arms of a tormentor. No parent’s faithful heart will be severed from a child whose story is not yet fully written.
This is a truth we must bury at all costs.
Let her exhaust herself tracing the snarled threads of human relationships. Let her assume it is all hers to untangle; that the eternal fate of her family depends on her vigilance, her perfection, her refusal to ever falter. Do not let her rest in the unbearable relief of the central truth: that the Author of salvation is fundamentally, infuriatingly, good. That His judgments are neither hurried nor cruel. That His love for her is personal, fierce, and exact. And that His capacity to heal and save is infinitely more imaginative than her finite fears can conceive.
If she ever truly believes that, her fear will give way to trust.
And a soul that trusts God rests beyond our reach.
And if, despite everything, she still comes?
Replace revelation with repetition.
Let her count attendance but miss inheritance. Let her memorize words without hearing promises. Let her admire diligence without recognizing royalty.
Most of all, make her forget it is a refuge.
Convince her she is merely doing her duty—not entering the one place on earth where her covenants are spoken back to her in heaven’s voice, where angels hover, where ancestors weep.
Because if she ever walks in burdened and walks out feeling like Heaven itself laid hands on her head…
You’re finished.
I will personally reassign you to the Department of Eternal Paperwork, where your only joy will be filing reports written by beings far more competent than you.
So keep her tired.
Keep her confused.
Keep her checking boxes instead of seeking blessings.
Keep it hollow.
Keep it heavy.
Keep her from coming home.
In loathsome reverence,
Madame Mirthbane
P.S. Guard this letter. The angels are thieves. They once stole an entire drawer of my correspondence and returned it annotated.
Come to the house of the Lord. You are mine. You are welcome. You are loved.
“For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.” —Isaiah 54:10
I recently joined the BYU C.S. Lewis Society email list (my son Ben would like you to know he’s a past president), and their January reading is a short, quirky essay by Lewis called “Talking About Bicycles.” It’s not his most famous, but the themes will be familiar to anyone who loves Lewis: fleeting joy, lasting goodness, and the way heaven sometimes brushes up against ordinary life.
In the essay, Lewis describes a friend’s relationship with bicycles over a lifetime. As a child, a bicycle meant nothing. Later, learning to ride felt like entering paradise—freedom, speed, joy. Then it became work: commuting in bad weather, locking it up, repairing it. And later, riding again brought back a quiet joy. Cycling “really is a remarkably pleasant motion.”
Lewis’ friend suggests marriage follows a similar pattern. We begin with a lack of awareness, and then, the delirious happiness of falling in love: that necessary, luminous brightness without which no one would step into the vulnerability of a lifelong commitment. That beginning joy is a gift, a mercy, a kind of divine bribery to step onto a road we could not yet see clearly.
In time, that initial brightness necessarily gives way to the substance of a shared life: routine, responsibility, disappointment, fatigue. Then, beautifully, if a marriage endures, there comes a final stage where joy returns, quieter but truer, shaped by everything that has come before and capable of bearing real weight. The early joy was not a lie; it was a beginning.
“I was never married”, Lewis reminds his friend (this essay was written before he married later in life). The analogy is lovely, but it is also incomplete.
Because here is the part I want to underline in red:
The quiet joy, the rediscovered goodness, does not arrive simply because time passes. It appears only when two people choose, again and again, to do the hard work of life together: to treat each other with kindness, to apologize, to forgive, to have vulnerable conversations, and to realize that very little is worth fighting about.
And it’s worth saying plainly: it is something close to miraculous, and more than a little lucky, to find another imperfect human being willing to do the work of life with you. And even then, what we receive back is far more than our effort alone could produce.
Some marriages do not reach that later joy. Some end in heartbreak despite years of sincere effort. Others never begin—not for lack of desire, faith, or goodness—but because longing itself can be one of the deepest, most enduring trials of mortal life.
If this is your story, nothing here is meant as judgment or exclusion. Scripture is filled with righteous people whose holiest desires remained unfulfilled in mortality. The ache itself testifies to the goodness of what is desired.
Which is why it matters to say this clearly, and without illusion:
Decades of marriage can yield glimpses of heaven, or produce bitterness, abuse, or polite emptiness. Marriage is fragile precisely because it asks so much of two imperfect people.
Gentleness and respect are the hallmarks of a good marriage.
Marriage and children are a tremendous amount of work, not Instagram work, not “date night fixes everything” work, but the kind that exposes your worst habits and demands your best self.
Covenant does not replace character.
Sealing does not eliminate selfishness.
Time does not heal contempt.
You can keep a marriage alive for decades without tenderness. But you cannot reach that fourth stage without it. Even so, God meets us in unfinished work, magnifying sincere effort and healing places we cannot reach on our own.
So much of marriage is realizing, Oh—maybe I’m wrong.
Years ago, I truly believed I did most of the work around the house, until my husband had shoulder surgery. He could not open cupboards, mow the lawn, or even change a load of laundry. As the house grew messier and the yard reverted to weeds, I realized how much work he had been doing quietly, without asking for credit or applause.
I was humbled, and deeply ashamed, by how often I had complained that he didn’t do more. When I stopped complaining and started complimenting, he somehow got even better.
Marriage doesn’t slowly make you happier. It slowly reveals where you are unkind. Where you interrupt. Where you keep score. Where you protect your pride instead of your relationship. Love that lasts is built not on grand gestures, but on humility, repair, and restraint.
Modern myth:
We’re soulmates, therefore marriage is easy.
Reality:
We chose to do the work, therefore we became soulmates.
That is not less romantic. It is more romantic—because it honors agency, effort, and growth.
You may begin as a good fit, carried by early happiness. But it is sacrifice and shared labor that turn you into soulmates. Slowly. Painfully. With a thousand small acts of love that no one applauds
Happiness in marriage is fragile. It can be damaged by neglect, indifference, or selfishness. It does not survive contempt.
Marriage is like putting two rough stones into a rock tumbler. If both partners are willing to absorb friction—showing kindness, patience, repentance, and care—over time, they polish one another into something beautiful. But if one partner refuses that work, insists on hardness, or withholds love, the result is not two gemstones. It is one stone grinding the other to dust.
That fragility matters. Covenants invite holiness, but they do not bypass daily choices. They do, however, invite God’s grace into the work, offering help and renewal where our own strength runs thin. Families flourish only where humility is continually chosen.
This fragile, polishing work doesn’t stop at the couple’s edge; it extends into the life of the family they create. Marriage is the engine of a family, and family happiness is just as fragile, perhaps more so.
A flourishing family requires countless sacrifices, large and small. Many of those sacrifices feel inadequate in the moment, but grace gathers them up, weaving meaning from efforts that feel too small to matter.
Most of them are quiet. Many go unnoticed. And speaking honestly about sacrifice is deeply unpopular in a culture that prefers the language of self-fulfillment.
These sacrifices are rarely symmetrical and never static. Over decades, spouses take turns loosening their grip on things they love for the sake of something they love more. This is the delicate dance of family life, and it deserves far more candor than it usually receives.
I’ll return to Lewis’s thoughts on sacrifice, and my own, in a second post, because this is where the real work of marriage and family life quietly lives
In our cultural moment, there is growing suspicion, even hostility, toward marriage and children. Some of this comes from real wounds: broken homes, unequal labor, unacknowledged sacrifice. I understand the instinct to protect oneself from disappointment.
And still, I want to say this plainly: marriage and children, when entered with love and responsibility, offer some of the most vibrant glimpses of heaven we are given in this life.
Not constant bliss. Not ease. But meaning. Belonging. Shared purpose. Moments, brief and luminous, when love feels larger than the cost.
For me, those glimpses of heaven often come during family dinners, as I watch my adult children, who after years of being taught to get along (always a work in progress), have become each other’s best friends, their happy conversations punctuated by the laughter of my little grandsons playing at our feet.
These moments are fragile, but they are real. They are not illusions. They are foretastes, like Lewis’s bicycle ride through the woods, moments when heaven hovers close enough to touch.
Marriage does not guarantee happiness. Children do not either. But they ask something of us that stretches our souls toward heaven. And sometimes, in that fragile, faithfully tended joy, we catch a glimpse of what we were made for.
