The Parable of the Bees--Part 2

It’s time to talk about bees again. It’s a perfectly normal and reasonable testimony topic. I can hardly remember a monthly fast Sunday meeting where bees weren’t brought up at least twice. So, when it comes right down to it, I am forced to admit that Nate has a point when he tells me not to talk about things because I sound “nuts.” 

I guess the first time he said that to me was in reference to the dream I had that led us to Rexburg in the first place. But Nathan applied for the job in Rexburg and received no response. It was because I had received a strong spiritual impression that I jumped through hoops to get him that job. And, if we’re being completely honest, even though Nate thinks I’m a little crazy when I talk about the miracles in my life, he has never declined to follow my spiritual impressions. When I told him that God wanted us in Lincoln, he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?” and accepted the job that same hour. I think we both get credit for that. You see, I have come to a very clear conclusion about acting on perceived spiritual impressions.

You get credit for trying.

So, if you wake up tomorrow with the absolute certainty in your heart that God wants you to eat ice cream for breakfast, and then you immediately wonder if you are being completely crazy for assuming such a silly thing is from God, and then you go get yourself a huge bowl of Rocky Road just in case...God acknowledges that (whether He sent the impression or not) you are doing your very best to do what you think He wants you to do. I believe you get the points in that case. I have decided to act on every impression because I desperately need extra credit in this class. 

Furthermore, let’s never forget Doctrine & Covenants 59:21. Always default to giving the Lord his due. 

Let’s talk about bees…again. 

Two weeks ago my rock, Quentin, started his mission. He had already told his seminary class that last year he was absolutely certain he did not want to serve a mission. He explained that Chloe’s suicide attempt had been a great trial for him. When he came across a scripture that promised missionaries that their families would be blessed, he began to rethink his plan. In his words, “I started to think that my family could use some of those blessings.” With the encouragement of a wonderful bishop and the momentum of an incredible patriarchal blessing, Quentin made the decision to turn in his papers and give two years of his life to God. He consecrated two years of his life because God had promised to bless his family. Those words are almost overwhelming to write. 

And so it was that two days after he was set apart as a missionary, his dad got fired from his job. 

Yup. He’d completed exactly one day of those two years and instead of seeing promised blessings, he went into his room to pack up a few of his most treasured things. He had not previously packed up anything in preparation to leave for two years. Rather he had chosen the tactic of making me promise that his room would be untouched while he was gone. He wanted to come home to exactly what he had left behind and I promised to do my best to make sure it happened. Except it wouldn’t. So he found himself a box and took a few of his treasures and packed them away so that when we moved, those things would be as safe as he could make them. He didn’t get angry and demand to know where the promised blessings were. He chose faith, again. 

As for me, the thought of uprooting my family once more and potentially hauling Evie across the country at exactly the same age I had done it to Chloe wasn’t fun. There were a million other considerations too, and each one seemed to add weight to my already broken heart. But nothing felt as heavy as worry that my sweet Quentin would feel betrayed by the God he had chosen to serve. Close behind that pain was the reality that God was taking away from me the one thing that had held me even remotely together: My seminary class. Quentin and Seminary…the two things that God had put in my life before it collapsed because nothing surprises God, and He knew exactly what I would need.

On Friday, Nathan had slipped into despondency. There was no sense of purpose or anxiousness to solve our new problem. He didn’t seem to be able to do anything but mourn his own self worth. He would later tell me that all he could think of in those days was, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I was sitting in the living room. He was on his chair. I was trying to coax him into conversation. Out of nowhere, I had one of those, “pure knowledge” moments. It filled my body from head to toe. I knew that God was speaking to me. I knew what he was saying. “This is not a trial. This is not a test. You will be happier because of this. This is a reward for your faithfulness.” 

Huh. Ever since moving to Nebraska, I had one specific gospel message I liked to repeat. People love to teach that God is planning something better for your future. They say that when you experience difficult trials, He sometimes takes away what you love so that He can give you something better. But Nebraska isn’t better than Idaho. And my life for the past five years was not better than my life before. You see (as I explained every chance I got) the Lord isn’t interested in giving you something better. He’s interested in making you something better. Sometimes that means taking away things that you love. Sometimes that means you have to hurt.

The parable of Job is not meant to teach us that if we endure a temporary trial, we get double blessings in the end. Remember that Abraham died owning only the land on which his wife was buried. It took literal centuries for his descendants to inherit the land he was promised. His life was kind of terrible right up until the end. But, through those trials, he became worthy to inherit the kingdom of God. I never wanted people to think my testimony was that we would be blessed with what we wanted because we endured our trials well. That kind of thinking leads people away from God if they do not immediately receive the blessings they expect. I wanted very much to show the Lord that I would be forever faithful and expect nothing in return. Well, “nothing” isn’t true. I know he’s carried most of my burden through every trial. I’ve never been alone. 

I know, I know…way too much rambling…not enough bees. Almost there.

On Tuesday, Quentin was set apart as a missionary. On Thursday, Nathan lost his job. The following Tuesday, Nate, Evie and I got up at four in the morning to put Quentin on an airplane to Salt Lake City to start his in-person MTC training. After a difficult goodbye, I went to teach my seminary class. We returned home afterward to his empty bedroom with one packed box of his most treasured possessions sitting at the foot of his bed. 

A couple hours later, Lachlan came inside to report that there were bees in the yard and they were acting crazy. 

We only had one hive, but it was a strong one that had survived the winter and produced well. They were native Nebraska bees, which matters because none of the hives we had purchased had survived. We had gone through an infestation of wax moths a few years ago which had destroyed not only the colonies, but also the beautiful wooden hives that Nathan had made himself. 

On that lovely Tuesday, right after putting Quentin on a plane to Utah, with our lives in shambles, we watched as a swarm of bees swirled around the back yard and took up residence on a bush that was barely budding in the spring weather.  

I have had experiences with bees before. God has used bees to help me understand that he knows me. This could not be a coincidence. Just days before, God promised me that this trial would bring happiness. Quentin stepped out into the mission field with perfect faith, expecting the promised blessings for his family. And, to make perfectly certain there was no confusion, God, once again, sent the bees. Adelaide and Nathan suited up. They caught the swarm and put them in a hive box. They took to it immediately. They didn’t even try to leave. 

Later, I reread what I had written when the bees came the first time, five years ago. These words stood out to me, “Perhaps it seems the most inconsequential of things. I started with two hives. They were taken from me. Heavenly Father gave them back in the very moment where I felt lost just so I could understand that nothing and no one is ever lost.” 

Except…this time, I started with one hive and suddenly I had two. God promised this trial would bring more happiness, but that was long-term, right?; dared I believe that sometimes the story of Job played out as written?

That’s not the end of the story. 

Less than a week after we caught the swarm, seminary ended. It was a really hard time for me. I wanted so much to feel like God had given me a work to do with those kids. I wanted to believe that my calling mattered. Leaving after two years, not even getting to see any of them graduate or get called on a mission, was very painful.  Nathan was feeling a bit better. He was in talks with half a dozen sites, trying to find a new job. He had already scheduled some locums to keep the bills paid in the meantime. Quentin seemed to be doing well in the MTC. Although there were to be so many difficult times in the upcoming months, things were looking up and everyone was feeling a bit better about the uncertainty. 

It was the following Wednesday, one week to the day after Quentin had entered the MTC, that Evelyn ran inside to report that the bees were acting crazy. I stepped outside to a familiar scene. It was the same bush. It had to be the same swarm, right? They had left their hive? Nathan inspected the swarm and then suited up to look inside the empty? beehive they had absconded from. Except it wasn’t empty. It was teeming with bees. Nate found brood and lots of new comb. He checked the other hive, the older one. That colony was doing fantastic. It was unbelievable. This was another swarm. A week later. On the same bush. I don’t think God wanted me to be able to pretend any of this could be anything but a message from Him. This time Rhianna suited up and, once again, the bees settled seamlessly into their new home.

Two weeks ago we had Quentin, Seminary, a good job, and one beautiful beehive. Now there are three. 

So here’s my testimony. God speaks to His children. He speaks to us each differently. Never make the mistake of thinking that he doesn’t talk to you because you don’t experience it the way somebody else does. He sends a still small voice. He sends a burning in the bosom. He sends dreams. He sends friends. He sends pure intelligence. He sends angels. He sends warnings. He sends peace. And sometimes…for the really spiritually dense, He sends bees.

Never Put Limits on the Power of Jesus Christ

 Audio

I’m going to start today in John 11. Mary and Martha are mourning the death of their beloved brother. These two devoted women have accepted the divinity of the Savior, Jesus Christ. They believe in Him with all their hearts. In fact, when he arrives, four days after Lazarus’ death, they both express the exact same sentiment. First Martha in verse 21 and then her sister, in verse 32, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.”

 I can imagine the scene a week before, as Lazarus’ illness progressed. I doubt very much there was any sleeping. These two, faithful sisters likely sat up through the nights, anxiously attending to their brother and always with one eye toward the distance, looking for the light of the Savior’s approach, in constant, pleading prayer. “Oh, let Him come, before it’s too late.”

This story, in the aching hearts of two women whose faith is both beautiful and laudable, illustrates the principle I want to share today. It’s a cautionary message, more for me then for anyone. You see, Mary and Martha knew that Jesus could have saved their brother, that is extraordinary faith. But, even their expression of faith, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died,” is laced with limitation. Knowing exactly how this story ends, the message I wish to share today is very simple, “Never put limits of the power of Jesus Christ and His atonement.”

It’s almost funny how casually we talk about the omnipotence of God without ever really considering what it means to us personally. The scriptures tell us…”He hath made the earth by his power, with God all things are possible, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth, there is no power but of God,  The Lord God omnipotent reigneth, He is mightier than all the earth, and able to do all things.” But somehow, even though we know that, we believe it, we profess it, we occasionally stumble when it comes to its application. 2^nd Nephi 27:20. “I am able to do mine own work.” His work. “To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of Man.”

 

And yet, so many of us suffer from crippling cognitive dissonance on this point when it comes to our own salvation. We, like Mary and Martha, might profess our faith in Jesus Christ’s power with a statement beginning with a qualifier like “If.”  “If thou hast been here, If I never make this mistake again, If I had never missed a family night, If I read my scriptures more, If I choose the right career, If I am always patient with my children, If I had a better marriage, If I could get over my fear…then the Lord could save me.” Brothers and Sisters, Never put limits of the power of Jesus Christ and His atonement.

 

This talk is on repentance, but I am not going to review the four “R’s” or talk about how faith is an action word. You already know that. I think sometimes in our admirable culture of self-sufficiency and pioneer style consecration; we need to be reminded that “not everything is about us.” The work of Salvation belongs to Jesus Christ, He who is “mighty to save.” This means that your faults, insecurities, personal failings, family dynamics, neuro divergences, and even the magnitude of your sins, don’t factor into it at all. The only thing you need to bring to the table, the only thing you can bring to the table is your willingness to accept the Savior and keep trying. Repentance is not even about never sinning again. It’s about always coming back when you do. It’s not about you. It’s about Him. Elder Uchtdorf taught: “Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased by the blood of the Son of God.”

And from Doctrine and Covenants 45:

Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—

 

Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified;

 

Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.

 

It’s not, “Behold how great Brother Jones is or behold all the awesome things Sister Jones has done, or even behold how very sorry they are” It’s “behold the Atonement of Christ.”

 

Sometimes we inadvertently place our own human limitations on the power of Jesus Christ by looking for exceptions, failing to see his miracles, or assigning time limits to when and where the Lord will intervene in our lives. These human tendencies cut off repentance and healing. They turn our focus back onto ourselves.

Years ago I was teaching a fantastic group of ten-year-old girls in primary. One week we were having a lesson on eternal families and one young lady, her name was Becky, declared, “I will never have an eternal family because my dad will never get baptized.” We were only in that ward for four years and, after his baptism, Becky’s dad served faithfully as my home teacher for two of them.

In that case, despite assuming she was an exception, there was a quick and powerful miracle in store for Becky’s family. That’s not always the case. Another girl in that same primary, Emily, always raised her hand the quickest when the music leader asked if anyone had a favorite song. Without fail, she would ask to sing, “When I am Baptized.” She chose that song because, despite the fact that she and her mom attended all their meetings every week, neither of them had been baptized. Her dad wouldn’t give permission for his family to join the church. And so she came, week after week, wanting her life “to be as clean as earth right after rain,” and knowing that the promises of the gospel were as much for her as any of God’s children. I don’t whether or not she’s still waiting.

Joseph F. Smith taught, “Jesus had not finished his work when his body was slain, neither did he finish it after his resurrection from the dead; … And when will he? Not until he has redeemed and saved every son and daughter of our father Adam that have been or ever will be born upon this earth to the end of time...”

Neither Becky’s dad nor Emily’s are exceptions. You and your family aren’t either.

Sometimes we place limitations of the Savior’s power by failing to see and acknowledge the miracles that are happening all around us, every single day.

I have to shake my head whenever I hear someone express regret that there seems to be fewer miracles in our day then there was in the scriptures, or even in the pioneer times.  I think we need to ask ourselves what, exactly, a miracle is. Gospel Topics defines it simply as  “a divine manifestation of God’s power.”

When my grandpa was born, the average global lifespan was 31 years. For most of human history, 1 out of 2 newborns wouldn’t reach 15. This held true for my grandmother’s family, four out of eight children died. But I have eight living children. My oldest daughter had pneumonia as a newborn. Rhianna was born premature. She was the same gestation as an aunt of mine who only lived 20 hours.

I don’t suppose I’ve ever seen a seagull clear a crop of locusts. But I have never in my life been one bad harvest away from starvation, either. I think grandma would see that as a miracle.

Nowhere are the miracles of modern life more apparent than in the lives of women. We can read the scriptures, study the words of modern prophets, share the gospel, research our family history, and write boring sacrament talks all without getting out of bed. If Mary and Martha had had a dishwashing machine, they both could have sat at the feet of Jesus to listen. President Nelson begged his sisters to become gospel scholars, but it is the power of God that makes that possible for us today.

 In 2001, President Oaks described Family Search as a miracle. Since that time, when the site boasted a total of 640 million entries, it has grown a little. In 2024 you could search  20.5 billion entries. For any non-mathematicians, that second number is more than 32 times the first. The salvation of the dead cannot be described as anything but miraculous.

It took 40 years to build the Salt Lake Temple. Dedicated in 2023, The Helena Montana temple was assembled on site in around two weeks.

Despite the fact that studies are showing a horrifying drop in religious faith globally (including 17 percent in the last ten years in the United States-the largest ever recorded), the worldwide number of convert baptisms for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reached an all-time high during the 12-month period from June 2024 to May 2025, surpassing any previous 12-month period since the church's founding in 1830. Just look at what the Lord has done just in our own ward.

Last year, there were 10 percent more seminary students than the year before. How can teenagers getting up at 5 in the morning to attend a religious class be anything but a miracle? Having served in seminary the past year, I can tell you every single one of those youth IS miraculous.

And each Sunday, a worthy 11 or 12 year old young man, passes you the emblems of the atonement and hands you the power to allow Jesus Christ to burn your soul clean of sin. During his lifetime, Jesus taught that the very reason he performed miracles was so that everyone could know that he was capable of forgiving sin, of healing us from the darkness of this world. If we limit the definition of a miracle to something that will be acknowledged as the power of God by someone who does not have faith, we are eliminating all miracles, because people without faith have never developed it because of signs. They can explain away absolutely anything God does.

Miracles haven’t ceased. Perhaps they’ve become too common. So common, we don’t even recognize them anymore. God is enacting constant miracles in preparation for the second coming. The scriptures teach that God cannot do miracles if we do not have faith. I don’t think our faith effects God’s power to act. I think our faith is required in order to recognize miracles when they happen. Only by faith can a divine manifestation of God’s power strengthen, empower and sanctify us. Miracles are intended to show us the power of God. And once you start seeing them, you can’t stop.

“Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?

 

“But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins,

 

“I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed…”

 

“And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things...”

It’s hardest to see the small miracles when we desperately need a big one that never seems to materialize. I guess there are times when we call cry like Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail, “Lord, How Long?” One of the greatest limitations we set on the power of Jesus Christ and His Atonement is to assign times when we feel blessings should be received, prayers should be answered, or change should be finished.

Going to church is hardest when we’re struggling. It’s difficult to sit through sermons about all the blessings of doing your best and wonder why it doesn’t feel like you can see those blessings in your life despite really trying to do what God has asked of you.

One thing I have never doubted is my ability to receive revelation. I would always say that, “even though I don’t get specific answers very often, when I do, I know.“ When those answers came, I would walk forward with complete faith, being certain of the Lord’s direction.

This past year, there have been a few times, when I received an answer that didn’t seem to make sense at all with the circumstances of my life. I tried moving forward with faith, but discouragement was swift and brutal. It left cracks in my testimony that allowed the adversary to speak to my heart.

I was wrong about what the spirit was telling me. And if I was wrong this time, was I wrong in the past? Have I been acting as if I was being led by the spirit my whole life, while actually I was just making everything up as I went along? How can I possibly act in faith, now that I know that I do not know how to receive revelation. Where do I go from here?

But guess what? It’s not about me. By doubting my ability to receive revelation from the spirit, what I was really doubting was God’s ability to speak to me. I asked myself whether it was possible that If I was trying to receive revelation, and working to do so, was it possible that He was unable to reach me? The Lord, God Almighty… what? Had a broken phone line? The Holy Ghost called in sick? Ridiculous. He doesn’t even have a body.

What I was really doing is setting time limits. That revelation does not make sense today, so there must be something wrong with it…with me. Never put limits of the power of Jesus Christ and His atonement. Elder Holland taught, “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.”

 

When we struggle with unanswered prayers or unrealized blessings, we’re assuming that anything God has not already done for us is something He is not going to do, or even not capable of doing. We’re like the Nephites saying that the “time for the sign” of the Savior’s coming is passed, not realizing that he’s “even at the doors.”

 

Healing from the horrors of life, and repentance is just another form of healing, often takes time. He has promised that “as often as my people repent I will forgive them.” He has not put limitations on you. Return the favor.

 

Before anyone starts thinking that Sister Hancock is preaching grace without works, let me say that it is important to recognize that Agency will always be respected and even as we sit down to feast at the Lord’s supper, it is completely on us to choose to pick up the fork. But it is vital to understand that our choice to eat or not does not in any way change the nutritional quality of the meal. Christ can speak to you. Christ can cleanse you. Christ can heal you.  Christ can save everyone you love. In fact, that’s His work. And He has promised us that he is able to do his own work. Without exceptions.

Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe;

… And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth.

 

Christ will also redeem you.

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