The Greatest Example

For the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
                                                                           -Mosiah 3:19

I was so overcome by the Spirit today in church that I can't get it out of my head. I wanted to stand up and bear my testimony but they ended the meeting right as I was about to get up. It's probably better because I felt like sobbing and that wouldn't have made for a very coherent testimony. What I really wanted to say was to add to what had already been said about Carissa, Tomi Hill's sister. She had Downs Syndrome and passed away a few weeks ago. 

I actually learned about it through the newspaper - Rhett often reads the obituaries but he always reads the paper at work. So when he was reading the paper one night, I looked at the obituaries with him and saw Carissa's face. I was instantly in tears and realized it was meant for him to read the paper that night at home so that I would see her there. I thought about her all night and recalled so many of my own memories of students that I had taught with disabilities.
The first three years after I graduated from BYU, I taught in self-contained classrooms with students with severe disabilities. The disabilities were varied and ranged widely in their personalities and levels of severity. It was always my goal to be a teacher for these students and I loved the way they enriched my life - their quirks, their innocence and the challenge that was their everyday lives. The contact that I had with these children spilled over into my life in every aspect - emotionally, physically, mentally, socially and especially spiritually. The biggest frustration for me when I was teaching kids ages 6-14 was how their cognitive abilities were always stagnant at certain stages. All functioned years below their actual age but I even had some who were in middle school and only at an 18 month ability level.  It was very difficult to get these students to make progress.  

The thing that brought me to tears today in such heavy heaves of emotion was how our lives were now missing the opportunity to bask in the light of the spirit of this beautiful Child of God. And no matter their age, that is what they are - like a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love and closer to God than we can ever imagine. Despite the age of the child with a disability, their level of ability also manifests itself in their social lives. No matter how old the child gets, they will always have that childlike innocence that speaks their minds, is politically INcorrect, makes for somewhat awkward public experiences, doesn't always fit the norms but teaches us about ourselves, about life and brings us such innocent joy, just as a 3 year old often does.  They are still learning to share, to be accepting and loving, to say the right things, to act appropriately in public and to grow up. Eventually, they will lose that childlike immaturity and act more like an adult (which can be good and bad). But these amazing, wonderfully special and extraordinary spirits who are here in these protective bodies of physical or mental disabilities, will always be "like a child" and some will never get past their cognitive limits. In some ways, I KNOW they are here in these less-than-perfect-bodies and states-of-mind to bless us and give us an example of how we should be; to remind us the kind of unconditional love and acceptance and friendship and Christ-like qualities that we should strive more to acquire and retain. It is truly a loss and brings so much sadness to not have Carissa here with us anymore, but the heavens are rejoicing. And I will strive to be more like her and more like people who are like her -  Christ-like.