We Are Sowing

As a little girl, my mom would go around the house and while she cleaned, she would sing,

"We are sowing, daily sowing 

Countless seeds of good and ill, 

Scattered on the level lowland, 

Cast upon the windy hill; 

Seeds that sink in rich, brown furrows, 

Soft with heaven’s gracious rain; 

Seeds that rest upon the surface 

Of the dry, unyielding plain;"

So as we sang the song a couple of weeks ago in Sacrament Meeting, my ears perked up a little

as I thought of my childhood.  As we continued on to the second verse, a swelling in my heart began

and soon the tears spilt freely upon my cheeks as the Spirit opened a new understanding

of the song to me. 

"Seeds that fall amid the stillness

Of the lonely mountain glen;

Seeds cast out in crowded places,

Trodden under foot of men;

Seeds by idle hearts forgotten,

Flung at random on the air;

Seeds by faithful souls remembered,

Sown in tears and love and prayer;"

My most important role in the narrow limits of this life is that of motherhood and as I

sang the words to the song, thoughts of my children flooded my mind.

I am a mother of children who have forsaken the things that I have taught.  My seeds of teaching

have been trodden under their feet and their hearts have forgotten

that which was sown in tears and love and prayer.

 "Seeds that lie unchanged, unquickened,

Lifeless on the teeming mold;

Seeds that live and grow and flourish

When the sower’s hand is cold.

By a whisper sow we blessings;

By a breath we scatter strife.

In our words and thoughts and actions

Lie the seeds of death and life."

As I continued on to the third verse, a new wave of emotion hit me

when I realized that I still have seeds inside me planted many years ago

by a sower whose hand now is cold.  The seeds my dad planted deep in my heart still

grow and flourish even though he has slipped out of this life. 

As I came to the last verse, I quietly sang to the Savior:

"Thou who knowest all our weakness,

Leave us not to sow alone!

Bid thine angels guard the furrows

Where the precious grain is sown,

Till the fields are crown’d with glory,

Filled with mellow, ripened ears,

Filled with fruit of life eternal

From the seed we sowed in tears."

The Spirit taught me in that Sacrament Meeting a couple of weeks ago that the doctrine given us

by Prophets and Apostles is true:

In 1929 Elder Orson F. Whitney of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: “You parents of the wilful and the wayward! Don’t give them up. Don’t cast them off. They are not utterly lost. The Shepherd will find his sheep. They were his before they were yours—long before he entrusted them to your care; and you cannot begin to love them as he loves them. They have but strayed in ignorance from the Path of Right, and God is merciful to ignorance. Only the fulness of knowledge brings the fulness of accountability. Our Heavenly Father is far more merciful, infinitely more charitable, than even the best of his servants, and the Everlasting Gospel is mightier in power to save than our narrow finite minds can comprehend” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1929, 110).

Paraphrasing the Prophet Joseph Smith, Elder Orson F. Whitney said “that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. … They will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1929, 110).