His Heart's Got Ears

I'm a church-goer. I love being a church-goer. I love being religious in my religion, which is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I've been a religious church-goer all my life. I just did the math, and according to my calculations, I've attended Sunday services nearly 1,450 times. And I plan to keep watching that number grow.

So. Fourteen hundred & fifty times. Who in the world would've thunked that today's Sunday services, out of all those other gazillions of services I've gone to, would be my favorite? If today's are not actually my all-time favorite, they're positively in my Top 3 Favorites, if I were to have a "Top 3 Favorites" list.

Okay okay, fine, I'll finally tell you why I loved church today so much. Good criminy, it wasn't even my own congregation that I normally go to, where I know almost everyone. I was visiting another congregation of my faith, a congregation where I knew almost no one. But what was splendid was that I still felt very welcome there, among all those strangers, and I felt the same peace and joy and enrichment that I feel when I attend my own congregation. Today, however, that peace and joy and enrichment were all part of an entirely different league. It was off the charts. It was terrific.

A lady named Kiersten noticed me a few minutes before church started, and she invited me to sit with her. She said she usually likes to sit clear up in the front of the chapel near the pulpit. And usually I don't particularly care to sit clear up there, so I frequently don't, but today I sat with Kiersten in the second row, center set of pews (our chapels typically have left, center, and right sets of pews).

I situated myself on the far left-hand side of the bench, which caused me to be in extremely close proximity to the front row of the left set of pews. On that row sat a man who was deaf. He sat next to one interpreter, and another interpreter sat a small number of feet in front of them, on a chair, facing them. The interpreter on the chair was approximately five feet away from me, at my eleven o'clock.

The two interpreters tag-teamed. The first one was a pretty young woman with brown hair, very nice teeth (I notice teeth, okay? I come from a dentistry family!), a lovely smile, and a way cute skirt.

The second was a handsome young man with a genuine and gentle countenance...and a nice turquoise sweater. He interpreted the hymns that were sung, and the two certain prayers that always take place in the middle of the meeting. She interpreted the opening and closing prayers, as well as the talks that were given.

I couldn't take my eyes off either of the interpreters, whenever they were sitting on the chair. I tried to make my staring not too terribly awkward. I was so fascinated in learning how to say words in American Sign Language (ASL). Not only that, but I felt the spirit of God --- the Holy Ghost --- so sweetly in my heart, even sweeter than most times I'd ever felt it in my life.

The Holy Ghost taught me something so special in that meeting, as I was focusing on the interpreters. It all really started when I focused on the second interpreter while he led the second hymn. It happens to be one of my favorite hymns. It's #169 in the current hymnal. It always touches my soul to sing it, but when I saw the second interpreter sing it with his hands, it made me pay more attention to the lyrics than I ever had before, and it made the message even more powerful and uplifting to me than ever before. His hands sang it so beautifully. I cried.

Then it was time for the first interpreter to sit in the chair again. It was time for the talks. I generally do a good job paying attention to church talks, but today I paid attention in a totally different way. I hardly ever looked up to my two o'clock to the person at the pulpit. Rather, I kept my eyes on the hands and the face at my eleven o'clock, five feet away from me. Again, I hope I didn't creep her out too much, because I seriously did stare at her for pretty much the whole time she sat in the chair.

The talks consisted of much talk about Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus Christ, Christ's Atonement, faith, repentance, endurance, obedience to God's laws, and blessings that God gives His children whenever they do obey. For lack of a better adjective, it was so sweet to watch the first interpreter's hands talking about these holy topics. It was like nobody in the history of mankind had ever talked about those things as kindly and earnestly as these two interpreters did today.

Needless to say I was just all-in-all quite moved by what I saw during the duration of the meeting (sometimes I even kept my eyes wide open during the prayers, just so I could hear the prayers in ASL). I felt Heavenly Father's and Christ's love for me fresh within me, and I learned something too. Oh yeah! I meant to tell you what I learned from the Holy Ghost three whole stinkin' paragraphs ago! Here goes nothin':

I learned that God has a way of speaking to every one of His children. Usually hymn #169's message reaches me through my ears and plants itself firmly inside my mind and heart. But today it reached me through my eyes, by way of the second interpreter's hand gestures and tender facial expressions. The message reached me loud and clear, as it normally does through sound. But today, it reached me loud and clear in the same loud and clear way it reaches the man whose ears don't function the same way mine do. His heart's got ears --- ears that work perfectly. I looked back at him and the young woman interpreter during the closing hymn (#250 in the current hymnal). They were singing together with their hands. There was a bright and wonderful glow about them. "Happy [were they], happy [were they]." I could tell the song was bringing them cheer.

This was nuttin' but a whole bunch of rambling, but I just had to write it all down. To whomever just read this, congratulations for making it through! I can show you how to say "endure" in ASL, if you'd like! ;)