Hope Smiling Brightly with Amber Dawn Pearce
I had a wonderful and unique upbringing raised off grid by addict hippies who converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We ending up becoming a family of 15 including 8 adopted siblings. Yep, I know what it’s like to live in a home with dirt floors, and no plumbing or electricity. Oh I’ve got stories. You’ll hear a lot of them here. But the most important thing I share is what my life has taught me about the power of Jesus Christ.
That answer you've been seeking. That change you've hoped for. That struggle you want to overcome. The goal you want to reach. It is all in Jesus Christ. Christ can be your coach, your mentor, your motivational speaker, your healer. After living a life seeking hope and help from every solution out there I finally learned how to access the power of change through Christ.
Hope Smiling Brightly with Amber Dawn Pearce
How God can Consecrate every trial for our good.
Join me for a profound reflection on how God consecrates trials for our good. Through stories of how my family grew from 5 to 13 with 8 adopted siblings, I delve into the complexities and blessings found in life's challenges. I talk about how my upbringing taught me the power of discernment, unconditional love, freedom from victimhood, and finding joy in difficult circumstances. Inspired by Lehi's teachings to his son Jacob in 2 Nephi, this episode explores the miraculous transformation of pain into sacred experiences through faith in Jesus Christ.
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00:00 Introduction and Purpose
00:54 Personal Story: Mother's Inspiration
01:41 Adoption Journey Begins
02:56 Expanding the Family: Five Sisters from India
05:09 Symbolism of the Law of the Leper
12:08 Consecration of Trials
15:13 Gifts from Trials: Discernment, Love, and Overcoming Victimhood
26:43 Final Thoughts and Reflections
31:12 Conclusion and Sponsor Message
Elder Gerrit W. Gong said, In a miraculous way, the purpose of creation and the nature of God are to know beginning and end, to bring about all that is for our good, and to help us become sanctified and holy through Jesus Christ's grace and atonement. Thank you so much for joining in again, and thank you so much for all of your kind and generous reviews. Your positive ratings and reviews help my podcast reach more people. So I really appreciate the time you take to rate and review my podcast. You are listening to the Hope Smiling Brightly podcast, episode six, how God can consecrate every trial for our good. When my mother was a young girl, she read a book that would greatly affect her future. It was a book about a minister and his wife who were unable to have children of their own. They ended up adopting children from all over the world instead, and eventually were able to get pregnant. They ended up with a family of 12 children. When my mother read this story, a desire sparked within her. She knew she wanted to be a mother. of many, many children. But it was when she was pregnant with her fifth child that she realized to have any more children would be a risk to her life. She was devastated. But it wasn't long that my parents decided adoption would be a great option. My sister was still a baby when they started the paperwork to adopt more children through LDS Social Services. But they had no idea what was coming. They were a bit surprised when they were contacted and told about a child that they were having a hard time placing for adoption. It was a baby boy, 5 months old, only weighing about 8 pounds. They were told he had a litany of physical and mental disabilities. But they needed to find a family who could love him. My mother wasn't so sure. She had a brother who had mental disabilities and had to be institutionalized. It was very painful, and she wasn't sure she could go down that road. So my parents asked if they could just see the baby. One look into his blue eyes was all it took. And that's where their adoption journey began. I could talk for hours about my brother, so I'm sure I'll do another episode telling you some of his amazing and miraculous story. When I was about seven years old, my parents decided they were ready to add to their family again. But this time they thought it would be nice to find maybe a brother and sister, a sibling group to adopt since quite often families only wanted one child and siblings would get separated. And if they could prevent that from happening, they wanted to try. They were thinking, maybe two. So it came as quite a shock when an international adoption agency approached my parents and asked them if they would consider adopting five sisters from an orphanage in Calcutta, India. Once again, it wasn't something they had ever dreamed of, but when they got on their knees and asked Heavenly Father, if these five girls belonged in our family, they got a sure answer. And it was yes. I still remember when my parents sat us down to ask us what we felt about doubling the size of our family. The reactions were mixed. Understandably, this would change our lives forever. When I found out it was five girls, I was like, oh yeah, the odds will finally be in my favor. Let's do it. It was interesting that not long after that, I was on a field trip to the local planetarium, was sitting and gazing up at what looked like a real sky, learning about all the different constellations. When the instructor pointed out a constellation I had never heard of, the constellation was the seven sisters. In that moment, peace and knowledge came to me, and even though I was only eight years old, the spirit witnessed to me that is what my family would have. Seven sisters. That peace and knowledge carried me through the years to come. Can I add in a side note here, something really important that I learned about promptings just because we get a clear prompting doesn't mean it's going to go smoothly and turn out perfectly. God doesn't always ask us to do easy things, but he asks us to do things that will be for our good. Remember this. There's a principle that I think we can apply to any personal revelation we receive. And here it is. The validity of promptings of personal revelation is not measured by how things turn out, but the effect it has on the person we become. It took longer than we expected, and we had to jump through a few hoops. But finally, my five sisters from India arrived, and two sisters became seven. When my sisters arrived, they did not know any English. But as soon as they were able to communicate, they let us know that they had another family member that was left behind in the orphanage in Calcutta. A cousin who was a boy. My parents didn't even think twice. They started the application process to adopt him as well. And no, it didn't end there. There were foster kids that came in and out of our home. One of my dad's good hippie friends. passed away. And so her children came to live with us off and on as well. Our home was crazy, busy, but full of love and open to anyone. Our family rounded out at 13 shortly after my mom became a teacher. One of her students had a disrupted adoption. That is when a child is adopted and the adoption doesn't work out. That was infuriating to my mom and she wasn't going to have it. So my parents decided to adopt that sweet boy as well. When I tell people about my family, their first response usually is, wow, your parents must be amazing. And they're right. My parents are amazing. There is no way I could do what they did. The second response I usually get is, wow, was that hard? Hard doesn't quite explain it. I don't even know if there is a word for it. If I responded to that question in my teenage years, I probably would have let you know in all the details, all the ways my life was so hard. But I have a quite different perspective now. If you were to ask me if it was hard, I would say, yeah, it was hard, but not as hard for me as it must've been for my siblings who were orphaned and ripped away from a culture and a country that they loved. Now, as I tell stories of my upbringing, I usually just share the crazy and funny, but don't get me wrong, nobody escapes childhood unscathed. The most painful and trying experiences of my life happened before I turned 18. But I am grateful for every single one of those experiences. And this is why. Imagine with me for a moment the symbolism from the Law of the Leper in the book of Leviticus chapter 14. I know what you're thinking, Leviticus? Is there anything that makes sense or is inspiring in Leviticus? Well, if you listen here long enough, you will know that I love symbolism. And so yes, when you look at the symbolism in Leviticus, it is absolutely beautiful. Here it is. For a leper to be cleansed, a priest would take two birds. The first bird is killed in an earthen vessel. Then the second bird is taken to the vessel. Now, if you were like me, when I read this for the first time, you feel sadness for the second bird because you know what happened to the first, and so you see what's coming. Why does it have to die too? But no. In Mercy, the second bird is dipped in the blood of the first, then pronounced clean, and set free into an open field. I was overcome as I realized that the second bird's life was saved. Because the first bird died. In fact, it was given a fresh start. The Savior gave his life so we could not only live, but live free of all that would bind us. It makes sense that we would then choose to give our lives back to him. How many of us essentially clip our own wings with guilt, shame, resentment, anger, thoughts of worthlessness. How many of us are hopping around on the ground instead of spreading our wings and flying? Which view would you rather have in this life? Every pain, every joy is that so we can become what the Savior sees in us. Nothing is so beautiful than to be cleansed and set free. But that can never happen if there is nothing to be cleansed and set free from. The Savior doesn't cause this pain to happen. It is an inevitable part of life. But He is there to take that pain and use it to teach us. to fly. What will we do with our lives that are saved because of the first life that was given? When we are able to recognize what can be or what has been consecrated for our good, we can't help but make something more of what we've been given. It brings new purpose to our lives. My hope is that as you listen today, the Spirit will inspire you with something that might bring renewed purpose into your life. So what does it mean, the word consecrate? To consecrate is to make sacred or for sacred use. What comes to your mind when you think about the most difficult trial of your life? Is it sacred to you yet? I promise it can be. When we turn to God in our trials, He miraculously creates such beauty from them that they become sacred to us. When we are healed, forgiven, able to forgive through the Savior, our pain becomes sacred. One of the greatest sermons on how to approach trials is in 2 Nephi chapter 2, when Lehi speaks to his son Jacob. He said to him, In thy childhood thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow and this affliction and sorrow that Jacob experienced was pretty much because of the sins of other people. Lehi then reminds Jacob of one of the results of going through these trials. He says, Thou knowest the greatness of God. There is opposition in all things. And when we go through great trial, we also see how great God is. and then Lehi said words that I know you'll recognize. and He shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain I've been pondering a lot how the Lord did the same thing for me and why my upbringing is sacred to me. Most inflections, trials we experience in life, help us gain Christ like attributes. And a lot of those afflictions come as the result of other people. I'm sure we all can think of people that are like, Wow, they are here to just bring trials into my life. But we can think of it more positively and say, wow, they're here to help me learn Christ like attributes. But I'll tell you what, for as many people in your life that fall into that category, you probably fall into that category for someone else. I know that's definitely the case when it comes to me, but I guess I can say with pride, Hey, I've helped a lot of people gain Christ like attributes. As they've had to deal with my weaknesses growing up, everyone in my family had to learn what it was to sacrifice, to forgive, to repent, to have patience, to compromise, and how to get along with different cultures, viewpoints, lifestyles. But today I want to talk about three things that Heavenly Father consecrated for my gain that I think might help anyone who has gone through any type of trial. The first thing my trials gave me was the ability to discern. Lehi also said to his son Jacob, for it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things. Witnessing opposition cultivates the ability to discern between opposing things. I remember though, wishing that I could have been sheltered from the evil of this world. But on the other hand, I treasure my gift of discernment, a gift that wasn't free. It was cultivated because of opposition, and now is priceless to me. If Adam and Eve had stayed in a state of innocence, that state that I was wishing I could stay in, they would have had no joy, for they knew no misery, doing no good, for they knew no sin. What a gift to be able to discern between righteousness and wickedness, holy and unholy, happiness and misery, truth and deception, to be able to discern the true intentions and character of someone. And the more we are able to discern, the more we are able to cultivate the ability to use our agency for good, which is one of the main purposes of this life. I saw both sides of the coin and decided which one I wanted more of in my life. I had a greater desire to do whatever it took to discern what would bring good, and what would bring a greater portion of the Holy Spirit into my life. What are some of the things you're better at discerning in your life because of trials? As God continued to consecrate things for my gain, the second thing I received was the ability to love others as Christ does. In verse 3 of this same chapter we're talking about, Lehi told his son Jacob, thy days shall be spent in the service of thy God, and we know when we are in the service of our fellow man, we are only in the service of our God. As I have loved you, love one another. My family took this song and, with my sisters, translated it into their native language, and we sung it at their baptism. I will never forget the words. Ami tomake balobashi, balobashi shabaike. As I have loved you, love one another. James Q. Wilson wrote, We learn to cope with the people of this world because we learn to cope with the members of our family.Those who flee the family flee the world,bereft of the. family's affection, tutelage and challenges. They are unprepared for the world's tests, judgments and demands Close quote. we aren't supposed to have perfect families. Rather, we are supposed to have the families that will help perfect us. I learned firsthand the great responsibility we have to help our brothers and sisters. No matter how hard it might be. Love is what heals, not judgment. And I learned that the people we judge the most harshly probably have gone through things that we can't even imagine. It's one thing to love someone that's easy to love. It's another thing to learn to love someone that maybe it has a hard time receiving your love., Or someone that maybe your personalities clash. Loving all the people that are easy to love isn't what cultivates charity. What cultivates charity, the pure love of Christ, is learning to love people unconditionally with all of their faults, without judgment, without trying to change them, but just giving love. I also got to experience the other side of love. Let's face it, my family became the ward service project. We often found huge bags of used clothes and shoes that we loved going through. I'll never forget the secret Santa gifts that showed up at our door on one Christmas that was going to be particularly slim. I was incredibly grateful of the sacrifice of others that allowed us to get food from the bishop's storehouse when my parents couldn't afford it. President Thomas S. Monson said, I believe the savior is telling us that unless we lose ourselves in service to others, there is little purpose to our own lives. Those who live only for themselves eventually shrivel up and figuratively loose their lives while those who lose themselves in service to others grow and flourish and in effect, save their lives. Close quote. And let's not forget that when we are in the middle of a trial, it's looking outward, finding someone else to love that helps lift our own burdens. In fact, that's exactly what Christ did as he hung on the cross, yet turned to his mother in concern for her. What a gift the Lord gives us when we have the opportunity amid our trials to turn our concerns to the needs of someone else. And the third gift that often comes from our trials, the ability to overcome victim mentality. Lehi also told Jacob that Adam fell that men might be. And men are, that they might have joy. Here he is talking to Jacob, who had a very difficult upbringing, and he's telling him he's supposed to have joy. In the very next verse he says, We are redeemed from the fall. We have become free forever, knowing good from evil, to act for ourselves, and not to be acted upon. Elder Stanley G. Ellis said, Hard is the constant. We all have challenges. The variable is our reaction to the hard. Close quote. I don't think anyone can go through life without being victim to the poor choices of others at some point. There were circumstances in my life that there was no question that I was an innocent victim. But I learned that just because someone chooses to victimize me doesn't mean I have to live as a victim. I have a choice. When we let someone else's actions define us, it is like we are letting them victimize us Over and over again, long after the action has passed, there are so many clever ways Satan tries to take away our agency. And one way is by simply convincing us we have none, and that we are subject to our circumstances. But it behooveth the great Creator that he suffereth himself to become subject unto man in the flesh, and die for all men, that all men might become subject to him. 2 Nephi 9:5 Ironic that when we become subject to Christ, we find real freedom. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32. Elder F. Enzio Bouche said, We are beginning to become alive as we take knowingly full responsibility for our own life, and we stop blaming our circumstances. Close quote. Elder Matthias Held said, We can rest assured that our difficulties, sorrows, afflictions, and pains do not define us. It is how we go about them that will help us grow and draw closer to God. It is our attitudes and choices that define us much better than our challenges. Close quote. Growing up, I wanted joy, but I realized that if I was only waiting for joyful circumstances to feel joy, I was going to live a lackluster life. E. W. Wilcox wrote,'Tis easy enough to be pleasant When life goes by with a song, But the man worthwhile Is the man who can smile When everything goes dead wrong. We are practicing joy in this life but guess what you can't practice joy in Joyful circumstances that just comes naturally it is when we are going through things where the natural man response would be sorrow that we really get to practice joy. What do you think President Nelson had to go through to testify of this truth? He said, The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives, and everything to do with the focus of our lives. Close quote. How do you think the Savior was able to endure the greatest suffering known? By focusing on joy. And this is how we can get through our greatest suffering. As we understand and cultivate this priceless gift, a promise of comfort could never make us give up the opportunity to cultivate the ability to experience joy in any circumstance. President Nelson also said, what will you and I be able to endure as we focus on the joy that is set before us? What repenting will then be possible? What weakness will become a strength? What chastening will become a blessing? What disappointments, even tragedies will turn to our good and what challenging service to the Lord will we be able to give? Close quote. Discernment, love, freedom from victimhood. These are just some of the fruits of my trials, and I wouldn't be surprised if you've experienced some of it too. In the end, God knows what he is doing. Though, it's hard not to sometimes feel that we got the raw end of the deal. And we wonder why we are going through such a difficult experience. But remember what was said in Jacob 5:21-22. And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master, How comest thou hither to plant this tree, or this branch of the tree? For behold, it was the poorest spot in all the land of thy vineyard. And the lord of the vineyard said unto him, Counsel me not. I knew that it was a poor spot of ground. Wherefore, I said unto thee, I have nourished it this long time, and thou beholdest that it has brought forth much fruit. God is nourishing you. Have you recognized the fruit he is bringing forth in your life? Okay, I can't help it. I want to share with you one more bonus gift that God often gives through our afflictions. And yes, it's in 2 Nephi chapter 2. Lehi told his son two more things he could be grateful for because of his trials. In verse four, the first thing, Thou hast beheld in thy youth. His glory, when we experience the healing, the mercies, the love of our savior, that is experiencing a portion of his glory. But what I think is even more beautiful is the next line. Thou art blessed. Now, listen to this. Even as they, unto whom he shall minister in the flesh. Do you hear that promise? That promise that applies to anyone who has suffered great affliction? The Savior, ministered to sinners, lepers, the blind, the sick. You are blessed, even as those Christ ministered to in the flesh. If there were no trials, no impossible circumstances, there would be no need for Christ to minister to you. No need to Behold his glory. No need for miracles. But, if you could touch the hem of his garment, or call out, Have mercy on me, son of David, or whisper, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean, What would you ask for? How would he minister to you? Have you recognized how he has fulfilled that promise to you in your life? The greatest miracle is his healing, not just physically, but spiritually and mentally. And this miracle comes as he consecrates our trials, our afflictions for our good. You know, I'm not going to end this podcast without offering you a question. Whether there is an affliction that is still painful or not in your life, there is a powerful question to ask that will bring abundant gratitude, a question that will help you see the great love and compassion your creator has for you. Here it is. Ask God. How have you turned this trial for my good? I promise there are things you haven't seen yet. There were some things I realized for the first time as I was preparing for this podcast. As the answer comes, that trial will become incredibly sacred to you. Christ is consecrating afflictions for your gain. Christ is hope, smiling brightly. I am so grateful to be able to have the time and means to produce this podcast, but it wouldn't be possible without Thrive Life. Thrive Life is the best freeze dried food that you can possibly find with a 25 year shelf life, high quality food, and a delicious taste. You cannot put a price tag on peace of mind and preparedness. So go to amber. thrivelife. com and set up a delivery to get 15 percent off retail price and free shipping on any orders over a hundred dollars.