Faith, Hope & Charity

This week I had a couple of opportunities to see these three principles in action. The first incident happened with someone that I did not know, a total stranger. The second incident, happened in our small community and involved the son of a friend of mine.

Faith & Hope: I was visiting the courthouse the other day and had the opportunity of sitting in on various arraignments, pretrials, sentencing's, etc. One of the cases involved a young woman who was currently incarcerated at the Women's prison. This woman had been arrested on a parole violation for prescription drug abuse. She was a single mother with a 15 year old son. She had recently found out in prison that she probably had cervical cancer. Her attorney was attempting to get her released into the care of her mother and placed in a in-resident rehab near her home in St. George, as well as her being allowed to have a biopsy performed under general anesthesia, as opposed to local anesthesia ,which is offered at the prison. Her attorney then asked the Judge if the woman's mother could address the court. This is an unusual request which the judge took into consideration and allowed the mother to speak. Here is her story in a nutshell. She moved here from Georgia seven weeks ago, selling her house, loading up a moving truck, towing her car behind her, and driving cross country so that she could be near her daughter to help and take care of her and her grandson. She spoke of how her daughter has been in constant pain for four years. Each doctor she had visited had not found anything wrong, but had prescribed pain medications, which over time has led to her daughter's addiction. She told of how a year ago she fasted and prayed every day, somedays two or three times a day, that there would be an intervention in her daughter's life. The following Monday her daughter was arrested. She told the judge that she was the mother of five children and this was her only daughter. She advised the judge that she had friends in the community, in the medical profession, and in her church, that could offer their help and support. She was led to believe by her daughter's attorney that if she were here to take care of her daughter, that the court would most likely release her daughter into her care. She has done research and believes that her daughter suffers from a little known disorder that involves the bladder and/or cervix. It is very painful and causes extreme irritation and inflammation in those areas. She also has the faith and the belief that if her daughter is suffering from cervical cancer, that treating this could eliminate her pain and the need for prescription pain pills, which would lead her daughter to begin to heal. What strength and hope I saw in this mother's face as she addressed the court, waiting for the judges decison,and how impressed I was that she had such faith that all would work out in these matters. My heart and prayers go out to her and her family.

Faith & Charity: This past Saturday we had a horrible accident involving four teens, three of which were killed. An 18 year old driver crossed the line and hit another vehicle with three teens head on. The three that were killed were not wearing seatbelts. The driver was a 23 year old single mother of two little boys ages 1 and 3. Her passengers were a 20 year old young man who was waiting for his mission call, and a 17 year junion who was a cheer leader at Grantsville High School, the school which my son attends. Rich knew three of the four students fairly well. We attended Taft's "viewing" the other night. We arrived at 7:45, 15 minutes before it was to end. There were so many people, young and old alike, and the line was so long that it took us until 9:00 to get through the line. Rich attended Taft' funeral the following day and reported that the attendance was so overwhelming that there was standing room only at the very back in the cultural hall. Taft's mother, Peggy, asked our names and said she recognized a lot of faces but didn't know names. When Rich told her who he was and how he knew Taft, she asked him why he looked familiar. He replied that he went to school in Grantsville and worked in Grantsville. She then lit up and said, "You work at Jens. You waited on me the other day. You are so polite. I said to myself 'this young man knows what customer service is all about.'" What a compliment to both Rich and myself. I thought how amazing this mother was to stand here giving my son compliments during her time of sorrow. I was surprised, though I shouldn't have been, at the number of people from the communities of Grantsville, Stansbury, Erda, and Tooele, that turned how to show their love, concern, and support for this family. As a mother, and especially as a member of the LDS church, I know that Peggy feels the comfort in her faith that she will see Taft again.