"I Knew Thee"

Much to my dismay, the time finally came for me to go back to Texas this week after a long and refreshing Christmas break.  I flew back on Thursday and it seems like I have been back here for a month already.  No matter how old I get, I suspect that it will always be hard for me to leave my home and those that I love.  But in some ways I find this refreshing.  It means that I am loved and more importantly, it means that I love others--particularly my family.  I suppose if you have to have a hard time with something in this world, there are worse things to have a hard time with than struggling with homesickness and missing one's friends and family.

I had such a wonderful time at home.  In addition to being able to see my own family, I was blessed to be able to see Julianne each day and to spend part of my holidays with her and her wonderful family.  She gave me a beautiful briefcase that I am looking forward to using this summer if I get a position teaching a Doctrine and Covenants class at BYU.  It looks really sharp and hopefully will disguise the fact that I don't look all that professorial on my own.

This is a little later than age 4, but just in case you don't believe that
I was a blond little boy, here is proof.

The last day or two before I flew home, I also reacquainted myself with a favorite past time of mine: digging through old boxes at my parents's home in search of family treasures (old letters, diaries, photographs, etc).  I'm certain that this sounds absolutely boring to most people under the sun, but I wouldn't make a very good historian if I didn't love finding old documents and trying to find something of value in them.  Luckily for me, my parents have a house filled with treasures like these and I am as giddy as a child in a candy store when I am looking through them.

This week I found a copy of a diary that my Nana Haycock wrote in 1985.  While I was reading through some of the entries, I was struck by just how well my Nana knew each of her grandchildren and how up to date she was on our lives.  One entry in particular stood out to me.  On Thursday April 18, 1985, she recorded a small birthday party that she and my grandfather had had with my family celebrating my fourth birthday (which would take place on the 21st).  Then my Nana wrote a few lines about me.  "He will be 4 years old on the 21st--and is such a handsome little blond, blue-eyed little fellow [I'll take such compliments wherever I can get them :)].  He loves books, lots of "papers"--pencils, etc, etc--a bit more on the serious side than many little boys; still loves lots of trucks, cars and such, however.  He and Lynley make quite a pair--she likes to follow Brett closely--a "me too" and needs to be included in all his activities--between them they can make life interesting."

I smiled as I read this little description of myself.  I'm sure my Nana was being polite in merely saying that my sister Lynley and I could "make life interesting."  But what stood out to me in this little diary entry was just how well my Nana knew me by the time I was four years old.  Somehow, by this point in my life--before I could read or write on my own--my Nana had understood that books and papers and a certain measure of seriousness (whether for good or for bad) were important parts of who I was as a person.  As I thought about this, I was reminded of my patriarchal blessing.  Although Patriarch Meryl Hymas is a close friend of my parents, I didn't spend much time around him while I was growing up.  Yet the things he said in my blessing were spot on and identified parts of my character and personality that I was just barely beginning to realize at the time he uttered them.

These two small examples were vivid reminders of the fact that our lives do not begin here when we are born.  The Lord told Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5).  So it is for each of us.  We may not have been called to be Prophets like Jeremiah, but we were nevertheless there, in the presence of the Lord before we came here.  And in coming here, we bring with us characteristics and personality traits that are thousands of years old, shaped by experiences and choices that we no longer recall.  One day the curtains will be pulled back and we will remember those experiences and choices and we will see that so much of who we are and what we love was shaped in the presence of our Father and His Divine Son.  What a wonderful experience that will be!

Just as my Nana knew me by the time I was four, I know that our Father in Heaven knows each of us perfectly.  He knows our likes and our dislikes; our fears and our struggles; our triumphs and our tragedies.  He knows us perfectly and He loves us perfectly.

Brett