Why you should pay tithing…

I have always had a testimony of tithing. When I was a teenager my grandmother, LeNore Christine Jensen, shared this story with me.
 
It was during the depression in the 1930's and my grandparents had five children and were very poor. My grandfather may have been unemployed or underemployed, but I am not sure. The only sum of money they had was ten dollars and that was put aside to pay their tithing, but they had no food in the house to feed the family, except for a sack of flour. They debated whether to pay tithing or buy food for the five hungry children. They paid their tithing and then my grandmother went to the sack of flour to make a dry bread of flour and water to feed the family. When she opened the sack of flour, there, on top was a ten dollar bill, the exact amount she had paid in tithing.

After I married Ray, he was not excited about paying tithing, but before our marriage he promised me he would work to go to the temple with me. One day he said to me, "We need more life insurance (little did I know that he would later pass away). I said "The best insurance we can have is to pay our tithing because in the last days the destroying angels will pass us by if we pay our tithing. Reluctantly he said to me, "If you can pay tithing from our income, go ahead and try."
   Money was very tight--we had a house payment, a car payment, two little boys, and were really struggling. I didn't know how we could do it, but I paid the tithing. The next week we lived on chicken noodle soup and crackers. Then to our surprise Ray received a check from the railroad. It was money that had been left in his pension plan when he worked for the railroad four years earlier. The check was for the same amount of money that we had paid in tithing, 

       
     After Ray died I had no idea how we would live, but I received a check for $400 each month from Social Security to support our family. I didn't even know about social security and had no idea how we were going to live. Each month I paid our tithing and have never to this day gone without. There was a time I had to work three jobs and money was very tight--all I could do was pay the bills, but I have been truly blessed and have never gone without the necessities of life.

Malachi 3:10, KJV: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

Because we paid tithing we were able to go to the temple and be sealed as a family for time and all eternity. Before he died and while Ray was so ill he had a messenger come to him and tell him he had a mission on the other side before the second coming of the Savior.  Later in my life I was given a blessing telling me that Ray was like a mission president on the other side sending people out to preach the gospel to those in spirit prison. 

 

What if you find yourself suddenly single…..

    We were expecting our fourth baby when I lost my husband, Ray, to a brief battle with melanoma, a deadly black cancer that invaded his body with a brain tumor and metastasized. I watched in terror as this once six-foot, 175 pound athletic figure lost all of his hair after cobalt therapy and dwindled to a mere 120 pounds.  Still, during his illness we could often feel the warm embrace of the Savior’s love. Each day we listened to the recording of the New Testament and had a strong testimony of life after death. Not only that, we believed that families could be together for ever.

   Ray often said to me while he was ill, “For your sake I hope this works out, but I feel that Christ has come to call me home.”  Then one day I walked into our bedroom and saw he was talking to someone that I could not see. I asked who he was talking to and he turned to the messenger and said, “Can I tell my wife?’ then he turned back to me and said “ I can only tell you part of it. I have a mission on the other side before the second coming of the Savior.”  He died several months later.

IN THE BELLY OF THE WHALE

For several months after his death I was emotionally stable.  Maybe in shock, but definitely sustained by a higher power.  It was after the birth of our baby that the dark shroud of depression gripped me in a death lock.

It was on a Holliday weekend in July I went into labor. My relatives and friends were out of town….my mother, my mother-in-law, my sister, my best friends…all out of town.  I felt so alone.  I didn’t want to go to the hospital, but when my pains were five minutes apart I knew I had to go. It was evening when my neighbor nervously drove me to the hospital. In the labor room the doctor broke my water to speed up delivery.  After all, it was a holiday weekend for him too.  I went into shock and I began shaking all over.  My blood felt like ice water and nurses started piling warm blankets on top of me. My doctor gave me a shot of Demerol and within a few minutes I was berserk.  I ranted and raved most of the night, not remembering that I had delivered a baby girl.  I tried to get out of bed and leave the hospital and kept repeating Ray’s vital signs just before he died. I had cared for him at home and we were alone when he died. Who knew I was allergic to Demerol?

As I was coming out of this quagmire of darkness, I recall being at the end of a long, long tunnel and at the end was a warm spiritual person who emanated light and love. I thought it was the Savior.

By noon I had sobered up and was fairly lucid when my parents came to see me.  The hospital had told them I had likely suffered a mental break-down and I might never recover. I was exhausted and deeply depressed.  Nurses had ignored my request to see the baby so I walked to the nursery with my parents.  There was a note on the crib that said, “Do not take to mother.”

She was a beautiful baby with dark hair and dark eyes, but I was sad because she had no father.  

By evening, the doctor realized I was allergic to Demerol and in a few days I was released to go home, but at home the depression did not subside, it got worse.  I wanted to die. Friends encouraged me to count my blessings but that only made me feel worse.  I knew I had blessings and felt guilty I wasn’t finding joy in those blessings.

I now know that I had postpartum depression and also that depression can be caused by anger you turn in on yourself, feeling trapped and guilt.  I had all of those feelings.  I went to counseling and it took me about ten months to overcome the depression.  I learned that I could function on my own with the help of a higher power.  I read the scriptures every day and as I did I felt the spirit.

As I started to recover, I thought of all of the other widowed or single women in the world and wondered what I could do to help them.  How could I use my pain and loneliness to help them? I started a support group for widowed and divorced women…a go on from where you are and grow group.  Over the years more than 400 women have been involved in the group and gained strength from each other.

Since that time I returned to school and finished my B.A., obtained a master’s degree in counseling and later a Ph.D. in Holistic Nutrition. Over the years I have counseled thousands of people who were depressed and watched healing come into their lives.

Now, I am realizing there is a need to help others overcome depression, so the next blog I will write will be on activities and supplements to help get rid of depression. 

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Patty is the author of the book, “Defeating Depression & Beating the Blues, “ by Pat Webb