"Brother Beardsley, Where Have You Been?"

Hello Brethren,

     I can not believe the outpouring of love and concern for both my temporal and spiritual welfare that has come from literally the world over. So much the inquiry that I felt the best way to answer them all was to blog about it.
     Life has been hard. Life has been challenging, and has at times left me feeling much like C.S. Lewis felt when he struggled through a hard point that rattled his faith to the very core of his foundation. Said C.S. Lewis:

"One runs the risk of asking: Where is God? . . . When you are happy. . . [you] turn to Him with gratitude and praise, [and] you will be. . . welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You [might] as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. . . . [Yet he was once there.] What can this mean? Why is [God] so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble? [C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: Seabury Press, Inc., 1961), pp. 4­5]"

That being said, life has never been at a point where I could not handle it. It is a little understanding that many Latter-Day Saints collectively understand- The Lord will never allow us to traverse waters of turmoil and despair, that we cannot overcome.

I felt somewhat at odds with how awesome becoming the closest I ever had become to the Lord - because of just how much harder Satan was snapping at my heals. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught,

“The nearer a person approaches the Lord, a greater power will be manifested by the adversary to prevent the accomplishment of His purposes.” (In Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball (1945), 132.)

When it seemed like I had that curbed, and I did, I faced a challenge I never had faced previously in my entire life. I discovered a pain one day in my lower abdomen which continued in intensity overnight. I tried to ignore it to the best of my ability, but it was in vain. The pain grew unbearable, and after a quick visit to Web M.D. , I knew I was on my way to the hospital for a probable issue involving my appendix. Well, It was indeed true, only somehow, a portion of some fat that naturally hangs on the outer-layer of our large intestines, got twisted up with my large intestines and my appendix. It began to act like those little twisty ties you put on the loaf of bread to keep it fresh. The doctor removed the damaged portions of fat, intestines and for good measure, my ironically perfectly healthy appendix.

That being said brethren, I am grateful for all of you. Your inquiries and love, searching me out emphatically gave me some courage, and I can say I came back to it all 100% in temporal and spiritual health on or around the 1st of March, 2011.

Thank you again brethren, I do love all of you. I love the Lord, and have a testimony that He does live. I know that Joseph Smith is his Prophet of the Restoration and that we have a true and living Prophet this day, even Thomas S. Monson. I sustain him, his counselors, the apostles- Indeed, I sustain all the Lord's anointed, and am grateful to be in the greatest Stake in Zion- The Lubbock Texas Stake. I leave this my testimony with you, in the name of the Holy One of Israel, even Jesus Christ, Amen.






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