Shalyn gave her farewell talk to the Maple Meadows 1st ward on Sunday July 20, 2014. She had lots of friends come and support her and tell her goodbye. She did a wonderful job!
My farewell talk July 20th 2014
Topic: Faith
Master the Tempest is
Raging
Story from Band: Always quiet being told to play louder. To
concert band spring tour of senior year. Playing on triangle, barely hitting
the triangle, Wilson stopping the whole band “Shay I never thought I’d say this
but I need a quieter triangle.” Everyone laughing. Microphone on triangle.
How I was given the topic: Few Sundays ago I wanted to see
what my topic was going to be so that I could start thinking about it and start
getting ideas and write and re write it. When I asked Brother Treanor he told
me to take a week and think about if I wanted to choose my own topic. I spent a
week thinking about what I wanted and the topic Faith kept coming into my head.
The next Sunday I still wanted to see what topic he would give me so that I
could see if I should take his or if I could somehow combine the two. So I sent
Brother Treanor a message asking what I should talk about, and the first few
words of his text were. “How about faith.” So I guess that is what I am meant
to talk about. I hope you can all learn something not through me but through
the spirit and I hope that through this talk I will also learn more as well.
Before I really get into my talk let’s talk about the basics
of faith.
What is faith? In the Miriam Webster dictionary it says
that the definition is loyalty, complete trust and a firm belief in something
for where there is no proof. While these definitions are true there is more
of it. In Alma 32:21 it states “If ye have faith ye hope for things which are
not seen, which are true.” On the LDS website under topics there are a few more
words to what faith really is. Faith is a principle of action and power. Faith
means action. Faith without works is dead. Whenever we have a goal that we are
working for, we are exercising faith. We are hoping for something that we
cannot see.
Faith is a big factor in my life. We all
have our own trials but I know for a fact that if I didn’t have faith I would
be a completely different person. When I get hurt or really down sometimes I
just want to stay hurt. I don’t want to believe that things will get better I
don’t even want to feel better but even when I try to push it down in my heart
the spirit is still there saying “Shay you know things will get better, hold it
out, be positive and stay faithful, everything will be ok.” I don’t know what I
would do if I didn’t have the spirit whispering those words to me. It just
comes to show that God really is in charge and he knows what we need to keep
going.
Now with Faith there were so many ways that I could go about
talking on Faith. There are many scriptures, stories, and hymns. For the first
week I tried thinking about what direction I wanted to take. Last Sunday I was
looking through the hymn book trying to find all the hymns on faith and then
writing down their scriptures. It took a long time…It wasn’t till later that
day I remembered what my favorite hymn was. I looked under the topic of faith
and there it was. Master the Tempest is Raging written by Mary Ann Baker. The
story of how this song came about is a wonderful story and is full of faith.
In the first verse we
can put ourselves in the shoes of the fearful disciples in that boat on the Sea
of Galilee.
Master,
the tempest is raging!
The billows are tossing high!
The sky is o’ershadowed with blackness,
No shelter or help is nigh;
Carest Thou not that we perish?
How canst Thou lie asleep,
When each moment so madly is threat’ning
A grave in the angry deep?
Now imagine yourself on that boat. Even if Christ was right
next to you, if there was a terrible storm outside and you were on a boat
wouldn’t you still be scared? I love this verse because it shows that it’s ok
to have fear when you are in a scary situation. If the Disciples of Christ
feared it’s ok for us to have fear when we are situations. But we can’t stay
holding on to that fear. In these
situations we could just sit around and sink and let the storm over take us.
But when we exercise faith we take his hand and let him guide us through and we
really rely on him to help us get out of these trials. The storm might not stop
immediately when we ask for help but it will get better. We always need to
remember that.
The second verse she wrote in memory of her trials.
Master,
with anguish of spirit
I bow in my grief today;
The depths of my sad heart are troubled—
Oh, waken and save, I pray!
Torrents of sin and of anguish
Sweep o’er my sinking soul;
And I perish! I perish! dear Master—
Oh, hasten, and take control.
Mary Ann Baker, her sister and her brother were left as
orphans when their parents died of tuberculosis. She and her siblings all lived
together until their brother was stricken with the same disease. With the
little amount of money they had they sent him to Florida in hope that he could
receive treatment and recover. In just a few weeks their brother also died.
Mary Ann Baker and her sister did not have enough money to travel to Florida
for the funeral or to bring his body back to where they lived in Chicago. I
can’t imagine how hard that would be.
You can see in this verse that she is asking for help. That
is what we need to do. When we bow in our grief and our hearts our troubled
those are the times when we really need to look to Christ and ask for help. In
the Book called Our Latter Day Hymns The stories and The Messages we can see
what she wrote when she was going through her trials. She wrote “although we
mourned not as those without hope, and although I had believed in Christ in
early childhood and had always desired to give the Master a consecrated and
obedient life, I became wickedly rebellious at this dispensation of divine
providence. I said in my heart that God did not care for me or mine. But the
Master’s own voice stilled the tempest in my unsanctified heart, and brought it
to the calm of a deeper faith and a more perfect trust. “
I believe we can all relate this to ourselves. Even if it’s
not with every trial we go through there is always that one that hits us the
hardest and we feel like giving up would be the best answer, to turn away and
to let the trial overtake us. If we could all just have faith and let Christ
take control things could go so much better, but we all have those moments.
It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s ok to feel hurt and fear. But “Faith and
fear cannot coexist in the same heart during the same time.” This statement is
one I used to worry about a lot because I didn’t fully understand it. I always
felt bad when I was scared or when I felt fear because I always felt “Oh I’m
afraid that must mean I don’t have faith.” However this is not true, what I
have found to be true is that it’s ok to feel fear but if we don’t act on that
fear and get it out of our hearts that’s when we don’t have faith. We need to
take that fear, knowing that it isn’t what we want and find a way to turn that
fear into faith.
The third verse of this song is described as the aftermath
of it.
Master,
the terror is over,
The elements sweetly rest;
Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored,
And heaven’s within my breast;
Linger, O blessed Redeemer!
Leave me alone no more;
And with joy I shall make the blest harbor,
And rest on the blissful shore.
I feel that this verse portrays the most comfort. Once we
get out of our trials, the terror is over, the elements sweetly rest. How
wonderful is that? If that’s what we can feel when we exercise faith then
that’s all I want to do. I always want to have faith through my trials.
I think that the chorus has a lot of comforting words in it
as well.
The
winds and the waves shall obey Thy will,
Peace, be still!
Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea,
Or demons or men, or whatever it be,
No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Master of ocean, and earth, and skies;
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, be still! Peace, be still!
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, peace, be still!
Christ can control everything. When we rely on him no storm
will be too strong. No trial will be too hard. Christ overcame the world. He
could have stopped it. But he wanted to follow God’s will. Not his own. This is the same as us. We can’t necessarily
stop trials from coming at us but if we know that God knows more than we do and
if we can have faith and follow his will, things will turn out for the best. We
can all have peace when we exercise faith.
When we have faith we can do anything. In Luke 17:6 it states “And the Lord
said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this
sycamore tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea;
and it should obey you.” We can get through any trial that is thrown at us if
we just have faith. With Christ anything is possible.
I never thought I’d be serving a mission. I only decided about 8
months ago, December of last year that I was going to serve. And what a
blessing that has turned out to be. I am so excited to be able to serve in the
Texas Houston mission. I know that I will have a lot of hardships and that
there will be times full of trials. But I know that if I just have faith and
use that faith to make me stronger and use those trials to make me stronger I
can do anything. As long as I have faith I know I’ll be able to touch at least
a few hearts. And if that’s all I do on
my mission is plant the seed and touch other people’s hearts I will call that a
successful mission for myself.
I also know that all of you can get through anything. As long as
you have faith and trust in God will you can do anything.
I love this gospel I know it’s true with all my heart. I’m so
thankful
