Mountains to Climb, by Sharron Collier

 (I am sharing a talk my mother gave at her church this past Sunday.  As I read it, I learned so much more about my mother and the incredible amount of faith she has and wanted to share it with those who read my blog.  My mother is incredible.  This is her story...)

In his April 2012 Conference talk  “Mountains to Climb,”  President Eyring said, “I heard President Spencer W. Kimball, in a session of conference, ask that God would give him mountains to climb. He said: ‘There are great challenges ahead of us, giant opportunities to be met. I welcome that exciting prospect and feel to say to the Lord, humbly: Give me this mountain, give me these challenges.’”

President Eyring went on to say that President Kimball’s words so inspired him that he prayed for mountains to climb. Much to his surprise, two days later the Lord answered his prayer and he was amazed at the difficulty of his new challenge. He advised that probably we shouldn’t pray for challenges but we should wait for the Lord to decide when we are ready for them; and when challenges do come, if we face them with faith in Jesus Christ, the hardest times in life can be a blessing to us. 

I have given much thought to a simple statement President Eyring then made about faith. He said the solid basis for a foundation of faith is personal integrity – simply choosing the right whenever a choice is placed before us. What an absolutely profound statement! I have never thought of my faith in this way, being built on my own personal integrity.  Personal integrity is not only being honest in our dealings with others but also being true to our identity as sons and daughters of God – no matter what our afflictions, trials and challenges might be. Personal integrity is striving to do as Jesus would do even when our body is hurting or our heart is aching. It means living up to our privileges even when we don’t feel our prayers are being answered. It’s having sunshine in our soul no matter how stormy the weather. It’s striving to make our attitude the same as God’s attitude.

Personal integrity is always remembering Him even when it’s difficult to feel Him near. Personal integrity is making the best of a bad situation or as Elder Wirthlin’s mother advised him, it’s “come what may and love it.” Personal integrity is enduring to the end and enduring it well.

The Lord stressed to Joseph Smith the importance of his personal integrity even in the horrible conditions of Liberty Jail. He said, “And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?”

When trials come our way, we can remember our Savior, who not only suffered our trials but everyone else’s too. Through it all, He never lost sight of who He was. Our challenge in life is to follow Him. We can also remember that trials will give us experience and are for our good. Like you, I have had many trials and there is not a challenge that I haven’t loved and been sincerely grateful for because of the knowledge and strength it brought to me, and because each trial drew me nearer to my Heavenly Father. If I exercised my faith, striving to make God’s attitude my attitude in my trial, the challenge became easier for me.  

I would like to share my personal story to demonstrate how my own basic foundation of faith (or sense of who I really was) helped me with the mountain of difficulty that challenged my early years. 

When I was two years old, I was walking – or so my mother told me. I quickly learned to run, for I had a brother 14 months older than I, who I felt a need to either chase after or get away from, depending on his mood. But most of all, I loved to dance – to twirl and twirl on my tippy-toes like a ballerina. By the end of my second year, my mother was considering putting me in a dance class. She thought I was very talented and I certainly had a passion for dancing.

Shortly after my second birthday, my mother put me to bed one night with a low-grade fever. I slept through the night, but in the morning I got out of bed and fell to the floor. I awakened my parents with my crying. They rushed to me and discovered I had a high fever. Even more alarming was that I couldn’t stand up. I had no strength in my legs. A doctor diagnosed polio. Almost overnight my legs were paralyzed and paralysis was apparent in my arms, shoulders, trunk, back and neck. My father gave me a blessing and miraculously my body recovered except for one leg and hip.

My parents desperately took me from one hospital to another, one doctor to another, one physical therapist to another. Everyone tried diligently to bring life back to my lifeless leg and hip. I was just as determined to be well again. I endured needles punctured over every inch of my leg to determine which nerves were active and which had been destroyed. For years, I gritted my teeth through painful physical therapy. I spent 4-6 months in the hospital every year or so from age 8-16 undergoing experimental surgeries most of which didn’t work. In those days, parents were not allowed to stay with their children in the hospital – or even visit them except for two hours on Sunday. No other visitors were allowed.

When not in the hospital, I enjoyed being in my home with loving parents and siblings who refused to see any way that I should be given special treatment. My parents encouraged me to exercise faith and prayer that I would get well. They also encouraged me to develop my talents, do well in school, learn to play the piano, busy myself in learning crafts and in serving them and my brothers and sisters in our home.

Doctors didn’t allow me to use a brace or crutch, thinking that the best way to rehabilitate my leg was for me to not become dependent on braces and crutches. The only way I could walk, then, was to reach down with my arm and hand and hold my paralyzed knee in place with every step I took.

I was quite a walking spectacle. Children stared at me. Parents stared at me or looked the other way and looked back at me when they thought I wasn’t watching. I heard people whispering behind my back – what’s wrong with her, she looks weird, she’s a cripple. Sometimes a kid would call out, “Hey, Hop-along,” or some other rude remark.  I walked slowly – too slow for others to walk with me. I fell often.  In school I felt further isolated because I wasn’t allowed to go out for recess or take PE classes because I was crippled. School mates didn’t speak to me – just ignored me.

I felt ashamed of myself, which overwhelmed the friendly, fun-loving, creative little girl that I was. I became shy and withdrawn. I began living below my privileges because of my false beliefs about myself. I defined myself by my handicap.  

Thankfully, I viewed myself quite differently during my 4-6 month hospital stays. Fifteen to twenty girls, all with various disabilities, lived in the hospital with me. About that many boys lived on the opposite side of the hospital. We weren’t “different” in the hospital environment. We didn’t even consider ourselves as handicapped, although each of the patients had disabilities they were dealing with, many much more serious than mine. We needed each other and became fast friends. 

I loved encouraging the other girls, helping them with their needs, entertaining and teaching them things I knew, and learning from them anything they could teach me. We joined the boys every day in a school room where we had one teacher who taught grades 1-8. Each day I would complete my lessons and then help others with theirs. We had wheelchair races. I could outdo any boy in our crutch races and walking on stilts using crutches. I also was the yo-yo champ and the Ping Pong champ. 

There was a piano in the hospital auditorium and the staff allowed me to go there every day and practice the piano. There was no one to teach me so I just tried to figure it out for myself. Even when I had surgery on my back and stomach and was in a body cast for four months, a nurse would wheel me on a gurney up to the piano and laying on my stomach and pulling myself up to the keyboard I would practice the piano. It was during that time that I was a freshman in high school. The hospital didn’t have any teacher for me so I studied my textbooks on my own so I wouldn’t fall behind.

There was no Church in the hospital and no LDS patients. I loved the Gospel more than anything. I prayed every morning and night and read scripture stories every day. I missed being able to go to Church. I started teaching Primary songs to the other girls. They taught me their Bible school songs. When I was eleven, I started gathering some girls around me for a Sunday School and I would teach them hymns and Book of Mormon stories. Every week our group got larger and larger. The boys heard about our Sunday School and wanted to join us. I got permission to hold Sunday School in the Cafeteria, which had enough room for everyone who wanted to come. Some would be wheeled in on their beds, others in wheelchairs, and others would come in on crutches. I would conduct the meeting, lead the songs, and teach the Gospel. Often a nurse or doctor would quietly stand in the back of the room and listen to what was going on. I don’t know if any of those children or adults ever joined the Church but I know seeds were planted.

I loved being in the hospital because I was normal there. I could be my true self and that far outweighed painful surgeries, physical therapy, traction, and even missing my family.  Life was difficult in the normal world and the most difficult thing for me was knowing that the normal world was where I needed to live my life. I didn’t understand it then but I saw myself as a child of God in the hospital; I saw myself as nothing but a cripple in the normal world. I didn’t have the tools to face the normal world with complete personal integrity – still I kept trying to do the best I could.

When I was 10, my grandmother took me to Elder Harold B. Lee for a blessing. Elder Lee blessed me that I would be made whole. My grandmother was thrilled with the blessing and told me it meant if I prayed with enough faith, I would be made well. Every night I prayed with all the faith I knew how to muster. Each morning I awoke and the first thing I would try to do is move my ankle. It never would move.

When I was 15, I received my Patriarchal Blessing. To my utter amazement, the Patriarch blessed me that I would be made whole. The words rang in my ears. What did they mean? How could I be made whole if I wasn’t healed? Did I need to pray with even greater faith? How could I do that?  The question lingered in my mind and heart for a few more years. I graduated from high school. I was so glad to be done. They were the most difficult years of my life – so lonely, so bluntly made aware that I had no friends, so handicapped socially and emotionally because of how I had succumbed to my physical affliction by defining myself as a cripple. 

I carried my heavy burden to Provo to attend BYU. BYU was a very friendly campus and everyone said “hi” to each other as we walked the campus. At first I felt unnerved when someone said “hi.” I didn’t want to see them stare at me but I soon saw that they didn’t stare – but they looked right in my eyes and smiled. I began speaking to everyone I saw, too. 

I heard some students talking about “climbing to the Y.” That’s when I saw it – that beautiful white “Y” high up on the mountain. It fascinated me. How could anyone possibly climb up to it. I knew I couldn’t. Just walking from my dorm in Heritage Halls to the Smith Field House (which was the center for all campus activities in those days) seemed impossible to me. After making that trek the first day I was there, I called my father and told him I couldn’t do it. He wisely advised I could quit and come home or I could make the best of a bad situation and figure out a way to make it work. He always said that: Quit or make the best of a bad situation. I always chose the latter.

I lived in Heritage Halls, in an apartment with 5 other girls. I hadn’t known any of these girls previously. They ignored my handicap. They expected everyone to cook and clean – including me!! When any one of them went somewhere, they asked the others if they wanted to go – including me!! They even walked slowly when they walked with me. Here they were – normal girls – and they included me in everything they did. I believed they thought I was normal!

I grew stronger and stronger as I walked the physically challenging campus. By the end of my second year, I climbed up to that beautiful “Y” on the mountain. 

After climbing to the “Y” I reflected on how my life had changed at BYU. Not only had I climbed that mountain, but I had reached the summit of my personal journey up to that point. And in the process I had been made whole. Being made whole for me was no longer about being healed from my paralysis. Being whole was being restored to my own sense of personal worth, being defined by who I was as a daughter of God, as a friend, a student, yes – a mountain climber, and so many other characteristics rather than one glaring flaw.  I had been made whole – whole in my heart and mind, whole in my total soul. I still had a weakness (my leg) but it wasn’t who I was. It was just a weakness that had actually turned my soul into one of strength.

I was evaluating a missionary recently in the MTC for the reading tutoring program I serve in there. He wore hearing aids and had marked on his form that he was uncomfortable reading in front of others. I had him read two verses of scripture for me. He read perfectly. He comprehended what he read. He competently defined the vocabulary words I asked him about. I said to him, “You do so well with reading. Why did you mark that you feel uncomfortable reading in front of others?” He said, “Oh, I guess that’s because I have a hearing disability and because I struggled with pronunciation as a child and others made fun of me. The memory of those experiences makes me feel uncomfortable reading in front of others.” I told him my story and told him to pray to be made whole so that he would not handicap himself as a missionary by holding on to how he defined himself as a child.

That’s the message I want to share with you as you go through your trials – first of all, to meet them with personal integrity, remembering who you are and how much Heavenly Father loves you and how willing He is to ease your burdens and guide you through your trials, and the truth that your trials are for your learning and experience which will ultimately bring you back to Him. Secondly, sometimes our trials can be so difficult that we become consumed with them and defined by them. Again, if we keep trying to choose the right, Heavenly Father will heal our soul so that we can bear our affliction and yet continue to be happy, grateful, submissive, gentle to others, humble, etc.

It helps me to remember He who descended below all things will come to our aid. He will comfort and uphold us. He will strengthen us in our weakness and fortify us in our distress. He will make weak things become strong.

Christ came to take upon himself our pains, sicknesses, and infirmities – to learn how to help us through our mortal debilities. The Atonement is not just for sinners and not just for sins. It is for disappointment, heartache, bitterness over betrayal, unfairness, injustice, loneliness, sorrow of every kind, physical and emotional weaknesses – and many other things.

Christ suffered the pains of a little girl struck with polio and her struggles to heal her whole soul. He knew that if she took advantage of opportunities to choose the right even when there was no one to guide her, to lift and serve her fellow hospital mates, doing her best to make the best of very difficult situations, that she would gain experience to do those very things at BYU and then throughout her life. And that would make her whole.

I didn’t realize it then, but it was the Atonement that guided me along my path. Having lived a perfect life, my Savior then chose to experience my (and our) imperfect lives. He was made like us (mortal) so that He could know according to the flesh how to succor us – to comfort, assist, nurture and help us.

 President Henry B. Eyring said, “If we have faith in Jesus Christ (and I have to keep reminding myself that means remembering who I am as well as who He is and always choosing the right), the hardest as well as the easiest times in life can be a blessing.”

When I climbed Y Mountain I realized the significance of climbing a mountain. It was then that my heart was filled with gratitude for the childhood challenge I had been given and for the loving presence of the Savior and angels He sent to comfort me and guide me. The mountain of my childhood affliction was just a hill compared to other mountains I have and most likely will have in my life. But I am so grateful for that first mountain for it taught me how to climb the big ones. I am an experienced mountain climber now. 

I know God lives and loves me. I know the Savior knows my most intimate needs and never, no never will forsake me. I know the scriptures and our modern day prophets give us counsel that heals our souls and makes us whole. I know that if we remain true to our God-given identity, the Lord will say to us, as He did to Joseph Smith, “My son or my daughter, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but for a moment. And if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high.”