Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another followHIM Favorites. John and I are sharing a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, we are in Alma 13 through 16 today, and you’ve told me you got a story, so take it away.

John Bytheway: 00:16 There’s a great phrase that Alma uses in a very difficult circumstance, I mean a horrific circumstance, where Alma and Amulek are witnessing people being killed in a fire. It’s horrible. And Amulek says, “Behold, perhaps they will burn us also.” And Alma says, this is Alma 14:13, “Be it according to the will of the Lord. But behold, our work is not finished, therefore they burn us not.”

  00:41 That idea of if I’m still alive, my work is not finished, is fascinating to me. And I remember a talk Elder Brook P. Hales gave. You can find it in your May 2019 Ensign. And he talked about a woman named Patricia Parkinson, who was born with normal eyesight, but at age seven she started to go blind. She attended Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind in Ogden. That was at nine years old. She had to be at a boarding school away from home. And then at 11, completely lost her eyesight. Moved home permanently at age 15.

  01:12 And listen to what she did. Her work’s not finished. She went to college, graduated with an undergraduate degree in communication disorders and psychology. After a heroic struggle against doubting university admissions officials, entered graduate school. Completed a master’s degree in speech language pathology. She now works with 53 elementary school students.

Hank Smith: 01:37 Wow.

John Bytheway: 01:38 And supervises four speech language technicians in her school district. She owns her own home, listen to this, Hank, and her own automobile. I was like, “Wait, what?” Which friends and family members drive when she needs transportation.

  01:55 Several years ago, it says she was in California with family members and three-year-old nephew said, “Aunt Pat, why don’t you just ask heavenly father to give you new eyes? Because if you ask heavenly Father, he will give you whatever you want. You just have to ask him.” And she was taken back by the question, but said, “Well, sometimes Heavenly Father doesn’t work that way. Sometimes you need to learn something so he doesn’t give you everything you want. Sometimes you have to wait.”

  02:23 Brother Hale said, “I’ve known Pat for many years, and recently I told her, I admire the fact she’s always happy.” And she said, “Well, you haven’t been at home with me, have you? I’ve had some rather severe bouts of depression. I’ve cried a lot. But from the time I started losing my sight, I knew that Heavenly Father and the Savior were with my family and me. We handled it the best way we could, and in my opinion, we handled it the right way. To those who ask me if I am angry because I’m blind, I respond, ‘Who would I be angry with? Heavenly father is in this with me. I am not alone. He is with me all the time.'”

  03:03 I just love that story. It reminded me of that my work is not yet finished. And here she is helping elementary school children. I just love the question, “Who would I be angry with? God has been with me.”

Hank Smith: 03:17 John, whenever someone asks me the question of, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Alma 13, 14, 15, these are essential reading. These are required reading for that kind of question. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. We’re with Dr. Ava Weitzman this week and it is a fantastic episode. And then come back here next week, we’ll do another followHIM Favorites.