Black Lilies

The Savior once taught me the beauty that lies in the middle of grief.

I'd just recovered some of the worst memories of what my father did to me. I am in the Celestial Room that I always imagine in my mind when I speak with the Savior like this. And this is what He said:

"Did you ever notice what sort of flower I put here in the vases?" His tone is so lighthearted.

I look closer at the vase that always sits on the table near the wall of the Celestial Room. Um, are those lotuses?

"Lilies," He says. "You should learn more about lilies. Incredible plants, if I do say so myself." He chuckles. "Rhizomes. You plant just one, and suddenly, there are many." He looks at me. "Yes. A beautiful plant indeed." He stands.

"This variety is one of my favorites. Sometimes they come out white, some pink." He picks one, twirls it in his fingers. The white petals spin into a blur -- and transform. "And some turn out black." He places the now black lily in my hands, gently closes my fingers over the stem. "They are beautiful too."

As Job said, being in pain does not make us "inferior" (Job 13:2). In the beauty of the black lily lies one of the best mysteries of God: your pain is beautiful. And you are beautiful in your pain. And as the Lord commanded thrice, in the New Testament, The Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants:

"Consider the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin.

And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.

Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, even so will he clothe you, if ye are not of little faith." (3 Nephi 13:28)

And so He clothes even the black lillies like me in the garments of His holy priesthood. God's power is on the earth, and we have access to Him now in the holy temples. He makes the same eternal promise of salvation to all that will be baptized and come to Him.

Even dear, sad Job received peace at some point. "So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning" (Job 42:12).