“Sunshine in the Soul”

I just came across this 2010 blog entry, which addresses a pet peeve of mine:

“The Real Meaning of the Term ‘Help Meet'”

In fact, I myself wrote a 2013 column for the Deseret News on the same topic:

“How was Eve ‘an help meet’ for Adam?”

One of my self-appointed missions in life is to help obliterate the term helpmeet from Mormon jargon.

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A nice little essay in the Deseret News:

“Blessed are the merciful”

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I found this moving:

“‘God Is So Good’: LDS Parents Give Powerful Testimony After Son Hit by SUV”

And, yes, I’m aware that some little children die despite the anguished prayers of their families.  My little infant granddaughter did.  And, no, I don’t have a neatly formulated answer to the question “why?”  In fact, I’m suspicious of neat answers to that question.

“Though he slay me,” says Job, “yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15).

To some, Job’s affirmation of faith will seem merely irrational.  Others will understand it as an expression of confidence in Someone who is infinitely wise and infinitely good, but whose ways won’t always be plain to us.

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In my high priests group yesterday, we had a good lesson based on Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s April 2017 conference talk, “Songs Sung and Unsung.”

First, we learned something about a hymn that is well-known to both Latter-day Saints and many other Christians:

* There is sunshine in my soul today,

More glorious and bright

Than glows in any earthly sky,

For Jesus is my light.

* There is music in my soul today,

A carol to my King,

And Jesus listening can hear

The songs I cannot sing.

* There is springtime in my soul today,

For when the Lord is near,

The dove of peace sings in my heart,

The flow’rs of grace appear.

* There is gladness in my soul today,

And hope and praise and love,

For blessings which he gives me now,

For joys “laid up” above.

* Oh, there’s sunshine, blessed sunshine,

When the peaceful happy moments roll.

When Jesus shows his smiling face,

There is sunshine in the soul.

Truth be told, it’s never been one of my favorites.  Quite a way down the list, actually.  But knowing something of the story behind it helps a bit:

Eliza Edmunds Hewitt, who wrote the lyrics, was born in 1851 and became a teacher in the Philadelphia public schools.  One day, however, perhaps because she had disciplined him, a reckless student hit her in the back with a piece of slate.  He hit her so hard, in fact, that she was bedridden for six months with a very painful spinal injury and in a full body cast.

She eventually recovered enough to walk, although recurrent pain afflicted her for the rest of her life, until her death in 1920.  This particular poem, though, was evidently written on one of the first days when she was able to get out of her bed and walk around a park near her home.  And knowing that fact gives me considerably more appreciation for her lyrics.