In my home there is a room that in hindsight seems to have had a dedicated purpose. This room is affectionately known as the Yellow Bedroom. When I moved into this home in 1975 I had just had my first child, a little girl, and this small room with pale yellow walls became the nursery. Over the next thirteen years four more babies were introduced to our home and given a place in the Yellow Bedroom.
As the children grew older they began to occupy others rooms of the house and the mission of the little yellow room expanded. Over the next many years it became a place of safety and nurture for step children, my Grandma who had broken her hip, my mother as she recovered from quadruple bypass surgery on her heart, friends of my children who were here to attend school, and a place of recovery from addiction for two foster daughters and one Great Dane who came a puppy and evolved into a small live-in pony. No matter who occupied the Yellow Bedroom they become fully a part of our family.
There is something very sacred to me about inviting someone to be a part of my home and family. This experience has come to me through the blessing of childbirth and also as God has simply delivered others to my home for a time, and time after time it has seemed just right to invite them to be a part of us.
One day while I was reading the scriptures I ran across an ancient term for this experience. In the Book of Mormon we are told of a man named Zoram who leaves Jerusalem and travels to the Land of Promise with the family of Lehi. Zoram is given the great opportunity to move out of a city that is going to soon be destroyed and “have place” with Lehi’s family. The stipulations are that he must remain with the family and be true to his oath – keep his promises. (see 1 Nephi 4:34)
As I read about Zoram I was struck with the truth that the Lord’s offer to each of us is very similar. He has extended the opportunity to you and me individually to “have place” with Him. He says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2-3) To have place with someone is “to occupy the same space or location, to occupy the same position, class, capacity, character, situation, state, station, and to have the same job or work.”
Over the years I have come to terms with the fact that I cannot “give place” in the Yellow Bedroom to everyone my heart goes out to. Today the sweet little room is my place for prayer and study and writing. It comforts me to know that our Lord has “many mansions,” and that there is no shortage of room, no lack of “place.” As with Zoram, the only stipulation is that we remain committed to The Family and continue to grow in our ability to keep our promises.
The result of doing the will of the Lord, of keeping His commandments, of living true to my covenants is to “have place” with Him. That’s no small reward. It is to occupy the location, be gifted with capacity, and share in the work of God.
By Nannette W.
Posted Thursday, May 14, 2009
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