RECENTLY, I SHARED a story with my family at the dinner table, as I’m wont to do, and my teenage daughter Camille said, “Oh, more dad lore!” Apparently my kids refer to the crazy stories I’ve experienced as “dad lore.”
For some reason, I find myself in odd circumstances.
“Like what?” You might ask.
Well, being abducted at gunpoint is a good one (Issues of Faith, Oct. 29, 2021). Or how about my steering wheel came off while driving on the freeway (Issues of Faith, Oct. 28, 2022).
I once even had a million-dollar bribe. I haven’t written about that one yet, so stick around.
A story was added not long ago to the “dad lore.” I had a problem and used some awful judgment to make things much worse.
I needed to move a truck camper and there was a pallet in the way. There was a very large hornets’ nest underneath it.
I had an idea. It was a terrible idea, but I didn’t know that at the time. I decided that I would get the leaf blower, and blow the hornets away as my son Gavin moved the pallet.
You folks are clearly sharper than I, because you can see where this is going. I, however, could not. I expected that the leaf blower would blow the hornets away, not knowing what hit them.
As we proceeded with my ill-fated plan, the pallet was moved and I started skillfully blowing hornets away. These were extremely angry hornets.
Apparently, September is the worst time to confront a single hornet, much less a humongous hive.
As it turns out, the leaf blower only agitated them, and my son Gavin was the first to be attacked.
They came at him with a vengeance. I was swatting them, trying to get them off of his back, when the troops turned on me.
They chose my hair and neck as the points of attack.
My son ran into the house to shower.
I ran in the garage, and they followed me like a cartoon cloud of hornets above my head chasing me.
They apparently really hate leaf blowers. Who knew?
I later went inside to shower and change my clothes. I was showering, as vulnerable as it gets, and saw a frenzied hornet on the shower ceiling.
These little creatures just don’t give up! I didn’t even have the leaf blower to defend myself!
Why do I share this story, other than to help some other misguided soul out there considering the leaf blower as the preferred method to rid yourself of a hornets nest?
Sometimes we have a horrendous situation that we just make worse by bad choices.
Choices have consequences.
We all make mistakes.
Some temporal, such as my hornet fiasco, and some spiritual.
We might sin and do things that draw us away from God.
However, making more poor choices will never bring us joy.
An Article of Faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints states, “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.”
Not just some of us. Not just the ones who didn’t make mistakes. But all mankind may be saved.
We just need to decide to be obedient to God’s laws.
The good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that He is very patient, loving and forgiving.
God sent His only begotten Son to save us. All of us.
Even the ones who make terrible mistakes.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).
Part of my “dad lore” is that I stopped making some regrettable choices after having been on the wrong path for a few years, and I’ve never looked back.
God’s ways are better than our ways.
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Issues of Faith is a rotating column by religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. Bishop Jason Bringhurst is the leader of the Mount Pleasant Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Port Angeles, ComeUntoChrist.org. His email is jasonbring@gmail.com.
