“We Are Bound, and We Are Bound”
2024 BYU Women’s Conference
Thursday May 2, 2024
The first time I set foot on this Marriott Center floor was my freshman year at BYU, and I was trying out for cheerleader.
Several things went wrong that day, but the most memorable took place where you’re sitting right now.
They had set out a mini trampoline with a large foam pad next to it in case any of us wanted to demonstrate to the judges that we could use it to entertain a crowd. And because my maiden name was Wood, I was one of the last ones to go, and I hadn’t seen anyone try. So I went over to this side of the floor and I started running.
Now, I had grown up with a trampoline in my backyard, and I knew a few tricks, so I thought this would be easy. Should I do a front flip with a half twist? Or should I jump once, turn around, bounce, and then do a back flip?
But as I ran toward the trampoline and was picking up speed, I still hadn’t decided. So when I hit the mini tramp and vaulted into the air, instead of doing an impressive trick, I jumped straight up and came straight back down. I turned to the judges, who looked—well, they looked as surprised as I was! And trust me, it was entertaining.
I just hope things go better today. You don’t see a mini tramp back there anywhere, do you? But guess what? I made it!
Do you want to see a picture of me when I was a BYU cheerleader? Well, I’m not going to show you, because it was the 1980s and my hair was so big. If you saw it on this Jumbotron, trust me, it’s something you can’t unsee.
My friends, I’m excited to be together and have a chat about what matters most: the two great commandments. First, our love for God (because of His love for us) and second, our resultant love for each other.
What if I told you there was one question that would change the way you live that second law? Replace the lens through which you view the world and those in it. What if you knew this question would inform every decision you make going forward? Would you want me to ask it? Are you ready?
“Do I really believe that another person’s soul is as precious as my own?” And if the answer is yes, then everything changes.
In 2013, we went to hear The Tabernacle Choir perform with guest artist James Taylor. During the concert, my heart leapt when he began to sing lyrics that were so familiar to me:
We are bound together by the task
That stands before us
And the road that lies ahead.
We are bound, and we are bound.
For three decades I have been intrigued and inspired by this phrase: “We are bound, and we are bound.”
You and I have made covenants that link, attach, and connect us to Christ. But saying they bind us connotes something more to me, that we are stronger because of our covenant relationship with Christ—inseparable, even unstoppable, if we choose to be.
So first, we are bound.
But also, we are, all of us, travelers on a journey with a divine trajectory toward our heavenly home and heavenly parents. You and I are covenant travelers!
We are bound, and we are bound!
When my husband, Scott, was serving as an Area Seventy and had just finished his first stake conference, the leader who was training him turned to him and said, “Elder Runia, I know the Lord will bless you in your personal ministry.” I remember standing there, thinking to myself, “Scott is so lucky, because now he gets to have a personal ministry.”
Then in the very next general conference, Elder Hugo E. Martinez gave an entire talk titled “Our Personal Ministries.”
Have you ever viewed your life in this way? What will your ministry be?
Our Savior had a three-year mortal ministry. In the New Testament, we read that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power. Then He “went about doing good,” and He did it by ministering one by one.
As a freshman at BYU, I remember walking to class on a cold, crisp morning with several students in front of me on the sidewalk. Up ahead, I could hear short conversations taking place and saw that a man, most likely a professor, was walking toward us. I realized he was greeting each student as he passed them, and when he got close, I could finally hear what he was saying:
“Good morning! I hope you have a great day.”
It seemed sort of strange that he was repeating the same thing to each one of us, especially since we could hear him doing it! But when he passed me on the sidewalk, he looked me directly in the eye and said with conviction, “Good morning! I hope you have a great day!”
That was 45 years ago! And I still remember that moment and what I felt when he spoke to me.
I believe that every interaction, every exchange you have with another human changes you and changes them and becomes part of your personal ministry.
Jesus Christ made people His highest priority. He taught us to love God first and then turn and really look at each other, because heaven isn’t sky and clouds; it is faces. I love this thought! And people aren’t interruptions to what we’re trying to do; they’re the reason we’re here.
Recently, my friend Mindy shared this memory about when her four-year-old daughter, Maggie, announced she intended to become a swimmer.
As Maggie learned to swim, she had to keep at it, even after all of the basics had been learned. This little girl was determined not just to swim but to be a swimmer.
Mindy pointed out how in the process of practicing there can be discouragement when you haven’t yet achieved your goal.
“Some days,” she says, “you might technically be swimming, but you don’t feel much like a swimmer. The fact is, the best way to become a swimmer is to learn to love swimming.” For you and me, we might technically be called ‘to minister,’ but maybe we don’t feel much like we’re ministering.
I’m with Mindy! I submit the best way to become a person who ministers is to learn to love ministering.
She concludes, “Together, we can all lift and love through the process. When we do, what once felt like work begins to feel like play, and life [or ministering] becomes easy to love.”
During the filming of one of the most iconic scenes in a recent Star Wars movie, one of the younger actors worked up the courage to ask the older, seasoned actor in between takes how he was feeling, assuming he was probably tired of the process and the long hours. But instead, his mentor surprised him by saying something like, “Look what we get to do! How lucky are we?”
What if we thought of ministering in the same way?
It helps me to remember that the word covenant relates to gathering, connecting, uniting. It’s about the joining of hearts—our human with His divine.
The Lord is inviting covenant connection to Him, which blesses our connection to each other. I believe this looks like charity—something my friend Anthony Sweat invites us to see with new eyes.
Think about it. When we feel love from God, it causes us to have love for God. Or in other words, it creates this vertical relationship with Him.
“We love Him, because he first loved us.”
The byproduct of this relationship, charity, is a desire to turn sideways, to look horizontally and share love with others—to love like Him.
First we go up, and then we go out!
So right now I invite you to think of a time when you felt God’s love.
And I’m talking about something specific, not just a general feeling that God loves all of His children but a testimony that He knows you and loves you.
Maybe it was something kind someone said or did or a message in a talk you heard at church. Perhaps when you were praying, meditating, or reading the scriptures out in nature there was a tender moment that sort of felt like a coincidence, but then you realized, “Only God would have known I needed that right now.”
Have you seen the tender videos of a Deaf child who hears his father’s voice for the first time? The surprise and joy experienced is one of my favorites! Hearing our Heavenly Father’s voice can feel like that. Let me share one of my moments.
After our oldest son, Ryan, died, it was so heavy. And I remember wanting to tell my parents, but my dad died when I was 30, and my mom had been living with Alzheimer’s for several years and she didn’t often recognize her children anymore. Still, I felt prompted to visit her in Arizona. I remember sitting down next my mom with a photo album, showing her pictures of Ryan when he was little, then playing football in high school, later on his mission, and finally with his wife, Cari, and their four beautiful children. I started to cry, then she started to cry, and she reached out and hugged me, whispering, “Oh, Tammy.” And I remember thinking, “Only God would have known that I needed this right now.”
And I knew it was a singular, sacred moment because later when I was saying goodbye, I told her I loved her, and she patted my cheek and said, “You’re such a good boy.”
But I did have that moment.
I believe the Spirit is present when we record these moments, so take out your phone or a piece of paper, and I invite you to write down a time when you knew that God was aware of you and that He loved you.
It has been said that since God is the perfect anonymous giver, we will search our whole lives to uncover His hand. It is my witness that the love of Heavenly Father and your Savior is always there, even when it’s not easy to see it or feel it. I know of this struggle—times when I have longed to feel that connection, to feel God’s love.
Some physical, mental, or emotional struggles can dull, even mute, the connection we’re seeking. These are things we didn’t ask for, and it doesn’t mean we’re being punished or that we’re not worthy of God’s love.
In your lifetime, a prophet has said, “God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there.”
For me, trusting He is there while waiting for that connection to be restored is worth it!
So be patient with God and with yourself.
Now, if you’ve struggled to think of a time, I get it! I understand.
Maybe pick a clear night and step outside your back door. Turn on some beautiful music to invite the Spirit, then look up at the night sky and ask the one question that could change everything:
“Heavenly Father, how do You really feel about me?”
I promise it’s one of the sweetest messages you’ll receive.
This charity—the love of God that you wrote about on your phone—is the thing we are to pray for with all the energy of heart because it can fill the empty space we each have, that we try to fix with other things—like chocolate or Amazon. (These are just the first two things that come to mind!)
Whatever it is you’re experiencing, I promise His love can fill that void we have as humans living on a fallen planet.
And I submit our love for each other also helps fill that empty place. Some of you know my mantra: “She who loves the most and the longest wins!”
I told Scott, “This is what I want on my headstone when I die: ‘She who loves the most and the longest wins!’”
I also told him that I don’t want to be embalmed—I want to be dipped in chocolate.
Now I need to tell you a story that is neither flattering nor funny.
Several years ago, one of the sisters that I visited and ministered to was moving out of the ward. Before she left, I wanted her to know how grateful I was for her friendship and that I was really going to miss her. It had been a busy week for me, so I bought some chocolates and drove to her home to drop them off on my way to another meeting.
When she opened the door, I looked past her into a home that was full of boxes but also full of sisters from our ward. They were on their hands and knees cleaning the baseboards and floors.
I couldn’t even speak.
It was so obvious that what I was doing looked like “drive-through” ministering while they were, in fact, ministering like the Savior.
When I got back in my car and drove off, I just wept. What was I thinking? I loved chocolate, so I was giving her chocolate. But she didn’t need chocolate, as shocking as that sounds.
She needed help.
“And … ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; … administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.” And I would add, their needs.
Because we’re busy, do we sometimes find ourselves giving to others in the way we want to be given?
That day I learned a tough lesson. You can pretend to care, but you can’t pretend to be there. I can do better by showing up for others and remembering, like a Post-it note on my forehead, that it probably won’t be convenient, but the Savior was willing to be inconvenienced!
Scott and I attended a sacrament meeting years ago where a returned missionary spoke of being spiritually rescued in high school by a good group of friends. Then he looked into the congregation and asked with so much sincerity, “If you saw someone drowning, wouldn’t you reach down your hand and lift them up, rescue them? Shouldn’t we be doing that for each other?”
God could foresee how all of us living in a world of increasing disconnect would be struggling to stay afloat. Then, when the global events of 2020 hit, He knew it would bring such isolation and loneliness, we would feel at times like we were drowning!
There’s a Google trend right now with many people typing in the tender question “How to make a friend?”
You may be thinking, “Who would do that?” Well, I have a confession to make.
On our mission in Australia, I remember waking up one morning shortly after my mom died and feeling so helpless to lift myself out of the dark place I was in. So, I picked up my phone and without even thinking, I googled the word help. I typed in the word help. Maybe I was just curious to see if there were others in this same space who had found answers.
(By the way, googling “help” is, ironically, not helpful at all!)
What did help was that I got on my knees and prayed so that I wouldn’t feel so alone. I have found that pain places us behind a door from one another’s view, so no one could see I was hurting.
But I needed a friend then, and we all really need each other now!
So I want you to imagine in your mind’s eye a large medieval fortress with a towering wall around it. The battlements are set apart from each other, and it’s under attack.
Now hear these words from Martin Luther:
“The kingdom of God … is like a besieged city surrounded on all sides. … Each man has his place on the wall to defend and no one can stand where another stands, but ‘nothing prevents us from calling out encouragement to one another.’”
We often talk of the relief the Savior gives, but what of the encouragement and the relief we give each other as sisters?
What if our loving Father in Heaven knew that connection would suddenly become so important on this planet that He revealed to His prophet on this planet that these social interactions, even ministering to other humans, would be the antidote to what ails us?
What if? What if ministering isn’t only about lifting and blessing those I minister to? What if this is also healing me?
Do you remember in the Old Testament when Naaman wanted to feel better, to be healed of his disease? But when a prophet of God told him to go dip himself in a nearby river again and again, he couldn’t imagine that such a simple ordinary thing would bring him so much happiness.
“Believe in God; … that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.”
I believe in God’s divine arithmetic, that ministering was prepared for us to bless both the giver and the receiver as it boomerangs back.
There is a saying in the Pacific missions that I love. While serving there, it became mine, and today, it becomes yours!
Now is the time.
This is the place.
We are the ones.
And I really hope you’ll remember it! So I’ve written a song to help you. It’s called “We Are the Ones,” and I’d like to sing it for you now.
[Long pause.]
I’m just kidding. I didn’t do that. That would have been weird, right? But I hope you remember that quote. It’s a good one!
Let’s all of us push through those moments when we don’t feel like leaving the house. Or picking up the phone to tell someone we don’t feel like leaving the house. Or ghosting them because we don’t want to have to text, “Sorry, I don’t feel like leaving the house.”
(Do you know this feeling? Maybe don’t raise your hands, just raise your eyebrows!)
I believe with my whole heart that God did not intend for us to have a “drive-through” ministry.
And it is my testimony that ministering is for sure not about ticking a box. That would be a mistake. Just like the physical act of walking grounds you to the earth, ministering can ground us to our covenants and to each other.
We will still have days when we struggle to serve, but it always helps me to remember this stunning doctrine from President Henry B. Eyring: “When we offer succor [or help] to anyone, the Savior feels it as if we reached out to succor [or help] Him.”
My favorite image of Jesus Christ is when He has His arms outstretched to us. Let’s be His arms to lift up the hands that hang down, knowing that in the lifting our arms and our spirits are being raised as well.
Covenant connection is how He saves us and heals us while we’re serving each other. And the brilliant byproduct is our becoming like Him in the process.
We are bound, and we are bound.
I stand as a witness that God really doesn’t want His children left alone and struggling.
Let’s be like the people at the waters of Mormon to whom Alma basically asks, “Do you want to help lift the heavy load your sister in Christ carries?”
“Are you willing to sit with her at the bottom of that lonely canyon of grief?” “Can you give, both temporally and spiritually, according to her needs and her wants?”
What did these covenant seeking people do?
They clapped their hands for joy and exclaimed, “This is the desire of our hearts!”
They said yes!
Let’s say yes!
(Literally, let’s all say it together.)
Yes!
“Look what we get to do! How lucky are we?”
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.