Words That Feed My Soul

I’m enriched when I feast upon the insights of other people, so I’ve developed a spiritual resource book. I collect poems, stories, essays, and anything else that inspires me and keep them in an indexed binder. I use the Ensign, good books, and friends as sources.

I’ve attached to the book’s cover a print depicting Christ, and I keep my resource book with my scriptures. On the title page, I’ve copied a poem by Emily Dickinson that describes how I feel:

He ate and drank the precious Words—

His Spirit grew robust—

He knew no more that he was poor,

Nor that his frame was Dust—

He danced along the dingy Days

And this Bequest of Wings

Was but a Book—What Liberty

A loosened spirit brings—

(In The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1960, p. 658.)

When I feel my spiritual reserves getting low, I take a few moments to open my book and enjoy some thoughts that lift my soul. I’ve also been able to draw on this material for lessons and sacrament meeting talks.

Once a week I transfer an excerpt from my resource book to a five-by-seven-inch index card and place it where my family can see it and enjoy it often.—Elizabeth A. Cheever, Ogden, Utah