“To Live Again—Forever,” Tambuli, Mar. 1991, 14
Fiction:
To Live Again—Forever
In Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22).
I realized that Todd was very unhappy that day. At first he didn’t even want to come out and play with me, and I’m his best friend! Then, after a little encouragement from his mother, he did come out.
“How about playing with the ball?” I asked hopefully. “We can try your new bat! I’ll even pitch to you first!”
“No, I don’t feel like it,” Todd said, pushing his hands in his pants pockets and kicking a stone off the sidewalk. “I don’t feel like doing anything!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You’re always ready to play a game of ball, especially if I’m willing to pitch to you first. Are you sick?”
“I just don’t feel very well. My grandma died,” Todd answered, quickly brushing away a tear from his cheek.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I guess you miss her a lot.”
“Miss her! I’ll never see her again!”
“Yes, you will,” I said. “She just went to the spirit world.”
“The what?”
“The spirit world,” I repeated. “That’s where everyone goes when he dies.”
“Will I really see her again? And can I visit on weekends like I used to?”
“Not now—because you’re still alive. But after you die, you’ll go to the spirit world too.”
“Really?” Todd asked excitedly. “Will she make me my favorite chocolate cake?”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said. “But I do know that someday everyone will be resurrected.”
“What does that mean?” Todd asked.
“That means that your spirit and your body will get back together, and you will live again!”
“How do you know all this?” Todd asked, suddenly suspicious.
“My mother taught us that in family home evening last Monday.”
“So you didn’t make it all up?”
“No. It’s true!”
“Okay. I still miss her, but maybe I can play just one game with you.”
“Great! Let’s go!” I thought that I had convinced him and that everything would be all right, but that evening Todd came over to our house with his parents. They seemed really upset. I’m in trouble now, I thought, so I tried to hide.
“Patrick, come here,” my mother called.
“Patrick,” Todd’s mother began when I entered the room, “today you told Todd that he would see his grandmother again. Now, no matter what we say, he won’t listen to anything different. Todd’s grandmother is dead, and there is no way that we’ll see her again. We need you to tell Todd that.”
“I can’t,” I said softly. Todd looked at me, and I knew that I was in real trouble.
“What do you mean you can’t?”
She was really upset with me, but Mom saved me. “What he means,” my mom began as she stepped forward and placed her hands on my shoulders, “is that we believe that Todd will see his grandmother again. And so will all of you.”
“But, Lisa,” Todd’s mother pleaded with my mother, “how can you know this? What proof do you have?”
“I’ll show you.” She let go of my shoulders, got her Bible, and turned the pages until she stopped and read this passage aloud: “Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
“And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves” (Ezek. 37:12–13).
“Lisa,” Todd’s dad asked my mother suspiciously, “is that a quote from your ‘Golden Bible?’”
“Oh, you mean the Book of Mormon. No, this is just a regular version of the Bible,” Mom replied.
“Well,” said Todd’s mom. “That’s the same Bible that we use. I wonder why we never saw that before.”
“We will all be resurrected as Jesus Christ was,” Mom explained. “That means that we will all live again, just as Patrick was telling Todd. In 1 Corinthians 15:21–22, it says, ‘For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
“‘For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.’” [1 Cor. 15:21–22]
They just stood there in silence for a moment, then Todd’s mom began quietly. “I guess I owe you an apology, Patrick. I never knew that was all in the Bible.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
“Does that mean … ?” began Todd, brightening again. “Does that mean that Patrick was right and that I will see Grandma again?”
“It seems so,” said Todd’s mom. “We’ll have to do some studying. We’ll probably be back to ask Patrick and his parents some more questions.”
“Great!” I said. “Anytime.”
Well, that’s how my day ended. Things turned out all right after all, and you know what? Todd’s family had the missionaries visit them the other night! They invited us over too. It was really great to see the missionaries teach my best friend the gospel. I hope that someday I can find the right scriptures quickly, as Mom and Dad and the missionaries do. Mom says that it just takes practice. So here it is—I’ve found my first scripture for you: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).
Illustrated by Larry Winborg