Segullah Journal

WHY IS IT THAT we are born into the world with clenched fists and leave with outstretched fingers? This question from the Jewish Talmud rises in my mind as I consider the writings in this edition of Segullah. None of the authors wrote with its title in mind, yet the themes of gripping and releasing, of [...]

I SHIFTED MY TODDLER’S weight a little higher on my hip, pulled the heavy glass door open, then followed my four-year-old into the restaurant, eyes scanning the lunchtime crowd for my friends. There they were, Justine and Kylie, waving and smiling from a padded vinyl booth across the room. This was a big day: after [...]

The other day my eight-year-old son, Matt, approached me in the kitchen. “Mom, I just realized something that’s freaking me out,” he said with a slightly furrowed brow. I was intrigued. “Oh yeah? What did you just realize?” His eyes widened. “I’m alive!” he announced. “I mean, I’m living. It’s so freaky!” I smiled, remembering [...]

I SHIFTED MY WEIGHT on the pew and sighed as the sacrament meeting speaker stood to begin his talk. Seven months pregnant, I was swollen and sore, big-bellied, and exhausted from the constant demands of my five young children who were crawling on and off my nearly nonexistent lap, whispering (or not) in my ear, [...]

I LICK THE ENVELOPE and press it shut, affix the stamp, and place it in the mailbox with a sigh of satisfaction. This is my fourth letter to Amy. I’ve been writing to her every week since she checked herself in to a substance-abuse rehabilitation program. Amy, my neighbor’s live-in niece, first came to church [...]

The atmosphere in the newborn intensive care unit was hushed, the light dim. My son Sam, one week old, lay naked on a padded warming bed, covered with a mess of tubes and wires. IV lines in his hands and feet, monitor leads on his chest, a ventilator tube down his throat—all connecting him to [...]

FOR YEARS I HAD BEEN HALF-EXPECTING the phone call, but it still brought a jolt when it came: Thelma was in the hospital, expected to die within days. I was Thelma’s visiting teacher. Although she wasn’t a member of the Church, sending sisters to her home was a tradition in our ward. Her home was half [...]

(Chiasmus) Prelude: Hymn #85, Verse 1 How firm a foundation, ye Saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in his excellent word! What more can he say than to you he hath said Who unto the Savior for refuge hath fled? I. A Token (2004) NEXT TO MY MIRROR hangs a small plaque: [...]

MY ELDEST CHILD recently completed elementary school. On her last day I came to watch the “clap-out,” the annual farewell march of the sixth graders through the school hallways. Students, teachers, and parents lined up to slap palms with the graduates, while a tear-jerky song about friendship played over the intercom. As my daughter came into [...]

Lita Little Giddins joined the Church at age eighteen and served a mission to England Leeds in 1986-7. She earned BA and MS degrees from Brigham Young University. A gifted performer, Lita continually uses her talents to help share the gospel. She starred as Egyptus in Michael McLean’s premier production of The Ark, and is [...]

Introducing Segullah, Part I And Eve . . . was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression, we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient. (Moses 5:11) I OFTEN PRAY WHILE DRIVING. Usually I’m discreet [...]

Beverly Brough Campbell served for twelve years as director of International Affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., she worked with ambassadors and other leaders in the nation’s capital and at the U.N. to open doors of understanding and access for the Church throughout the world. Brigham Young University [...]