Segullah Journal

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 [...]

BUCKETS IN HAND, the boys and I set off to pick blackberries. We’re lucky enough to live near a park with lots of wild growth around the perimeter. The berry canes reached out thorny and threatening, heavy with the succulent fruit. After taking a needed taste to confirm the readiness for picking, we smiled our agreement. [...]

I’VE ALWAYS DONE EVERYTHING LATER than my friends. I was the last girl in my Beehive class to wear makeup. I didn’t decide on a career until I was twenty-two. I left for my mission when I was twenty-three—nearly two years after most girls leave—and it took me nine years to finish my bachelor’s degree. And [...]

I walked into the room where you were; You looked so peaceful, resting there. So natural, like you’d looked many times over the two decades I’d watched you sleep. I leaned over and kissed your lips still warm, But not reciprocating now. I smoothed your snow-white hair with my hand. By small measure my heart [...]

There comes that moment When I realize It’s over. I’ve tried to tell myself He still cares, Still loves me, That he just needs a break, Some time away For everything to be normal again. I know he must feel the same Somewhere in his heart, He made the same vows After all We all [...]

I LOVE POLITICS. I love the thrill of negotiating, the high-flying movements of strategizing and creating a buzz in a community. I was heavily involved in politics in college, and stayed in local politics after college working at the local Chamber of Commerce. I loved mixing with the “good-old-boys” establishment and stirring the pot. Strategy lunches, [...]

I WRITE TO HONOR FEISTY MARRIAGES. “Honor” might be a bit strong, but let us get it straight from the beginning: a zesty relationship is the highlight of my life. I understand that not everyone feels the same, such as the three friends who were out to dinner with me last week at P.F. Chang’s. We [...]

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 [...]

Jane Manning James was a black Mormon pioneer known for her faith, endurance, and charity. She joined the Church at age nineteen in Connecticut. She and her family walked 800 miles to Nauvoo, where they were taken in by Joseph and Emma Smith at the Mansion House. Failing to find employment as her family members [...]

THREE YEARS AGO, film maker Scott Freebairn began filming tributes to black pioneers Jane Manning James, Green Flake, and Elijah Abel. Most of the footage was devoted to Jane James. Scott filmed Lita Giddins, Denise Cutliff and Tamu Smith—all of whom have portrayed that great pioneer—at “This is the Place Heritage Park” in Salt Lake City. [...]

CHANGE. It permeates our lives, constantly flavoring our existence. Sometimes it comes gently, freshening our daily routine with dewy sweetness. Other times its pungent sorrow steals our breath and leaves us gasping. Though we know to expect it, change often catches us off guard, leaving us unsettled and insecure. Times of transition are often the times [...]

OH, I CAN HARDLY SAY IT. I can hardly type it. I can hardly think it. Well, all right, here goes—empty nest. Now, that’s taken care of. And you know what? It wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, the EN Syndrome that many women face and fear is actually a misnomer. It should be renamed [...]

I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT OF MYSELF as strong, self–sufficient and steadfast. Yet the challenges and changes of life, at times, mock my rock of Gibraltar self–assessment. Rather, I often seem to more closely resemble Sister Young’s Jell–O salad—dripping, wiggling and sometimes melting. Adolescence is a time of evolution and turmoil for many. In high school I was [...]

IT’S THE LITTLE HOUSEHOLD CRISES that get to me. This time, my toddler’s favorite blanket was lost. In an effort to discourage her thumb-sucking, I’d hidden it. Bedtime had come and I couldn’t find the fuzzy pink thing. The memory lapses that come as a fringe benefit of my chronic illness had me opening kitchen cupboards [...]

She strains toward heaven arms outstretched like a child wanting to be held then falls back, outspent subdued by gravity’s ponderous sway How long must she stay suspended as she is between fire and air between here and there incarnation and release? Do not rage, mother (leave the raging to the poet and his father, [...]

I dreamed of Oxford . . . (spires, a thousand spires, endless lectures, musty halls a solitary self in a Bodleian expanse A good life, my dear Wormwood. An orderly life.) then awakened to laundry and things to be wiped (countertops, noses, bottoms) How did this happen? And when, exactly? Time flows, it flows, it flows and [...]

BETSEY’S BACK ARCHES as the chemotherapy drips into her blood. Transferred to Oncology from ICU, we start this medication the same day as a last ditch effort to save her life. I flee the room, the night she needs me, crying about the pain my one-year-old suffers fresh out of brain surgery, and my inability to [...]

I HAVE BEEN FEELING UNFRUITFUL. For a long time. My marriage has gone on for over twelve years with no children, despite many repeated, varied fertility treatments with their various levels of physical and emotional trauma. The monthly ups and downs of hope and despair have just about worn me out. My late-thirties feeling of autumn [...]

WHEN WE ASKED READERS to share how the gospel of Jesus Christ helps them during difficult times, many women responded. Three responses are printed below. It seems that sometimes we cling to a specific truth to help us through hard times, and sometimes we look back at hard times and realize that the gospel—with all its [...]