A Recycled Revelation

by Autumn Dickson

This week I’m talking a lot about context rather than any specific verses which is not usually my norm. However, I think that delving into the context of these sections is really important and can make the scriptures feel more rich. Just as we learn from the stories in our other books of scripture, we can learn more about the revelations from the Lord by studying when they were given. So here is some context for what we read this week.

Section 81 was originally given to a man named Jesse Gause who was called to serve as Joseph Smith’s counselor in the forerunner of what would eventually evolve into the First Presidency. When Gause was excommunicated, he was replaced by Frederick G. Williams. Gause’s name was also replaced by Williams’ name in the revelation that was given.

I wonder if it slightly bothered Frederick G. Williams when he didn’t get his own revelation upon being called. Please note that I’m not saying it should bother him; I just wonder if it did.

Imagine being in a ward where the bishop gets called and then moves six months later. A new bishop comes in, and the stake president is just like, “Here. We recorded the blessing for the last bishop. We’ll set you apart, but this blessing is just going to be yours now.”

Imagine going in to receive your patriarchal blessing and the patriarch recycles an old blessing he gave and inserts your name in it. Would you feel a little shafted? These are supposed to be individualized, right?

Now, I’m not sure that it bothered Williams at all. Maybe he didn’t think twice about it, but it can’t hurt to explore the concept and dig deeper.

Joseph Smith was receiving a lot of revelation during this time period. He probably could have easily received something just for Williams, but he didn’t. Have you ever felt skipped over at church? Have you ever felt like everyone else was receiving something special but you weren’t? Maybe it was a calling or a special experience. It could have been anything.

I have. I used to feel that way all the time. I remember having experiences where parents told me about how special the patriarchal blessings of their kids were. They talked about how it felt so powerful and singular, and I remember feeling very un-special.

I’m going to tell you a little secret that changed my life. When we seek to be set apart from others, to be singular, to receive something that no one else has received, we usually end up having the opposite experience. Trying to be more than others is an insatiable desire; you can temporarily please it but you can’t quench it. Maybe we don’t think we’re trying to be more; I certainly didn’t recognize it at the time, but I was. There was a comparison, and you can’t win with comparisons. No matter how things play out, you lose.

In my own life, those deep and unrelenting desires to be special were coming from a place of insecurity about my Heavenly Father’s love for me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t just trying to feel loved. I wanted to be more loved, probably in some mistaken belief that it would drive away the insecurity.

Luckily, the Lord is smarter than giving me what I want sometimes.

He could have given me something special. He could have given me some experience that no one else got to have to make sure that I knew that He knew me and that I was important to Him. He could have looked at me and worried about the insecurities and worried about the fact that I didn’t have a testimony of His love.

But He didn’t want to do that for a couple of good reasons. He didn’t communicate that I was more special because I’m not more special. It would be silly to tell me an untruth. He also didn’t give some overt, flamboyant sign of His love because it would have actually just fed the insecurity. You would think that I’d be able to take these huge signs of love and accept them. But in my experience, it simply doesn’t work. Think about it from a mortal perspective. You can make huge overtures of your love to someone, but until they’re ready to believe it, the signs you choose to give don’t change their insecurity.

Rather, He continued to feed me a healthy, quiet kind of love and left me to accept it. He never caved when I felt unloved, insecure, and assumed He was so angry with me. He just kept feeding me that unrelenting, reverent love and waited for me to finally accept it.

Drawing this back to Frederick G. Williams, I would have felt distraught over getting a recycled blessing that had originally been given to someone else. At the time that I was still seeking that unhealthy form of love, I would have let that circumstance speak to me, and it would have said, “You don’t really matter. You don’t even get your own blessing.”

I’ve learned a few things since my angsty teen years. The Lord does love me. I’m so important to Him even if that’s illogical. Nowadays, if I were to receive a recycled blessing, I would be able to quietly read it in gratitude. That gratitude would have enabled me to see the quiet, personalized messages He was sending. The recycled blessing would have been as personalized as I allowed. The help of the Spirit, love from our Heavenly Father, and my own belief in that love would have given me what I was seeking – a reassurance of His love for me.

The most interesting part about this experience is the fact that once I let go of comparison, once I let go of desperately seeking some inarguable sign that I was valuable, I was able to start seeing the small tokens of His love. If I had received a “recycled” blessing and chosen to let go of any whispers of insecurity, the experience of receiving this revelation would have been a sacred and treasured experience. Letting go of the need to have my own, I would have been able to read this blessing in a state of mind where the Spirit could whisper the personalized messages I needed to do my work to serve others.

Isn’t that ironic? Once I let go of trying to receive some ostentatious sign that I was special, I was able to see and receive those smaller, special messages that were meant for me at a specific time period in my life. And once I began appreciating and accepting those small, special messages, I have become convinced that I’m special to my Heavenly Father.

I testify that the Lord loves you. He recycles the same values, words, and lessons that He teaches everybody because He loves all of us. You’re not going to receive anything “new,” but I promise that you can receive something better, something that fills you up more.The need for something singular can be sinister. It can prevent you from receiving the healthy kind of love that sticks with you and fills in all of the cracks. I testify that the Savior loves you with a deep and abiding love and that His love is enough to fill you up, even if it’s not more than the love He gives to others.

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives. Autumn was the recipient of FAIR’s 2024 John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award.

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