Giants among us

In the spring of 1978, we had just completed three years work at Eastern Arizona College. We had learned to love the area, the people, and the genuine charm of a small rural community. It was relatively close to our New Mexico ranch, to our old stomping grounds in North Eastern Arizona, where my sister Lynda and brother Glenn lived. This was five years after we had completed my doctoral work and I was in the middle of one of my periodic personal evaluations. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing, but I knew that I had stalemated there in that position. I was working as Director of Cooperative Education and had been moderately successful in establishing the program which was intended to assist students in securing work related to their chosen professional path and through working with their employers and supervisors help each student create a set of objectives that would assist them in furthering their career successes.

It was a great program with great potential, but it turned into a free-rider for students wishing to pick up added credits with which to pad their semesters, making them full-time, giving VA students more pocket money, and a variety of other unintended consequences. I kept asking the head shed questions. They in turn, laid the questions and the answers gently back at my feet and on we went. I left that position with a letter to the board thanking them for the opportunity and told them I was leaving the post and I wished them success. We could and possibly should have stayed in Thatcher forever, but that was not to be. It has been over thirty four years since those incredible Eastern Arizona days and we have experienced many wonderful and exciting things and people as we moved through the full-blown family; then, on to grand parenting, and senior living.

Interestingly, while in transition from teaching to becoming a full-time real estate professional, we moved to Central, a tiny spot on the map and lived in a motor home on Paul Palmer’s cotton farm next to the home he was remodeling. We were only there a short time and were asked to speak in Sacrament meeting on the topic, “Ministering Angels”. Preparing and giving this talk was a vastly unique experience for us.  It was during that preparation and presentation that I began to fully understand the love our Heavenly father and our Savior have for each of us. An uncaring, hard, cruel God would not provide for us in the many ways we are watched over and protected. No, God is loving, and kind, and merciful and wants us to be protected and return to his presence after our probationary period on this rock.

I began to understand what happens when we think we have been stranded on an island in the middle of life; when we get fired from a job; have a serious illness; lose a loved one to death prematurely; have a trusted friend betray our trust and confidence; or a million other things that happen on a daily basis. These incidents can be minute or life threatening, but in each case there are giants among us, ready to love us nurture us back to health and trusted paths. These are ministering angels. Some are mortal and you know who they are. Our mothers and fathers, our ecclesiastical leaders, our teachers, and our friends bless our lives every day. To be truly alone would be one of the most tortuous concepts imaginable. We have the scriptures to assist us in understanding how blessed our lives truly are. Even in times of unimaginable frustration such as when Aaron assisted the children of Israel in becoming idolatrous and “making merry” while Moses talked to God and received the principles by which they were to live. We know that we have giants among us, possibly (in my mind – absolutely) those with whom we have a warm, loving relationship, including our parents and siblings who have gone before. I believe, just as when we were together for that moment in time when we lived as families, they are all around us as ministering angels, and through the Holy Ghost, they prompt us and give us light and insight in our quest to bless the lives of those around us.

Do I believe we are along? Not for a second. We can ignore, push aside, despise, these promptings, but they will always be there. Our job is to earnestly seek to do the will of our Father in Heaven and, in turn, bless the lives of those around us.

Now, I hear occasionally through the grapevine that some of my relatives think I am getting kind of preachy. Probably true. But I could not go to bed at night, knowing what I know, and knowing that I had not shared my blessing in knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. I constantly hear the clatter of malcontents, of those who would do harm or make light of those who know and understand the blessings we receive from God. I am an enemy to no one. I will always love and honor the friendships, the relationships, and the opportunities I have had of sharing moments in life with each of you.

God bless you in your efforts to find your place in God’s kingdom.

D. Duane Jacobs, Grandpa, popsa, uncle, cousin, brother, and friend.