Thursday, September 23, 2010

Eating Purple Huckleberries - A Taste to Die for.

The scriptures tell us that Michael, Adam, Eve and all of us lived a pre-mortal existence. The name Michael really caught my attention because Michael is the name Garrett and Hayley have chosen for their new baby, who will soon be born.

Anyway, the scriptures tell us that Adam and Eve were the first people on this earth. When the time was right, God placed them on earth in a Garden of Eden, which He had prepared for them. God made sure it was warm and clean. The beauty of the Garden surpassed anything we can imagine. It was full of friendly animals that didn’t fight with or eat other animals. The garden was supplied with all kinds of flowers, shrubs, fruits, vegetables and trees. The cupboards and freezers were full of food.

My thought was this: If Adam and Eve got to come to this earth and their first home was a Garden of Eden, would Garrett and Hayley’s little Michael also get to come to this earth and have his first home be a Garden of Eden? What about the rest of us? Could we consider ourselves as Adam or as Eve and be blessed as they were, to have a Garden of Eden waiting for us when we first got to this earth? That got my brain gears clicking.

I decided my answer was yes. Garrett and Hayley have prepared a garden or room just for Michael. DeAnne and I did the same thing for our children. Father’s and mother’s everywhere prepare a special place for their newborns to come. A place where they will be very comfortable and have all that they need to be safe and be able to enjoy this world.

Like Adam and Eve, when the time is right, we are placed by our parents into our very own Garden of Eden. It is full of friendly stuffed animals that don’t fight with other animals. Their Garden is also stocked well, with clothes, diapers, formula, and food. The garden may have all kinds of flowers, shrubs, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and all kinds of trees.

Just like Adam and Eve, we discover all the things we are enjoying have been given to us by our parents as gifts. We don’t have to pay for anything. We have ice cream every night with our Father and Mother. Our parents give us some rules. For example, they tell us we can enjoy ice cream for eternity, or as long as we eat it while they are with us and we stay in their garden. We, like Adam and Eve are told, “You can partake of all things in the garden, the house, the cupboard, and the freezer, and the ice cream, but of the fruit of the Huckleberry Bush, you shall not eat! Nevertheless, you may choose for yourself, but if you partake of it, you will turn purple and surely die.”

That gets our attention real fast! What do they mean, we will surely die? That sounds pretty serious. What do huckleberries do to us? What do they taste like anyway? Why did Father put huckleberry bushes in our garden and show us where He planted them if He didn’t want us to eat some of them? How do our parents know that huckleberries have a taste to die for? Have they tasted huckleberries before?

As we grow older we hear kids at school and advertisements on TV saying, “You should try huckleberries! They are delicious to the taste and very desirable. Yes, they are very expensive, but you’re worth it.”

One day we take a stroll down past the huckleberry patch and we catch our brother, Lucifer, picking some of the forbidden fruit. He eats them right in front of us and smacks his lips with pleasure. Caught in the act of disobeying Father and Mother, he offers us some huckleberries. We tell Lucifer we’re not going to eat any, because if we do, we will choke, turn purple and die. Lucifer says, “You’re not going to die!” He sounds pretty sure of himself and he doesn’t look like he is dieing. He tells us, “Look, if you don’t eat some huckleberries with me, when Father and Mother come home they will notice some of huckleberries are missing and I will tell them you ate the huckleberries.”

Now faced with two choices, who do we choose to please? A big brother who is holding the forbidden fruit right in front of our nose, or our Father who is not home at the time? We decide to have our first taste of the forbidden purple fruit. They taste so, so good! It is different than anything we have tasted before. They are almost immediately habit forming. We want more of that purple fruit so we continue picking huckleberries. They would taste great on ice cream. As we eat, we also realize we didn’t die!

Then we hear the voice of our Father. He’s coming home to our Garden of Eden! Lucifer says, “Quick, hide. Father will see your purple tongues and lips. We hide. Father calls out to us two or three times before we decide we better come out and speak to him. He asks, in a loving voice, “Where were you?” We tell him we hid ourselves because we have purple tongues and lips. He looks at our face and asks, “Who told you you have purple tongues and lips? Have you partaken of the forbidden purple fruit, that I told you not to eat? And of course we admit what we have done and tell our Father, “The Devil made me do it.”

Father explains the rules to us again. He looks at our hands and they have turned purple too. He explains that the fruit is good, but because we ate it when he asked us not to, we have broken an eternal law that was irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of the world. We have broken the law of our Forefathers and we will need to leave their presence. What we have done has made us unclean, and he has no choice. He is going to have to boot us out of our Garden of Eden. We can no longer live with him because he cannot look upon purple with the least degree of allowance and we are covered with purple everywhere. Will the purple infection spread to other part of our body and kill us?

We will suffer a spiritual death when we leave the presence of God. Then we realize we won’t be able to have any more ice cream either! Suddenly we realize without ice cream we will surely die! Satan, the kids at school and the TV lied to us!

A loving Father and Mother then give us some good news. All is not lost, but we are going to have to pay a price for our actions in ways we never understood before. But we can still talk to Father and Mother; we just won’t be able to see them and hug them. They will need to place a veil between us and them.

Father will send us messengers that will tell us how to return to His presence. We just need take a bath, (get baptized) and clean up our act, (sacrament). If we talk to Heavenly Father every day, read the books he gives to us every day, (scriptures), and listen to His messengers, (apostles, prophets and the Holy Ghost), we will find our way back into His presence.

We are given more good news. We are told our older Brother, Jesus, loves us so much he has agreed to pay the price of the purple fruit that we ate! How can he do that? We are saddened to hear the price Jesus must pay, but we are so grateful for his willingness to do that for us. He must love us as much as Father and Mother! We must learn more about Jesus and develop the same love for Him that he has shown to us.

Eating the huckleberries has actually given us a knowledge of something that tastes wonderful. Father tells us, if we are willing to search for and listen to his messengers, they will show us how to find and eat huckleberries that they don’t leave us with dirty purple hands, lips and tongues. He will show us secrete hidden patches of huckleberries and give us other sweet experiences that will give us knowledge, feed our souls and purify our hearts.

After we have taken our bath and done our washings, Mother will show us her secrete huckleberry recipes and show us how to make huckleberry pie, and huckleberry cheesecake.

Father promises us he will show us how to bottle huckleberries and seal them up so that we can latter put them on ice cream, and the two together will become an everlasting treat for us and our families. If we keep our hands, lips and tongues clean, our hearts will become pure and clean also. Then we will be worthy to again enter Father’s presence. There are no loopholes or shortcuts. We cannot partake of the new sealed fruit until Father permits us.

Father also lets us know that he has set a security system around the temple of sealed ice cream, the treat of eternal life. He tells us if we go near this fruit, before he recommends us, alarms will go off and angels with flaming swords will stop us from returning to the temple of ice cream. We need to repent, serve others, and be WILLING to keep all of Fathers commandments. Then He will recommend us to the angels and they will let us pass by their flaming swords. After all of that, we can partake of the new and everlasting treat, and return to Father’s presence. We will be able to open the bottle of sealed huckleberries with our Father and Mother, put them on top of their eternal treat of ice cream and enjoy the blessings of the sealed fruit. We will also be shown the secret of partaking of this sealed fruit with our children and grandchildren.

See what Michael brought to my attention? I love my family! I hope we have eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to understand. (Isaiah 6:10)