For as long as I can remember, this has been my mother’s catch phrase. I had a mishap and broke my foot, and my mom would say, “There’s a gospel principle in that.” My grandparents were going on a trip with us and one of my grandpa’s sunglass lenses had popped out and was lying in his lap as we drove in the car, but he didn’t notice. My brother noticed and we all laughed. How could he not tell that one eye was seeing through a dark lens and one eye wasn’t? Then my mom says, “There’s a gospel principle in that.” I am not joking about this. She says it to this day all the time. I love my mother. She is hilarious and a super committed, loving mother and grandmother. She has a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She never wavers in her faith. Sometimes, I just don’t see “the principle” in that, but she always does. She can correlate any life situation into some gospel principle or lesson.
When I was young, probably around ten or so, all the families on our street were getting together to toilet paper the house of another neighbor whose family was returning home from vacation or something that night. I know, I know–the dumb things we did in the early 90s astound me, too. Anyway, we had a rule in our house that we were never to be outside barefoot. In all the fun, at some point, I had taken off my shoes. Looking around, no one except parents had shoes on that evening. But, I cut my foot on some glass. It bled and bled and was so sore. After I was bandaged up and had stopped crying, my mom said, “You know, Starla, there’s a gospel principle in this.” She proceeded to explain that had I followed the simple rule of wearing shoes outside that I wouldn’t have injured my foot. I may have stepped on the glass, but I would have been protected. I don’t recall the rest of the “lecture,” but I’m guessing Paul’s analogy of the armor of God and other scriptural citations were used. Needless to say, to this day I do not go outside without shoes. I even wear slippers in the house.
Now, this is a silly example, but there are so many others. Many that are much more fitting. I should ask my siblings some of their stories with this phrase and my mom and come back and post them here. We used to joke that Mom would even find a gospel principle in a hangnail. Ha!
All fun aside, I think my mom is right. Life is a bunch of experiences and lessons for each of us individually. We learn from these lessons and experiences and from those shared by others. This is why we have testimony meetings. Individual and personal revelation is real. Heavenly Father uses our life experiences to teach us. So, next time something good, bad, or funny happens to you, try asking yourself “What’s the gospel principle in this?” I think it’s similar to “What can I learn from this experience?” or “What is the Lord trying to teach me through this?” Let’s see what you come up with.