Line upon Line

Some spiritual experiences are so profound and impactful that their effect lasts for decades, even a lifetime, and persists with iterations and implications across generations.

More than twenty years ago, shortly after our family’s move to a new state, I was called to serve as the Young Women president in our new ward. My husband already had a calling that made that calling for me an improbable one, but the bishop had felt strongly that he should extend the call, conditional upon our feelings about its being realistic given our other obligations. We both embraced the bishop’s inspiration, and I eagerly accepted the blessed opportunity to serve.

Shortly after my meeting formally with those marvelous young women, they approached me with a question they hoped I could answer for them. The question felt important and compelling to those teenaged girls. They were valiant, eager young disciples who wanted to live cooperative with heaven’s will, so they sought an unambiguous response to their specific question, fully prepared to simply obey.

The question was straight-forward. They asked, “Sister Clayton, we need to know. Are two-piece swimsuits okay or not? We want to do what’s right, but we have different opinions about what that is when it comes to swimsuits. Just tell us and we will do it.”

I admired their earnest faces, looked at their eager eyes, and appreciated the sincerity of their direct question and their honest desire to be obedient. I had my opinion about the issue, but I resisted spitting it out hastily for fear that haste would not only make their question seem simple or even silly, but because I felt that the sincerity of their desire warranted an authentic, doctrinal response. So, I stalled. I commended them for their righteous desire to know, and I told them that I would seek an authoritative answer and get back to them.

I read Church publications related to the question and I read General Conference talks and the scriptures hoping to find something that might satisfy the girls, but nothing seemed to be definitive, so I stuck my neck out a little and ventured a phone call to the downtown Salt Lake City office of the general Young Women General Presidency. I had never met any of them personally, but their secretary took the call and asked me for details of the reason for it, then assured me that she would share our question with the presidency and get back to me.

The young women and I waited a couple of weeks before we received the promised phone call. But it came. After apologizing for the delay, the secretary asked me if I might be willing to meet with the Young Women general presidency the following day at their office. She said the return call had been delayed while the whole Young Women Advisory Council had considered the question and ultimately concluded that they didn’t have an exacting yes or no answer for us. Intrigued, I looked forward to the meeting the next day.

When I arrived downtown, I was greeted by the Young Women presidency plus a fellow who strategized and prepared video content for the Church. It was immediately clear that they were all very familiar with our question, so they launched promptly into their request. They hoped that those young women, with my help, would accept an assignment to conduct a group research project testing in a very local, immediate way, the scripture that had initiated the restoration of the gospel. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5).

We had a personal question. They were asking us to “study it out in our minds” (Doctrine & Covenants 9:8) and trust that heavenly promise that the answer would be given to us. Those girls were simply a group of earnest young women with a question about swimsuits. They were not Joseph Smith seeking inspiration about which of all the existing churches was the right one for him to join (Joseph Smith History 1:18).  But the promise and the process were relevant. Those young women “lacked wisdom,” and genuinely wanted to know what was right. The promise belonged to them, then, too.

The fellow working on video content for the Church stepped forward to familiarize me with the video camera he had brought for us to use to film everything we did as we “studied out our question.” The Young Women presidency asked me to take as long as we needed in as many diverse ways as we could think of to explore our question and seek heavenly help finding the answer we sought, then, when we felt at peace with the result, return to them with the footage we had captured chronicling the quest.

I left that meeting feeling encouraged and empowered to do as they had requested. My confidence in the legitimacy and broad applicability of the promise that had motivated Joseph Smith soared. That confidence informed my assurance of the universal and inclusive application of the promise for even a single, small group of young women with a personal question. I felt reverently assured that the love of our very real Heavenly Father is both grand and intimate, large and small, and that He is willing to offer divine answers to all kinds of prayers from any and all of his children if our seeking is done with “real intent,” meaning an honest intention to abide by the response (Moroni 10:4).

Validated and sincere, we promptly embraced the assigned task and went to work. We considered the subject in our lessons, staged panel discussions to obtain assorted points of view, studied the scriptures looking for relevant verses, asked for the opinions and insights of parents, the bishopric, and others whom we trusted, listened to general conference believing that there would be applicable information for us, and prayed individually and as a group for inspiration. We filmed everything. After six months of earnest seeking, we each and all felt we had accomplished what we had desired to accomplish.

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the result of all that earnest questing, both individually and as a group, didn’t result in a single, simple yes or no answer. We weren’t ever able to sketch a group drawing of the perfect, worthy swimsuit. The inspiration was more personal, more nuanced, more demanding and conceptual, and more lasting and loving. The answer was clear to each one of us, framed and customized to fit our individual circumstances and spiritual readiness. It had everything to do with the broad, spiritual concept of modesty and reverence and our individual determination to stand in all places and ways with integrity and purity of heart before the Father we loved.

I will never forget either the conscientious journey or the spiritual arrival prompted by the honest, earnest question of that group of young women. It was all holy and forever.

Reminiscing on that sacred quest, I was motivated to contact those girls many years later. They are now grown women living all over the world with daughters and sons of their own. Hoping that perhaps they remembered the sacred journey we shared with something of the lasting fondness with which I remembered it, I hunted for their contact information and wrote to them. To my delight, several promptly responded with stunning reassurances that the experience of decades ago was very much alive in their memories, and the results of it still operational in their now-adult lives.

One girl began her response by saying, “You know what’s funny? I still have the old, dog-eared notes from our project! I brought them all the way to my current home in South Bend, Indiana, because I was called as a Young Women leader. That experience was a defining moment for me and my spiritual resilience.”

She continued, “I remember the feeling that both my leaders and heaven entrusted me and my fellow teenaged sisters to discover correct answers for ourselves. And I learned that in many, many ways, the specific answers were less important than the process. Our project began with our wanting to find a direct answer about swimsuits. But I learned that it was really about figuring out the “Why” behind a principle. I learned to focus on the Why’s of the gospel. That learning has shaped my relationship with heaven. When I figure out the Why via study, prayer, and counseling with others, revelation becomes easier to decipher.”

She continued, “I felt trusted and encouraged to seek spiritual self-reliance and to live a higher law as I sought and discovered light and knowledge. I still do.”

She cleverly suggested, “At some point in our lives we all spend time in the proverbial ‘waiting room’ waiting for blessings to unfold, an answer to a prayer, the ‘right’ job, a miracle, the love of our life, or a family member or friend to come back to church. Like a patient waiting for a doctor, we wait for our name to be called. We take some comfort in the metaphorical magazines and the fish tanks, but we may sometimes feel we have been forgotten.” She concluded, “I learned all those years ago and I know still that God knows and always remembers us.”

Another of those young women responded, “The Modesty Project was one of the first times I remember going to Heavenly Father with a specific question and following a pattern of diligent study to answer it. That pattern has been a big blessing to me in my life as I have tried to make big decisions about college, jobs, and marriage. Throughout that process, I remember feeling both Heavenly Father’s love for me and the feeling that He recognizes us as individuals.”

A different now-grown woman from the early teenaged sisterhood responded, “I felt empowered to get my own answers to prayer. And I trusted that God wanted to speak to me. He still does. That initial seeking for personal revelation about something as trivial as swimsuits set in motion a lifetime of seeking my own heavenly answers. The questions have gone from simple to more complex, but the pattern has remained. I know that as I search, ponder, and pray, and ask sincerely, I can commune with God. I know He hears me, values me, understands me, loves me, and has answers and a plan for me.”

She continued, “The pattern has helped me know that what I am doing is what my Heavenly Father wants for me. It has also given me the confidence to manage life storms and trust amidst uncertainty.”

She offered two powerful examples. “A storm came for me about ten years ago when I started questioning why women don’t hold the priesthood in the same way that men do. I had friends and some family members aligning with the Ordain Women organization and I started to feel unease. But I knew that I needed to do as I had done all those years ago and so many times since. I could ask God and get my own answer. I could go talk to my Father and not rely on anyone else’s faith or doubt. I went to Heaven. I studied His word, searched and prayed earnestly and, much like the swimsuit quest, I didn’t receive revelation on what everyone else should or does believe, but I got my answer. That was to trust God. I was filled with so much peace and love. Heavenly Father reaffirmed my own eternal, unchanging worth in His eyes which is not conditional and not less than anyone else’s.”

She continued with a second experience. “A similar experience happened a few years ago, only this time my answer was a bit different. As I was sitting in the temple, I felt that unease again. The wording hit me and the thoughts about inequality and my worth being less than a man’s came again and began to dig at my heart. I didn’t like feeling that way and I began avoiding the temple. However, I was prompted (many times) that I needed to lean in and follow the pattern of personal revelation, and that if I did the work, I would get my own revelation from God again. So instead of avoiding the temple, I made arrangements to go weekly. That was not easy for a full-time working mom with little kids at home, but I committed and trusted that if I did my part, God would answer my deepest yearnings just as He had done so many times before.”

“About a year into my weekly attendance, I felt more comfortable, but the unease persisted. Then one day, as I sat there and prepared for the phrases that caused me unease, they were gone. The wording had changed. I sat in my car that morning sobbing over this tender mercy. It was a different outcome, but the same answer. God loves me and cares about my struggles and questions.”

That rooted, empowered grown-up young woman concluded, “That simple quest to get an answer about a swimsuit set in motion a pattern of seeking personal revelation in my life that has been far more life changing than the choice of swimwear. It has been the anchor for my testimony. When doubts, trials, or questions try to pull me from Heaven, my relationship with my Father in Heaven and my Savior keep me secure. That relationship is fortified with earnest communication and personal revelation.”

Those young women became grounded grown disciples as they applied the lessons of their youth and continued to seek God and trust His willingness to listen and respond. Like Moses, they would say, “I will not cease to call upon God, I have other things to inquire of Him” (Moses 1:18).

He gave and gives liberally to them and to us all, then, still, and forever.