Three Wise [Wo]men

I first read Victor Frankl's timeless classic, Man's Search For Meaning in my junior year of college. I sat on the grimy city bus and let my thoughts wax philosophical for the 50-minute ride to school. I have forgotten many of the details of the book but the title compels me to continued consideration.

Each time we teach the Plan of Salvation, I take a front row seat to consider anew man's search for meaning. "What is your purpose in life?" yields responses that leave me reeling with insight. Consider the wisdom gleaned from three unlikely sages this week:

Wise Woman #1 Brandy is a 30-something year-old single mother. She has frizzy red hair and a bawdy laugh. She is quick to tell guests that she has equal custody over her 14 year-old son, but she sees him only rarely, and never in her own home. Though she was baptized a few months ago, her old demons (live-in boyfriend and cigarettes) have been visiting again of late. When we ask Brandy about the purposes of life, she responds with uncharacteristic brevity. The two-sentence summary is a perfect mirror for the two great commandments taught by the Savior. He said that the law is to "love the Lord they God and to love thy neighbor as thyself." In Brandy's terms, the purpose of life is:
"To try to get to know God. And to be a mother to my son."

Wise Woman #2 Joetta is a retired home-body with two lawless dogs and a strong love of the color purple. She insists on calling her missionaries by their first names, and she has no recollection of ever being baptized into the Mormon church (though the ward records indicate otherwise). We are teaching her the doctrine for the first time. When we quote 2 Nephi 2:25 to teach that the purpose of life is to have joy, she blurts out: "Yes! And to care for others. I don't get out a lot, but I can just take care of my neighbor, then it's all worth it. I wish I would have known that when I was younger. I'm trying to teach that to the young people I know, but young people don't seem to get it...but then, you're young Sister Jenny, aren't you? And I think you get it."

Wise Woman #3 Erin LeRond* was once a registered nurse and the married mother of two daughters. Today she lives life from a wheelchair in rundown government-issued housing. Her daughters ignore her Facebook friend requests. She has pink buzzed hair and wears moo-moos and squishy-soled tennis shoes--comfortable coverings for an overweight body. This good-hearted soul indexes thousands of names per day, and she pulls together dinner for the missionaries from her meager food allotment. And oh, the poetry she writes! For a woman in ill circumstance, Erin knows what it means to love God and to trust him. As a less-active Mormon who recently returned to activity, the temple is her whole world. In apt similitude of the Savior, she describes to us why she publishes her poetry:
"If I can just help one person with my own experience, then all the suffering is worth it."

For all of us, the search for meaning turns us to God and to our fellow mortal sojourners. And it is through Jesus Christ that we become wise to love them both.

2 Nephi 32:20-21