For those of you who have not had the pleasure of listening to the radio program "The Sounds of Sunday," let me give you a little background before I delve into this post.
Basically it's a Sunday morning radio program that's supposed to "set the tone for your Sabbath day." But mostly it just makes me want to barf and jump off a tall building at the same time, which would really be messy.
It's not officially associated with the LDS Church (as the less nauseating program "Music and the Spoken Word" is). Thank heavens, because I would have to seriously reconsider my religion if it were. The Sounds of Sunday does come across pretty Mormony though. I think the guys who put the program together are Mormon and there's plenty of Mormon church music between each one of their Chicken Soup for the Soulish type messages. It started in S.E. Idaho and later spread to infect the airwaves of several states. Embarrassing.
Anyway, I know that many of you may like the program...that's fine. We all have our own opinions and you're welcome to blog about your love of the Sounds of Sunday. But I find it to be super duper über cheesy. And, since it's not an actual LDS sanctioned program, I feel as though I'm not committing blasphemy to admit that I don't enjoy the program...at all.
So, anyway this morning I was in the kitchen making a salad for our family Sunday dinner, which would occur later in the day. The radio was on, and before I knew what was happening, the Sounds of Sunday message of the hour came on. I was in the middle of the salad making mess so I didn't bother walk over to the radio and turn it off.
And boy am I glad that I didn't because I got to hear the following little inspirational treasure...
You know, while we tend to want unending happy hearts and contented days, our Father in Heaven wants something greater for us, and the pathway to that is a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
The story is told of Abraham Lincoln and his courtship of Mary Owens. Now, Abe had met Mary several years before through an association with a friend. Well, following a tragedy in his life, Lincoln’s friend suggested that Abe and Mary would make a fine couple, and that she, the friend, would be willing to travel to Kentucky and bring Mary back. Abe was much in favor of the idea. However, when Mary Owens arrived, she was far different than Abe remembered, having gained considerable weight.
Well, try as he might, Lincoln could not persuade himself to fall in love with Mary Owens. He tried to convince himself that the brilliancy of her mind eclipsed her size, which it evidently did, but the desired flame of love would still not kindle.
He was a man in trouble! He had committed, sight unseen, to marry her. Well, he procrastinated the proposal until finally in a letter he asked for your hand. Now, I suspect no woman has ever received a proposal worded quite like this one. This is what he wrote:
“…This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull business after all. I’m afraid you would not be satisfied. There’s a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here, which it would be your doom to see without sharing in it. You would have to be poor without the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you could bare that patiently?“What I have said I will most positively abide by – provided you wish it. My opinion is that you had better not do it. You have not been accustomed to hardship, and it may be more severe than you now image. “Yours, Lincoln”
Well, Mary Owens turned him down. Lincoln was surprised by the rejection, and a little broken-hearted, probably more at the blow to his ego than the infatuation of his heart, and he resolved “never again to think of marrying,” and for this reason: “I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be block-head[ed] enough to have me.”
Well, fortunately for Lincoln and history, he met Mary Todd shortly after, and they were married. She healed his heart and gave him to history as the great emancipator.
Now, my point: All men set their hearts on something or someone, and it because that some of us set our hearts on the things of this fallen natural world that we’re called natural men. And it is for that reason that all men must experience a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Hearts set on natural things must first be broken to then be bound on heavenly things.
My friends, our greatness in the hereafter and here will be directly connected to our willingness to let God have His way with our hearts right now.
Okay, here's a recap for those of you too lazy to read the actual transcript. So basically, according to this story, Abraham Lincoln was dumb enough to get engaged to a woman he hadn't seen in years.
He meets up with his fiancée, and is like "dang, she got fat," and, like a total DB, thinks, "I don't want to marry her anymore...she's intelligent and amazing but the brilliancy of her mind does not eclipse her size."
So, old Honest Abe writes her a letter where he basically tells her how much being married to him is going to suck and how much she's going to hate Springfield, blah, blah, blah.
And she writes him back and is like, "never mind, engagement off, I don't want to marry you either Mr. Frankenstein Face..."
And then Lincoln gets all offended that this fat lady, who he didn't even want to marry, now doesn't want to marry him.
So he's like "waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh, well then I guess I'll just never get married..."
But then he meets and marries Mary Todd, who according to pictures, got fat later on in life anyway. I guess it's a good thing Lincoln died early and didn't have to live to see the day his wife got fat. Who knows, he might have divorced her.
So anyway, that's the story. And at the end the of the story the Sounds of Sunday guy tried to tie this horrible little account about Lincoln into the gospel. But I think that's the biggest stretch in the world since Al Gore said he invented the Internet.
I don't get what Abraham Lincoln rejecting a fat lady, who then rejected him, and then feeling all bad and saying he'd never marry but then getting married anyway to a lady who later packed on the pounds herself, has to do with the gospel...at all. I think it's blaspheme to even try to make a tie-in on that one.
So now I hate Abraham Lincoln, feel like crap about myself, and am embarrassed to be a Mormon.
Thanks a lot Sounds of Sunday, thanks a lot.
Oh, and Lincoln, the next time you reject someone because of lack of physical beauty, maybe look in the mirror first. You're no piece of eye candy yourself! Oh, and unless there's a typo in the transcript, you used the word "bare" incorrectly. Idiot.
