When I was a junior in high school, one of my teachers gave my class the assignment to ask our parents something they loved about us and then report back.
When I approached my dad about it, he was sitting at his desk in his office grading papers (he taught math classes at the local community college at the time). He told me he was busy at the moment but would get back to me.
Later that evening, he handed me a paper. On it was a typed, numbered list titled “10 Things I Love About Rachel” with an introductory paragraph and his signature and the date at the bottom.
Besides being incredibly sweet — I still cherish that list — that gesture reveals a lot about him. Not only was my dad loving, but as a systems engineer, everything he did was thorough, well thought out and organized — qualities that didn’t necessarily describe me, especially as a teenager.
Where he color-coded his sock drawer, I constantly searched for clothing strewn in various piles around my room. Where he was calm and analytical, I could be emotional and a bit impulsive. He was straightforward. I was diplomatic.
Because of our differences, I often took my day-to-day problems or struggles to my mom, who, I thought, could better understand the emotional and social nuances of being a teenage girl.
But for all our differences, I always respected my dad. He was gentle, patient and slow to anger while also being a strong leader in our home. I could depend on him — physically and emotionally but also spiritually.
Many, many times, my mom, siblings and I called upon him for a priesthood blessing. I remember the blessing he gave my mom when she was diagnosed with cancer that enabled her to face her upcoming treatments with calm, strength and poise.
I remember a tender blessing in my early teens as I struggled inwardly with sometimes paralyzing self-doubt. Not only did I feel that I was known and loved by my earthly father, but I knew I was known and loved by my Heavenly Father.
Throughout my childhood and adolescence, my dad gave me blessings of healing, comfort, guidance, protection and strength.
Those priesthood blessings served as an anchor to me as I struggled to ride the waves of teenage skepticism and insecurity. They pulled me back when worldly forces would have swept me away.
“If fathers would magnify their priesthood in their own family, it would further the mission of the Church as much as anything else they might do,” said President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency (“The Powers of the Priesthood,” April 2018 general conference).
My dad was not a perfect person. He had weaknesses and challenges and areas in his life where he struggled. But he learned how to submit his will to the Lord, to receive personal revelation and to access priesthood power.
In an address during the priesthood session in 2016 titled “The Price of Priesthood Power,” President Russell M. Nelson, then president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, noted, “Only a man who has paid the price for priesthood power will be able to bring miracles to those he loves.”
He then added: “In these latter days, we know there will be earthquakes in diverse places. Perhaps one of those diverse places will be in our own homes, where emotional, financial or spiritual ‘earthquakes’ may occur. Priesthood power can calm the seas and heal fractures in the earth. Priesthood power can also calm the minds and heal fractures in the hearts of those we love.
“Are we willing to pray, fast, study, seek, worship and serve as men of God so we can have that kind of priesthood power?”
Now looking back, it’s difficult for me to fully express what it meant to me — how it bolstered my faith and testimony — to have the blessing of a father who exercised the power and influence of his priesthood “by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:41).
It has been more than 10 years since he died, and I still miss that sweet point of connection — a personalized, power-filled priesthood blessing from my dad.
— Rachel Sterzer Gibson is a reporter for the Church News.
