On Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. in the BYU-Idaho Center, Darren Clark, an art professor, will give his devotional address which will focus on seeing sacrifices as opportunities to grow and improve.
“I’m going to talk about sacrifices that are asked of members of the Church and trying to get people to look at those sacrifices as opportunities rather than sacrifices,” Clark said.
He will share scriptures that speak of sacrifice, as well as his ancestors’ experiences with sacrifices as pioneers. Although they are about his family members, Clark hopes the stories are broad enough to reach those who attend on Tuesday.
Initially, he planned to speak on repentance and forgiveness, but after pondering the two subjects he landed on sacrifice. As a BYU-Idaho faculty member, he has seen students make sacrifices.
Clark hopes that after hearing his message, students will both feel inspired to make positive sacrifices for themselves and their posterity and that they will have the desire to do family history work to learn about the sacrifices of their ancestors.
“One thing is I’m really encouraging people to find out the sacrifices or the stories of their ancestors to understand their place in the world,” Clark said. “The other is to be willing to make sacrifices either for yourself or for your future posterity. I’m sure my great-grandfather wasn’t directly thinking about me three generations later, but he did what needed to be done and I’m grateful.”
Clark teaches photography classes for the Art Department and has been doing so since he was first employed with BYU-I in 2000. He served a mission in South Carolina and Georgia from 1989-1991 and has three boys with his wife, Susan.