Thee Lift Me and I'll Lift Thee

In the last general conference Linda K. Burton spoke about our roles in families and quoted this proverb: “Thee lift me and I’ll lift thee, and we’ll ascend together” (We’ll Ascend Together, April 2015).  The quote is apparently a Quaker proverb from what I see online, and Sister Burton found it in the words of Elder Robert D. Hales who said of his wife, “Mary has never held me back. We follow the Quaker proverb ‘Thee lift me and I’ll lift thee, and we will ascend together.’  A lot of what we have done would not have happened without a team relationship.  We always have been a team and always will be” (Return With Honor, Ensign July 1994).

The quote clearly means a lot to Elder Hales because he has mentioned it several different times in general conference and in Church magazines.  In 1977 he said in an article in the New Era to young adults, “Whittier best described life and our dependence on each other when he wrote: Thee lift me, and I’ll lift thee And we’ll both ascend together” (We Can’t Do It Alone, New Era Jan 1977).  Then in general conference in 1988 he closed his talk with these words, “That we may have those who stand by us say: ‘Thee lift me, and I’ll lift thee, and we’ll ascend together,’ is my prayer” (Making Righteous Choices at the Crossroads of Life, Oct. 1988).  He spoke on families in general conference in 1999 and again related the quotation: “The family is strengthened as we draw near to the Lord, and each member of the family is strengthened as we lift and strengthen and love and care for one another. ‘Thee lift me and I’ll lift thee, and we’ll ascend together’ (Strengthening Families: Our Sacred Duty, April 1999).  Then in an Ensign article in 2002 he wrote, “My wife has taught us in our home a simple phrase: ‘Thee lift me and I’ll lift thee, and we’ll ascend together.’  There are times when we need to be lifted. There are times when we need to be strengthened” (Gifts of the Spirit, Ensign Feb. 2002).
                I love this phrase--it represents the kind of attitude that we should strive to have in our most meaningful relationships, especially in our families.  Far different from the "what's in it for me" attitude of the world, it teaches us that it is unselfish service that makes for successful families.  The words remind us of the famous verse in Psalms: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?  or who shall stand in his holy place?  He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalms 24:3).  And as we try to “ascend together” in our families we must first and foremost know where we are headed--we are trying to make it back to our heavenly home as we develop clean hands and pure hearts through living the gospel of Jesus Christ.  As we strive to help each other in our families to do just that as the proverb invites us to, we should remember that the most important place to ascend to in mortality is the temple, the “hill of the Lord.”  It is there that we are taught with our spouse precisely how we can ascend together, "to walk back to the presence of the Father" as Brigham Young put it.  As we “put our trust in Him to help us help each other live happily and eternally” we have the most hope of bringing ourselves and our families to make sacred covenants in the temple and ultimately find our path back to God's presence.