I had the privilege of attending this BYU Forum this morning with Dallas Jenkins as the featured speaker. He is the producer of the The Chosen. If you don’t know about The Chosen, you are missing out! It’s basically a multi-season TV show about Jesus Christ. You can watch it here. The production is famous for portraying the emotional connection of the stories of Jesus.

Dallas is a delightfully fabulous speaker! He cracked jokes left and right.

“Well, well, well, here I am, the evangelical. You have been sending your guys, two by two, to my home for 40 years. It’s about time I showed up at your house!”

“I had my annual meeting with your Quorum of the Twelve Apostles yesterday where they could tell me what to put in the show. I just let them write the scripts. It’s just easier that way.”

He also called Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “your Reverend Holland,”, “Jeffy” and “J-Dawg…because we’re close.” He said that they had been debating the new temple garments.

Dallas then said, “Since I have converted, I haven’t even missed coffee. It’s amazing!”

“The reason we shoot The Chosen in Texas, of course, is because Texans believe Jesus actually lived there.”

“Evangelical YouTube is flipping out. There’s going to be YouTube videos showing my face with Brigham Young looking over my shoulder. They are going to say, ‘We knew it, we knew it!’ “

All of these jokes elicited a ton of laughter. After most of the jokes, but before the last two, he said, “None of what I just said is true, I just wanted to break the internet.” More laughter.

He then acknowledged that he was talking to an audience mostly full of students. So, he addressed them, with a life lesson he’s learned to pass onto the students with their quest for success. He shared the story of how he majorly failed on his way to making The Chosen.

I just loved his story! I love that it involves failure. I love that it involves God’s hand in his life. I love that it involves his wife helping him, so there’s a little romance there as they work together as a married couple to pursue a dream. I love that it involves principles, namely, the “Five Loaves and Two Fishes” principle. Sarah Mackenzie refers to this in her book, Homeschooling From Rest. That’s the principle to do what you can and turn it over to God, just like the boy in the Bible story of the loaves and the fishes. Trust that He will make much more out of what you give than you can. Jesus multiplied five loaves and two fishes into a meal that fed 5,000! It’s such a beautiful, miraculous principle! I also love that his story involves phrases that God put in his mind, his wife’s mind, and the mind of an acquaintance. He concluded the speech by saying “I love you.” It was such a heartfelt, real, inspiring speech. We all loved it and gave him a standing ovation.

I left the speech feeling such a sense of wonder. Chief among my wonders was “I wonder how many times people feel a nudge (what I call a prompting of the Holy Spirit) to say something or text something to someone that turns into something big, even as big as The Chosen, or even a small, yet still amazing thing?” Watch the video above to get the whole story. It’s so heartwarming, even better than anything I’ve ever seen in a Hallmark movie.

As we went home, my husband, who is a BYU grad, as I am, shared, “Wow, for being a forum speech that was so spiritual. It was more spiritual than some of the devotional speeches I’ve heard.” For those who don’t know, BYU devotional speeches are religious-themed, aimed at members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and forum speeches are generally non-religious.

I looked at the snow on the mountains that had fallen through the previous night and early morning, the random beauty of tiny, yet detailed oak and maple leaves fallen on the sidewalk under my feet, plastered there with the rain. Touched by all this beauty, I pondered all these things. I’m still pondering all of the magic of the whole experience. Truly, the world feels new again. I feel renewed to continue to pursue my middle-aged homeschooling SAHM dreams, despite all of my failures. Thank you, Dallas Jenkins, for such an inspiring speech! We love you!

Want more of Dallas Jenkins? Watch below!