December 14, 2025
Now that we have the events leading up to the great breakdown of 2025 on the table, and that historic day behind us (insert noticeable sign of relief), I believe it is time to lay a different kind of groundwork. Recent events notwithstanding, what do you need to know about me, Lynnette I. Sheppard?
First, I never use my middle initial, except here for dramatic effect. (Also, because I want to be like Emma M. Lion. She is my soul sister.) But the “I” stands for Irene, the name of my great-grandmother on my mother’s side. I never met her, as she died 11 years before I was born.
I am the second of six children, all born within seven years. (Bless my parents!) I am 13 months younger than one sister and 11 months older than another. It is therefore a fact that my younger sister and I claim the same age for two weeks each year. I like that more now that we are adults than I did when we were children.
I was born in Utah but spent the majority of my childhood and youth in Gilbert, Arizona. Back then, it was mostly a farming community, boasting miles of cotton fields that retail establishments and housing tracks have long since replaced. I don’t even recognize it anymore.
After high school, I left my home in Arizona to attend BYU in Provo. (Back then, BYU-I was known as Ricks College, so that dates me the tiniest bit.) My dad, who had been out of work for at least a year when I went to college, soon found a job working on BYU campus, which brought my family to Utah halfway through my freshman year.
Fun fact: on the last Sunday of my freshman year, my whole family showed up in my BYU student ward for church. To say I was confused would be the understatement of the year! That day, my dad was set apart as a counselor in the bishopric of that ward, where he served for the next few years. I moved out of the ward the week after he was sustained – a move that was already planned – so I never saw him in action. It was, however, a little out of the ordinary college student experience.
I met my husband when I was 16 years old – a story that deserves its own entry on another day. He was serving a mission in Portland, Oregon, when I started college, but we were engaged three months after he returned home, in March of my sophomore year. We were married in the Salt Lake temple that July, one month after my 20th birthday. He was a very mature 21.
Basically, we were babies who had a baby of our own a year and a half later, another one 19 months after that, and three more before the oldest turned ten. Throw in four years at BYU, four years of dental school in Ohio, two years of residency in Indiana, and a move back to Phoenix to raise our children (when the oldest was nine and the youngest not quite born), and you have the short version of our story.
The longer version is more complicated, with too many parenting troubles to count, years of loneliness and self-doubt, learning to follow the Lord when things did not seem to make sense, and going through the uncomfortable process of navigating the Refiner’s fire.
More details will surely surface as we get this show on the road. But, for now, the important thing is that the Lord has tutored us for many years in ways as unique as we are. That process has always been both uncomfortable and instructive. And, with other big changes on the horizon, I imagine we are in for more discomfort and divine instruction.
That is both exciting and unnerving, depending on the day.
But, as we gear up for another wild ride, a little insight about my personality might be helpful. People often tell me I am the calm in the storm. They say I am grounded, steady, dependable, and wise. (They obviously did not witness the great breakdown of 2025.)
Aside from my recent breakdown, those insights are true. When things go off the rails, I am generally the calm one who believes wholeheartedly that good things will always come.
But, years ago, my son compared me to Tinkerbell – quiet, but sassy – and I have yet to hear a more accurate description. I am mostly quiet, pensive, thoughtful, and not prone to sharing much until I have had adequate time to process it.
But I can also be sassy, mostly when I am with people whose presence makes me feel secure and comfortable, or when I am writing. So don’t be surprised if you see a bit of cheekiness as you follow along. It will likely not be the main event, but more of a sideshow.
One cannot be all thoughtful wisdom and grounded steadiness without being utterly boring. And I am anything but boring. Or at least that is what I tell myself.
**Read the rest of this series here
