I've got quite a few things going on in my life right now. Aren and Tatiana have both started school - kindergarten and 7th grade - and tomorrow I have my first day as an official nursing student. Overwhelmed doesn't begin to cover how I'm feeling. In an attempt to keep myself calm today I opened up the Book of Mormon and it happened to be I Nephi chapter 5 during the church. You all know the chapter. It's the one where the boys finally get back from their trip back to Jerusalem and Sariah has been pretty vocal about her boys probably being dead, but then she sees them and says, "Ok, now I know there is a God and I'm happy and grateful." Every time I read that I think, "But what if they hadn't come back? What if she never saw her sons again? Would her testimony still be strong?"
I started thinking about all the examples in the scriptures of where things are bleakest but always work out and it bothered me. There had to be an example somewhere when things went horrifically wrong and still people stayed strong. I often think about Lily dying and how everyone expected me to mourn her death, but still be strong. Still have a testimony. Still believe in a God who loved me and cared for me yet wouldn't allow me the one desire of my heart - to keep my daughter. It was hard. Damn hard.
And then it hit me - the 2,000 stripling warriors. Well, not them exactly, but their mothers. Their mothers were the Lamanites who's husband put down their weapons and vowed never to fight again and then were slayed in front of their families. These women watched their dreams literally die in front of them. Can you imagine their pain? I'm sure more than one of them thought it could have all been avoided if they had just fought back. I'm sure more than thought, "What's the point? In the great plan, why was it so important that my husband not be here to help me raise my children? Would it really have been so bad for him to stay?"
Unlike Sariah, these women did not get the opportunity to see their husbands again in this world. They had to try to find their testimonies after watching their husbands die and use those testimonies to raise sons with a vision of God's plan and His love for them. They were the perfect example of what to do, how to be, when everything goes wrong.
How grateful I am for the glimpses I get of a loving Father in heaven who knows me and wants me to learn. I'm thankful that He knew there would be people on this earth who never received the miracles they wanted and didn't have the strength the carry on all the time and needed to know there were others who doubted and still made it through. The scriptures truly have the answers if we will seek.
4 comments:
You are a true strength to me all the time. Thank yo for your random thoughts.
Ahh I love this...and I never comment on blogs anymore, so I really loved this. Thanks Mary Beth!!!
I loved your post. I was thinking of Job. Every.single.thing was taken from him and he still praised God. I cannot imagine myself in his place. He is one of my heros in the scriptures.
Amen!
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