Our first winter, living in Utah, was extremely difficult. Aaron and I had spent our first five years of marriage living on military bases, and enjoying the routine living in the military brings. Now, Aaron was (is) self employed, and we were not prepared for how up and down life would be financially. It seemed like we were either feasting or in a total famine. During our first winter in Utah, we were in a “famine.” The worst part was we really couldn’t see an end.
One day, while we were driving in the car, Aaron got a text message (I was driving) about a team member who was doing really well; in fact, she had just got another sale. In that moment, the weight of carrying months worth of worry, stress, and loneliness came crashing down on me. With hopelessness, I bowed my head and silently said, “Heavenly Father, I don’t think I can take this much longer.” This was an honest, genuine, heartfelt plea from a daughter to her Heavenly Father. I truly felt like I was at a breaking point with this trial. Immediately came the reply, “Hold on a little longer you are almost done.”
Elder Robert D. Hales said, “The purpose of our life on earth is to grow, develop, and be strengthened through our own experiences. How do we do this? The scriptures give us an answer in one phrase: we ‘wait on the Lord.’” (October 2011)
When young Joseph went to pray in the sacred grove he said, “I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which utterly overcame me. . . . Thick darkness gathered around me. . . . at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction. . . - just at that moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light. . . “ (J.S.H v.15-16) We ‘wait on the Lord.’”
Now, Joseph Smith jr, knew these two things (as well as many others:) 1. What Satan’s power (influence) feels like and 2. What the light of the Savior feels like.
While thinking about this I was reminded about the story in Moses 1, “And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses. . . And God spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name. . . and, behold, thou art my son.” Moses now knew what it felt like to be in the presence of the Savior. He was a son of God. The scriptures go on to say, “Satan came tempting him, saying: Moses, son of man, worship me. And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is thy glory, that I should worship thee? (Moses 1: 2-4, 12-13)
Both Moses and Joseph knew the good and the bad, the light and the darkness. So, going back to Joseph Smith History, when the preacher would try to plant seeds of doubt in Joseph’s mind by saying it was of the devil. Joseph would be confident in saying, “I had seen a vision: I knew it, and I knew God knew it, and I could not deny it” (JSH 1:25.) Joseph knew it was a vision from God because he also knew what Satan’s darkness felt like. He knew what it meant (and would have many more opportunities) to ‘wait on the Lord.’
We may not have experiences as powerful as Moses and Joseph Smith Jr did, but we can know for ourselves how the light of Christ feels. While it may feel like the darkness is overpowering us, we can know that the light of Christ can and will defeat it.
Elder Hales said, “Tests and trials are given to all of us. These mortal challenges allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His son. He already knows, and we have the opportunity to learn, that no matter how difficult our circumstances, “all these things shall [be for our] experience, and . . . .[our] good.”
I loved this week's reading and I hope you did too!
Now I am signing off from my screens until Monday
Have a great Sabbath day!!
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