Happy Thanksgiving

Today I read from Mormon 2:4 – “And they did not come unto Jesus with broken hearts and contrite spirits, but they did curse God, and wish to die.  Nevertheless they would struggle with the sword for their lives.”

This verse stuck out to me as ironic and quite normal.  I have seen people who have a strong wish to die, but they hang onto their lives in much the same way.  Why is that?  Is it human nature to want to preserve ones own life?  And what is it that compels people to wish to die?  Could it be anger toward God for those blessings of which they feel they have been deprived?  I find this ironic as well.  All that the Lord has he has promised to those who love Him and will keep His commandments.  What are those blessings?  Eternal life is one of those blessings.  What is eternal life?  Living in the presence of our Heavenly Father throughout the eternities with our loved ones there as well. 

I don’t know what that will look like.  I sometimes wonder when we get together with all our loved ones.  It is an exercise is patience, understanding, tolerance, and fighting the natural man.  It isn’t always fun.   It is real work, in fact.  However, I have faith that we will be happy because we will be one with our Savior, Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father.  We will all be on the same page or we won’t be there.  And that is the sad thing to me.  If we can’t all be on the same page and one is missing, what a sad day that will be.  When one of my own families is missing, there is part of me missing as well.  I feel sad that we celebrate this Thanksgiving without my daughter’s family who are serving in the military in Germany.

So where am I going with all this?  I’m not certain.  For one, it is the nature of man to value life at the same time he is wishing to die.  It is also the nature of man to want to be with loved ones at the same time he is doing everything possible to destroy those relationships.  But we are trying to overcome the natural man, which means (to me) we will trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not unto our own understanding.  This is where I hang my hat.  I trust the Lord knows me well enough to know what will make me happy throughout the eternities.  That’s enough for me.  I don’t have to understand everything always.  For that I’m very grateful.

So on this Thanksgiving day, as I read my scriptures, I would like to express how grateful I am for the scriptures in my life.  I see parallels between the experiences of the Nephites and Lamanites to that of the world in its current condition as well as in my own personal life.  Because I can see these parallels, I can also see the warnings and try ever so hard to take heed.  The Lord has blessed me beyond anything I can possibly deserve.  I wonder why many times.  I was rescued from a life of darkness and have been blessed with a beautiful, eternal family.  It grieves me to see some of them struggle so with the evils and temptations of this world, but I have been blessed to understand the Lord has a plan, and we are all part of that plan.  Somehow, those I worry the most about will come to the knowledge of their Savior and reach out for help like I did.  My constant prayer is that someone will be there when that day comes. 

So my marching orders for this day may not be as clear.  Because it is Thanksgiving, perhaps it is to be thankful for the good as well as the bad.  There are plenty of both.  Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who has tripped over this blog – if you’ve made it this far.