3 Nephi 22 - It's all about family! It's about peace!

Maybe at times putting "Family" and Peace" in the same sentence seems like a juxtaposition.  Bear with me here.  

3 Nephi 22 is the same as Isaiah 54 – a little hard to understand until you’ve read it a few times.  It starts out talking about the stakes of Zion, and the period of time that the gospel was not on the earth and how desolate and dark things were.  Then Christ starts talking about enlarging the cords and strengthening the stakes.  What are those stakes?  The Stakes of the church.  We are in the process of “gathering” the Lord’s people into the stakes of Zion!  What a beautiful thought, and it is very visible.

Christ tells us to “Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed; neither be thou confounded, for thou shalt not be put to shame; for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. (v4).”  I’m not certain what widowhood is reference to.  Might it be the darkness that is so prevalent when we do not have the gospel in our lives?  Might it be when we did not have covenants to strengthen and protect us?  These are questions; not answers.  This much I know.  I am most grateful for the promise of forgetting the shame of my youth.  Also, I know that it can be forgotten – by me as well as the Lord.  It is a real thing!

Then Christ starts talking about “thy children”.  Oh, I know there is more in this tiny chapter.  These are points I picked out this morning.  But our children shall be taught of the Lord.  We teach them as parents until they leave the safety of our homes.  But it is the Lord who teaches them the real lessons as they make choices of their own and reap the consequences of those choices.  They can choose to stay under the protection of covenants they have made themselves and that we made as their parents.  But the Lord is the real teacher.  Where are the lessons?  There is an instrument spoken of in v16, created by the smith – Joseph Smith!  When he brought forth the Book of Mormon, that was the tool the Lord will use to help gather in his people – our children.  This is their heritage.  But I’ve written a small note at the end of this chapter in my book:  “We can not do it without Christ’s Atonement”.  He suffered the pains of sins for all of us.  Once we realize his role in our lives by reading and gaining testimony of the truths in the Book of Mormon, we can be freed from the destruction that our poor choices have created.  Do the effects of those choices magically disappear?  Of course not!  But the faith we grow will help us see the hand of the Lord in the gathering, sifting, and everything else that is happening in the world and in our own lives.  We will have peace that can’t come from any other source.  Of this I firmly believe.  I see the Lord’s hands in my own life as I was “rescued” and gathered in.  I see opportunities in my own children’s lives that come and go.  When the time is right, something will take them to their knees and they will remember that they were taught of the Lord as children.  They will see that they have been taught in their own foolish choices.  And should they choose to come out of the darkness, the desolate existence they are currently in, then “great shall be the peace of thy children”.