I know too many people right now who are ill, many of them with cancer. Illness, in all its forms, is difficult to put a label too. Horrible, terrible, rotten, and one of the most potent refiners if we let it be.
It’s church day for Jenn and me. We move forward 90 minutes in the new year (to 10:30 am from 9am) to rotate with the other 3 wards (congregations) that share our building.
It’s the first Sunday of the month, so it’s also fast Sunday. Sundays always have a slight bitter-sweet quality to me. It’s the day when I miss our kids the most. But it’s also a day when my perspective on life can most easily be reset, and I appreciate that quite a bit.
Come Follow Me
My reading in the Book of Mormon this morning was about Nephi building the ship that would carry them across the waters to the promised land. He is mocked by some of his brothers, and he gives them a good lecture. As part of that lecture he points out how God took the Israelites out of Egypt and into the wilderness.
Despite saving them from the slavery they suffered under the Egyptians, many of the Israelites complained about their circumstances in the wilderness. They preferred the flesh pots of Egypt over the rigor of the exodus to their land of promise.
I think I am too much like some of those ancient Israelites. I push against the plan that Heavenly Father has for me when it becomes tedious or inconvenient, or even painful. I find myself wishing more for a life of complacency rather than reformation.
But the bedrock of Christianity is exactly that. There are different words used, but all point to the same thing. Reformation, healing, restoration, and the list goes on. We are broken people, slaves to a broken system that satiates us with everything needed to keep us slaves instead of taking our place as sons and daughters of royalty.
I hope the Lord will lead me out of slavery and that I may go without murmuring. That I may endure whatever straitening He deems necessary in order to enjoy the fruits of a land of promise he will bring me to in His own good time. I think he has already brought me, will bring me still to more, and eventually to where he dwells.