Today’s Reading: Mormon 8: 25-40
First off, Happy Thanksgiving! I really hope your day truly is filled with blessing beyond measure.
I recently was chatting with my neighbor and she lamented “If only I could tell me 21 year old self what I know now!” Don’t we all have times in our life like that. Not only am I fairly certain I would have made much better financial choices, I would have made much better choices of friends and activities and vacations too! Moroni saw our day and in these chapters, he is speaking to us. Sometimes I keep a Journal. As a kid, it was a traditional journal with binding and paper. Then it was kept through letters and email. Early in my married years it was a blog and now it is Instagram and Chatbooks. As I re-read some of my early memories and recall those feelings I had at the time, it makes me want to do ANYTHING to help my children and future grandchildren from making those same mistakes and helping them reach those same successes. Moroni laments as my neighbor did and as I do:
34 Behold, the Lord hath shown unto me great and marvelous things concerning that which must shortly come, at that day when these things shall come forth among you.
35 Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.
You know that part in Saved by the Bell where Zack does his “time-out” thing? I can not even begin to explain how many times a day I could do that! Often at the end of the day I feel like I have been through battle and have lost. I wish I would have done things better or acted kinder or been more productive. If I just had something I could refer to that would help me bet better! In this mortality where “the gate of history turns on small hinges”, there is a reference book. Its the Book of Mormon. Its what Moroni and Mormon and all those before spent their lives writing.
“We must make the Book of Mormon a center focus of study [because] it was written for our day. The Nephites never had the book; neither did the Lamanites of ancient times. It was meant for us. …
Each of the major writers of the Book of Mormon testified that he wrote for future generations. …
If they saw our day, and chose those things which would be of greatest worth to us, is not that how we should study the Book of Mormon? We should constantly ask ourselves, ‘Why did the Lord inspire Mormon (or Moroni or Alma) to include that in his record? What lesson can I learn from that to help me live in this day and age?”
I know I can’t make life stop like on Saved By The Bell. And I know I can’t go tell my younger self what my older self has learned. But I do have the Book of Mormon. Those Prophets of old saw our day and gave us a book to guide us and teach us. More than anything, it is the Book of Mormon and the restored Gospel of Christ that makes my heart full of gratitude.
Just a thirty-something mom to 4 and wife to 1. I like to workout so I can eat Bluebell ice cream and love to spend any time I can vacationing with my family and friends. I graduated from BYU-Hawaii and currently call Texas my home.