Joy Because

It was late when we finally got to bed. We stayed up to finish a docudrama on Netflix, and even though I was so tired, my heart was heavy and my thoughts weighed on deeper things. It was hard to sleep. Have you seen “The Heavy Water War?”  It was very well done and an interesting part of WWII that I didn’t know much about.  I appreciated it.

I was in suspense through a great deal of it, probably because I knew that what was depicted actually happened in a way, and real lives were at stake at one point. Maybe that’s just me getting too into it. But it made me think of war and all the other terrible things that consume our world right now, and my heart was heavy.

I realized I had missed my scripture reading in the morning, so I opened my scriptures.  I am currently reading in the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon.  I had been reading a while in Exodus, so I wanted to read in the Book of Mormon that night. Where I picked up in my reading couldn’t have been more fitting, and it was just what I needed. I read in Alma  28 where the Nephites and the Lamanites were in a great battle, greater than any those nations had seen. Tens of thousands were slain.

Alma recounts,

 4 And now this was a time that there was a great mourning and lamentation heard throughout all the land, among all the people of Nephi—

 5 Yea, the cry of widows mourning for their husbands, and also of fathers mourning for their sons, and the daughter for the brother, yea, the brother for the father; and thus the cry of mourning was heard among all of them, mourning for their kindred who had been slain.

That really happened too. I imagine that’s what it was like in WWII during all of that destruction.  Many other conflicts throughout the world still bring that kind of devastating sorrow, and it weighed heavy on my heart as I thought about it all.

Now in this chapter Alma doesn’t give a lengthy reassurance of peace and happy endings like many other passages of scripture do.  I really love those. But what he does say is all that needed to be said for me to feel peace.

 14 …And thus we see the great reason of sorrow, and also of rejoicing—sorrow because of death and destruction among men, and joy because of the light of Christ unto life.“

How wonderful. Destruction and evil may rage, but we can still have joy because of the light of Christ unto life.  The Savior has overcome it all, and because of Him, we can too. He gives us every reason to hope for a better world.

“Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.” (Ether 12:4)

And with that I went right to sleep.

I have such a love for the Book of Mormon. So often it is just what I need to hear.