Always Reaching to Touch Him

We live in a world where the veil is drawn over our minds and we have no recollection of the sphere from which we came. And yet my soul tells me that there is more than this earth life.

I am reaching, always reaching to touch Him, to Come unto Him. There are many ways I try to reach for him. I reach for Him as I read and study my scriptures. They are His words and the spirit speaks them to me. Missing them is like going without water for the day. Since the beginning of my mission I began a re-read of the Book of Mormon. I love this book. It enlightens my mind, helps me to understand God, and gives me direction in how to live in order to make my journey home, and fills me with peace.

I have two prophets that I love. The first is Alma, son of Alma a prophet, who spent his youth persecuting the saints of God and living a wild and wicked life until an Angel of God appeared to him and told him he needed to repent.

Alma suffered a spiritual coma in which he claims he was wracked with eternal torment for 3 days and 3 nights as he remembered and saw the sins which he committed. But as he thought upon the things his father had prophesyed of the coming of Christ and how he would redeem us from our sins he was filled with inexpressible joy as exceeding as was his pain (Alma 36). After this experience Alma choose to go among the most wicked of people to preach the gospel. Because he was "born again" and because he knew wickedness first hand, he became a powerful missionary.

My favorite chapters from Alma are about "The Word" (Alma 32). Alma compares the Word to a seed planted in the ground. Some seeds sprout, others do not. If the seed is nourished it begins to grow. But when the hot sun comes (the trials of life) and the seed is not nourished it whithers and dies. Like seeds, our souls must be nourished daily with the Word. If we do this we become "alive in Christ". If we neglect the word, we begin to die...as God is the source of life. His Word is our spiritual food. Some of us are starving to death spiritually. Others seem to be filled with joy, peace, and an assurance of who they are and where they are going. "Yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yet it beginneth to be delicious to me." Continual supping of the "Word" eventually causes the seed to sprout and grow into a tree that bears fruit that we can pluck and eat "until we are filled, that we hunger not, neither do we thurst." The love of God - the atonement is internalized, and we become more refined, more as God is: filled with love, patience, long suffering, charity, integrity, etc. I have spent the last 8 years really studying the scriptures - before I read them but I rarely dug into them, comparing one scripture against another, I simply read. I can testify that studying them has increased my faith and knowledge exponentially. I love to feast upon "the word".

The last prophet in the Book of Mormon is an amazing man - Moroni. Moroni led armies in the final battles of his civilization. He watched as his people turned from having the completeness of the gospel, to prospering so much that they began to set their hearts on material things and eventually lost their faith, and became a blood thirsty people destroying themselves in horrific battles. Moroni pleaded with the people to repent, but they were beyond hearing. He was given the extraordinary experience of being able to view our times in vision. He describes us to a "t". Then because he saw his own civilization crumble he writes of the demise of several civilization and cautions us to live the commandments of God or risk destruction. He reminds us of the promise of this land: "If we live the commandments, the Lord will prosper us, but if we do not he will destroy us."

He writes heavily of the atonement of Christ....of its ability to give us power to rise above the wickedness that may surround us, of His power to redeem little children from Adams transgression, assuring them of celestial glory if they die before the age of accountability. He writes of our ability to be "alive in Christ" through faith, repentence, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost and endurance through prayer. In his words: "the Holy Ghost filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer until the end shall come." I am continually reminded as I read the scriptures that the core of all the scriptures is the Atonement of Christ and the gospel (Faith, repentence, baptism and covenants, the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.) Understanding these principles is all that is needed.

It is difficult for me anymore to forget to read my scriptures. To me they are like food that I must have everyday. One of my weaknesses before my mission was morning prayer - I always prayed in the evening before going to bed, but now I am more conscious of saying my prayers each morning before going to the office. If I forget it is like I missed a phone call home. Maybe it is because I am getting closer to home. I remember the movie ET: "ET call home" It is the same message "Marian, call home."