Together In Faith

We must sometimes face challenges and difficulties. At times there appears to be no light at the tunnel’s end…no dawn to break the night’s darkness. We feel surrounded by the pain of broken hearts, the disappointment of shattered dreams, the despair of vanished hopes. We all join in uttering the biblical plea, is there no balm in Gilead? We are inclined to view our own personal misfortunes through the distorted prism of pessimism. We feel abandoned, heartbroken, alone. If you find yourself in such a situation, I plead with you to turn to our Heavenly Father in faith. He will lift you and guide you. He will not always take your afflictions from you, but He will comfort and lead you with love through whatever storm you face.

Thomas S. Monson

For me, this is the essential message. This is what I have been trying to say. It’s what it is all about. There is hope, and there is help and comfort available. No matter what you are going through or have been through, God has not abandoned you.

Especially for those who turn away from God and from religion because of their hurts and having associated their pain with something that is meant to be healing, I wish that you could hear this message and know that God is love. Anything else does not come from this source. Some people make mistakes, and some use God’s name for their own purposes, and none of that is of God. God offers healing and relief, and love. You’re not alone.

I have been thinking of a poem I learned a long time ago.  For some reason, I learned it with “She” instead of “He.”  I just found it, and I think it would be appropriate to share here.

She drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
But love and I had the wit to win;
We drew a circle that took her in.
Edwin Markham

As someone who always felt left out, this poem always resonated with me.  I thought, how clever, to be left out and to draw a new circle of inclusion like that.  But I always felt powerless to draw the circles.  I was nothing but an outcast.  I guess that this has motivated me though, and influenced me quite a bit.  I keep trying to draw circles of inclusion.  The trick is to get those I include to accept that circle I drew.  They don’t always, and I suppose it isn’t up to me.  But my circle still includes them anyway.