A torch

So much turmoil and wickedness and upset and violence and chaos, and on and on the discriptive list goes of the world we live in.  How thankful I am for the light of the Gospel in my life.  A beckoning beacon that fills me with comfort and peace. 

I think of Lehi and his dream.  His joy and excitement over the fruit of the tree.  His desire to share it with those he loved and cared about the most...his family.  So involved in the goodness of the vision, that Nephi later explained to his wayward brothers, that even though the water was filthiness, their father Lehi's mind was so much  "swallowed up in other things that he beheld not the filthiness of the water".

I think of Peter when he focused on the Savior, kept his eye on Him... clear visioned he walked on the water as long as he didn't waver by looking at the storm around him.

I think of a long ago Alaskan winter.  Pitch black.  About a mile walk, on the snowy path, from home to the Church.  I'd been working on decorating a room for a standard night, for one Laurel girl, that would be held the next evening.  Time got away and it was late when I headed home.  It took a bit for my eyes to adjust to the starlight and I started my trudging homeward.  Way, way down the trail I could see a flame held skyward.  "Mom?!  Mom!?  Mom!?"  I hollered back... I'm coming!  I'm coming!

My 13 year old son had made a torch, was concerned that I was gone much to long and might be in some sort of trouble, and had headed out, torch ablaze to find me.  It made me teary then.  It makes me teary now.  His relief was so great, his hug precious, and my gratitude was equally so, for his tender concern.

As we walked on down the trail we noticed how the torch shed a circle of light around us and things looked even blacker beyond that brightness.  Isn't that the gospel?  The light is there and we don't have to get all caught up in the worldliness of these last days, if we will embrace the Light and let it encircle us.