Friday, January 25, 2013

SUFFERING IN SILENCE - A HOPE FOR A GOOD REWARD

I recently received the following comment from a reader on a previous post:
  Please keep up the good work. I really believe it is inspired. My husband & children all refuse to believe that the bad stuff is coming, even though there's so much evidence, including the evidence that can come into one's heart (sigh). Unfortunately, most of us have been very successfully deceived by the evil ones. Thank you so much for your efforts in opening our eyes!
I have the feeling that there are MANY  people who are suffering in silence in faithless marriages, some where infidelity of mind and/or body is involved.  Many are not equally yoked and feel a great sense of dissatisfaction.  In these things, we are commanded to remain in the relationship (in order to increase our own patience and long-suffering) in hopes that the person whom we are yoked to, will find their way to the greater light.  This is the true essence of stewardship - where we do not live in a throw-away culture and take our situation, give it some vision, follow the Spirit, and hope for the best outcome.  God does not give up on us - so, if we aspire to that kind of heavenly company, we should also nurture that attribute in ourselves as we exercise charity towards others.  If we have an eternal perspective, we will never give up.  Remember, this is only a test and one day, the facade of forgetfulness will be stripped away and we will see things as they truly are, as they were, and as they will be.

I have marvelled at Joseph Smith who never gave up on Emma, though she struggled and never was able to quite align herself with the heavenly vision her husband literally saw and that he carried in his heart.  The same was true of the Saints, in general.  The same is true of the Gentiles that expelled those who were at least attempting to get it straight.  The outcome of that faithlessness?  The three studies in human nature ended in aimless wanderings and sufferings that were not originally intended.  If the Saints had been equally yoked to the watchman of the day (Joseph), we would have brought about Zion by around 1890.  What a beautiful outcome that would have been.  I mourn the lack of faith - and the alternative path we have had to tread to get to our current bad situation.  I mourn what we will have to go through to emerge from our "awful state" to that which lies on the "other side of the mountain" (reference here to Shangri-la - my millennial mental image).  If Emma had been equally yoked to her man, her suffering would have been truncated or largely alleviated in the later years.  She kicked hard against the vision he was given - she paid dearly; and the proof is in the pudding.  The US, whose vision given by the Founding Fathers, was to provide the infrastructure where-in the New Jerusalem could be established (and yes, this was the stated vision of many of them whose backs this nation was built upon).  In this, the nation has failed miserably - rejecting and barely tolerating the organization tasked with bringing this about.  From the native American descendants of Lehi to the gentiles gathered from the best blood of every nation, those whose task it was to bring the Zion society about have been driven and scourged.  It will happen to a greater degree, due to lack of faith in the next phase of this nation's trial.  Truly, there is a little more grafting still to take place - Zenos' allegory hits home with me.  My mother was a grafter and I saw many failures in the process of getting a good graft to "take".  I also watched my father suffer in a marriage, where, spiritually speaking, in many regards, he was not equally yoked with my mother who was critical of men and of his Priesthood.

So, to those who suffer in silence, I offer my opinion and hope and counsel.  My counsel is to continue to hope and work with those you have been given stewardship over.  For the time being, moral agency must prevail in all things.  In what comes, there will be a sifting, where the agency by those who have abused that gift, will be stripped by circumstance.  Those who do not measure up will be removed from their place and most likely will not physically survive the trials.  After the sifting, there will be a re-alignment where, in a more perfect world, equal yoking will be possible and a millennial bliss will unfold.  But it will come only after much suffering.  All of the worldliness will be stripped away and people will be seen for what they are; the facades down, no more deception, no more self-lying, self-deceit.  The cold, hard truth laid bare.  No more lies by a conspiring government and complicit self-loathing public who upholds those who are in power to get gain.  No more pharasaical pompous parading by those "Saints" who do not have the law written in their hearts.  The face of the nation will be swept clean of them.  If you consider that a majority of New York will have no inhabitants after a few short months, its sobering to say the least. 

Those who are pure in heart - or those who have become purified in heart, even if it must be through what they must suffer, will meet again in the camps of Zion and there will be a re-alignment where people will be equally yoked and given their reward for faithfulness.  My mother passed around 10 years ago, and my father was since "re-aligned" with someone who is most assuredly flawed as a mortal, but with whom he is yoked more equally in their Priesthood.  I find great comfort in that fact.  My father is the most long-suffering person I personally know and has been abused in so many ways by those around him, but he was given a good reward in the waning years of his life.  In the waning years of this last dispensation as we receive (and fully accept) of the fullness as contained in the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon and as revealed by Joseph, we will be given and will live the good reward.

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