Born Free!

  Nobody is ever free, yes we are a free country, we do not have restrictions on: how many children to have, if we can travel to another country  or what we can see on the Internet, etc. We still need a civilized society, with laws to follow, traffic lights, guidelines at school, fireman to put out fires, police to keep our neighborhoods safe etc. or anarchy and chaos follow. Some children  rebel against any parental restraints for their good, but that would only lead to unhappiness and misery.

   With all that is going on in the Middle East, the sacrifice of Christians and others, even women and children,  I  think about them and pray for them. My mother had a problem with the concept of, "why do bad things happen in this life? Why did the Holocaust occur, look at all the terrible things that go on, if there is a God, why would He let it all happen?" I couldn't answer her then, but maybe now I have an idea from the scriptures and the prophets.

Alma and Amulek his companion, had gone to Ammonihah to preach the Gospel to the people there, the people did not receive the word of God and cast them into prison.  There were believers of the word of God among these people and they were thrown into a fire along with their women, children and their records. They brought Alma and Amulek to the place of martyrdom to witness the event. As Amulek saw the pains of the women and children consuming in the fire he was pained, and said to Alma, "How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames? But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgements which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea and cry mightily against them at the last day." ( Book of Mormon, Alma 14: 9-11, chapters 9-16)

Spencer W Kimball has said, "If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure and a short life would be a calamity. But if we look upon life as an eternal thing stretching far into the premortal past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective... If all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous protected  and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled  and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency would be ended. No man would have to live by faith... only satanic controls." ("Faith Precedes The Miracle",  pp 97-98)

" No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expand our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of:God..." (Orson F. Whitney, Ibid:p 98)

Those concepts reassured me as I continued to find  truths to hopefully increase my faith in Christ and be able to endure my pain and afflictions (sometimes) patiently!