Spiritual Sunday

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I remember it like it was yesterday.  I was in the MTC (Missionary Training Center) preparing to serve for 18 months as a missionary in the West Virginia Charleston Mission.  I had been in the MTC for almost a week and had yet to hear from my family.  I was feeling alone and quite frankly forgotten.  I had no way of knowing that my older sister Kolette had just had an emergency c-section to deliver her first child 4 weeks early.  Or that her little baby was in the NICU fighting for his life and that my whole family was currently invested in helping my sister and her family.  All I knew is that I felt abandoned and very depressed. 

I was sitting with my companion in choir practice as we started to sing the hymn, Where Can I Turn For Peace? (pg. 129 LDS Hymnal)

Where can I turn for peace?
Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart,
Searching my soul?

 

 Where, when my aching grows,
Where, when I languish,
Where, in my need to know, where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?
He, only One.

 He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind,
Love without end.

Text: Emma Lou Thayne, b. 1924. © 1973 IRI

Music: Joleen G. Meredith, b. 1935. © 1973 IRI

John 14:27; John 16:33

Hebrews 4:14–16

I felt the Holy Ghost speak peace to my soul and I was comforted.  As tears streamed down my face I realized that I was never alone.  I was never forgotten.  Yes, my family was caught up in the drama that was unfolding with my sister's family.  They would write to me eventually, and they did as soon as things settled down.  But until that time, the Holy Ghost reminded me, through the comforting words of a hymn that my Savior, my Redeemer knew my pain.  He knew my sorrow.  He had felt it all.  He had suffered all my misery in the Garden of Gethsemane.  He calmed my anguish.  He gave me peace.

Me at the MTC. 21 yrs old.  Ahh...to be that young again!

 *If you have any questions about what I talked about here today, please feel free to email me at becausemysistertoldmetoo@gmail.com or click on any of the links and they will direct you to mormon.org.