Lessons Learned From Liberty Jail

I cut out this article a few months ago from the September 8th issue of the Church News. It was a talk that Jeffrey R. Holland gave to the young adults at a Church Educational System Fireside. I love Elder Holland's talks and thought this was a really good one. It was titled "Lessons learned from Liberty Jail" I will obviously not include the whole article but did want to pass on a few main points that he made.

He talked about Joseph Smith's experience in Liberty Jail.

He stated "Everyone of us, in one way or another, great or small, dramatic or incidental, are going to spend a little time in Liberty Jail--spiritually speaking." Blessings that came from Liberty Jail include the revelations received by Joseph Smith that are now Doctrine and Covenants 121-123.

He discussed three lessons from Liberty Jail:

1. The first, he said, "is that everyone, including (and perhaps especially) the righteous, will be called upon to face trying times." Elder Holland said: "Whenever these moments of our extremity come, we must not succumb to the fear that God has abandoned us.....We must continue to believe, continue to have faith, continue to pray and plead with heaven even if we feel for a time our prayers are not heard and that God has somehow gone away. He is there. Our prayers are heard, and when we weep, He and the angels of heaven weep with us.......

"When suffering, we may in fact be nearer to God than we have ever been in our entire lives. That knowledge can turn every such situation into a would-be temple.

2. The second lesson, according to Elder Holland, is that we are not alone in going through trials. "We need to realize that just because difficult things happen--sometimes unfair and seemingly unjustified things--it does not mean that we are unrighteous or that we are unworthy of blessings or that God is disappointed with us," Elder Holland said. "Of course sinfulness does bring suffering and the only answer to that behavior is repentance. But sometimes suffering comes to the righteous, too."

Through the Atonement, the Savior "experienced all of the heartache and sorrow, all of the disappointments and injustices that the entire family of man has experienced from Adam and Eve to the end of the world in order that we would not have to face them so severely or so deeply," Elder Holland said.

3. The third lesson of Liberty Jail, he said, is that in times of difficult feelings, "the Lord reminds us from the Liberty Jail prison-temple that 'the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only (or "except") upon the principles of righteousness." (D&C 121:36)

We learn from the Savior and His prophets, Elder Holland said, "that the real test of our faith and our Christian discipleship is when things are not going smoothly. That is when we get to see what we are made of and how strong our commitment to the gospel really is."

Counseling further, Elder Holland referred to D&C 123:17, written during cold, lonely hours in jail, and then stated, "Joseph says, let us do all we can do and do it cheerfully. Then we can justifiably turn to the Lord, wait upon His mercy, and see His arm revealed in our behalf. What a magnificent attitude to maintain in good times or bad, in sorrow or joy."

After leaving a blessing on the congregation, Elder Holland concluded saying, "I testify that bad days come to an end, that faith always triumphs and that heavenly promises are always kept."

p.s. I made this post about an hour ago and I just talked to the heart transplant coordinator a few minutes ago so I thought I would update this post.
We still don't have the PRA level back yet, they expect that on Tuesday. They did find out that in Gracie's first surgery, she received donor tissue. This, in addition to getting so many blood transfusions will INCREASE her chances of having high antibodies. They also got her BNP number back and her BUN and creatinine numbers were a little elevated and on the high end of normal so they want to do an ultrasound of her kidneys to see if they are working properly. Some good news for a change is that it looks like our insurance company WILL cover the transplant as in network. We will get the full story from the financial coordinator next Thursday. So if that is really true, that is EXCELLENT news!!! So, we think Gracie's antibodies will come back higher than normal but will continue to pray that they won't be TOO high. Thanks you for all of your prayers!! We are being sustained by them!