Of Nephi's Broken Bow

Last evening, on the way home from Grandmother's house, we hit a deer.  It smashed up the front end of our SUV pretty badly.  We have friends who operate a body shop not far from the accident scene.  We limped the wounded Yukon over there and parked it.  The kids gave us a ride home and offered us their truck for meetings in the morning.  We've been a one car family for years.  Now, for the time being at least, we're a no car family.

Things might appear to be pretty bleak.  We still haven't recovered from our flooded basement of two years ago, I'm mostly unemployed and debts are mounting.  Now this.

I experienced this new set back in relative calm.  No one was injured, except the poor deer.  We were rescued in short order and as I write this I can still think of myriad blessings to count and be thankful for.  I have no idea how we're going to emerge from all of this.  Maybe we won't.  Not at least for a long time it appears.

As I ponder these things I can't help but think of Nephi's bow.  The story tells us that Nephi broke his bow.  It doesn't tell us how.  That part would be interesting to know.  However it happened Nephi's brothers were furious with him.  Anyway, it was a major setback as they now had no means to provide food for themselves.  It had to have been discouraging.  They were, after all, on the Lord's errand.  They were bound for the Promised Land as they had been commanded.  Everyone murmured except for Nephi.  Instead, Nephi went to work making a new bow.  He didn't blame the Lord, in fact he took the blame.

Now, my circumstances are far from being as bleak as Nephi's.  I still have a comfortable, warm home, food to eat, a comfortable bed.  I have no cause to complain.  I am not perfect, in fact I think I required some humbling.  I get a little stiff-necked now and then.  This incident certainly has made me think about that.  The decline of my prosperity has been continuing for quite some time.  It may not be finished yet.  Nevertheless, the answer is not in money, or things, or relief from obligation.  The answer lies in humbly trusting the Lord and submitting, with cheerfulness, to whatever He sees fit to inflict upon me.  I have lessons to learn in mortality and God seems determined that I learn them.  That alone should be cause for great rejoicing.  I have a Father in Heaven who desires to teach me what I need to learn in order to return, not only to live with Him, but to become like Him.  What a great and marvelous blessing that is.  My task is to trust Him through the thin as well as the thick things of life.  My task is to be submissive and thankful in all things.  My task is to remember Him, not only in the hard times but in the good times.  The thing is, I don't always remember and  last evening's little experience has served as a reminder.

I've been having a pity party of late.  I've spent an inordinate amount of time feeling sorry for myself - murmuring, if you will.  That is such an ungrateful, graceless thing to do.  Not only must it offend a kind and generous God, it is self destructive and incapacitating.  No wonder my prosperity is in decline.  God does not sustain us in our doubts and fears and complaints.  He sustains us in our trust and love and gratitude.  I am clearly in great need of sustenance and need to remember in whom I have trusted.  Nephi's creation of a new bow, was not the solution to his dilemma.  God was the solution to his problem.  The fact that Nephi made his bow was simply an indicator that he still trusted God and was willing to do his part in finding a solution.  I must more earnestly seek employment, but in the end it is God who will provide.

My wrecked vehicle can serve as a reason to re-inflate the balloons and spike the punch of my pity party or it can remind me of my dire need for a loving, providing, forgiving, sustaining Savior.  Today, I choose the latter.