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Recap of 1 Nephi

What I am seeing as the over-riding message, this time around, is agency.  There is agency and there are eternal truths, immutable truths that cannot be affected by our agency therefore there are things that will happen according to the use of that agency. 

I see the distressing of Ariel as the blessing and kindness that it is.  I see the struggles and the trials as the beautiful, gentle hand that allows my heart to open in places I feared to open it before.  My distress actually gives me courage and makes me desperate to open those places and heal them.  What a wonderfully gentle way to allow me to heal.

I see that when I forget, I will be reminded.  Which leads back to agency, over and over in life.  It is a lovely cycle, the point of which is to allow healing to take place.  It encourages my heart to open and to turn to the Lord with my heart...the result being that my heart can be purified and I can come that much closer to Him. 

I think about Nephi's perspective and Lehi's perspective and how very different they are, and yet they were both righteous prophets who led their families well.  They were prophets because they listened to that yearning they had within them to set aside distractions and draw nearer to the Lord.  They were prophets because, to quote the words from mom's play, they each were a "simply man, a very ordinary man.  Each man has within himself a spark, Divine Desire.  If he humbly goes to God that spark becomes a fire.  Then he'll serve with all his heart, and in return God will impart, His word, His law, His whole eternal plan, to one like me...an ordinary man."

This is how it works.  How it has always worked and how it will work forever.  Distressing of Ariel brings about an ability to open and share our "strangers" and our "terrible ones" that we had been trying to hide within us and to hide from with the Lord (Isaiah 29:1-5).  Healing brings an ability to "come to understanding" within our hearts and to "learn doctrine." (Isaiah 29:24)  When we come to understanding, we convert and we are healed (Isaiah 6:10). 

Once healing has taken place, that doctrine becomes a part of us.  We obtain it (D&C 21:11).  This then leads to literal cleansing of the inner vessel.  We desire greater obedience (GLOW) until one day we are literally able to abide His presence...all of it starting because of the distressing of Ariel.  It is such a lovely and gentle way of growing when we embrace it for what it truly is and don't get caught up in the moments of discomfort.  When I start thinking about the hardship and step out of gratitude, then it suddenly becomes very hard and painful.  I cannot see His hand and I cannot see the truth of what is really happening.  I close down.  But if I can maintain that vision, that view of truth then all at once what was my hardest trial becomes my greatest joy for the changes it brings about in my heart.

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