"And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.
Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."
Institute tonight, as always, was amazing. It honestly has become the highlight of my week. Though tonight, for the first time since I've started attending institute, I think I was taught something that had nothing to do with the lesson that was far deeper and more penetrating to my soul than the lesson was. The lesson was on prayer, more specifically about Elder Bednar's most recent talk on prayer (wonderful talk by the way, I reccomend looking it up on lds.org, powerful stuff). But as the lesson was being started, sister Elmer mentioned something about Elder Bednar that struck me deeply. She mentioned that he had an experience that revealed to him one of the "meanings for his life being at that time" referring to his being a facilitator for his father's baptism, and helping him to prepare for that moment in his life.
That got me thinking. "Am I on earth at the very moment that I am for the purpose of helping any specific people in any specific way?" And I couldn't help but answer the question with a yes. I won't go into the details of my answer, for they are not my place to share, but as I was pondering that a deep peace and a feeling of comfort came over me that testified to me that the way I have been conducting my life for the better part of the last year is equatable to something referred to as the ministry of angels.
As the lesson went on, brother Elmer hit on another doctrine that impacted me in a way other than he intended it to. He was talking about how if when we pray, we pray to our Father in heaven, and that if He truly is our Father, we should be able to have real, sincere, conversation with Him. And that if He is our father, we are all actual brothers and sisters. Siblings in a very real sense of the word. That got my mind racing even faster, back on the previous topic as well. If my friends here on earth are my siblings, and the other people my age are my siblings (spiritually speaking, and really, isn't the spiritual side of life the most important side anyways?), then aren't those who have come before also my siblings? As well as those who have yet to be born? Are we not ALL spiritual siblings? That in and of itself wasn't the epiphany that I had. The thing that really got me thinking prompted me to write it down:
"Stages in life is all that separates humans, because we are literally all siblings."
I may start to ramble here, so bear with me... As human years go, we are all relatively the same age spiritually. We all were in the pre-mortal existence, and we weren't in families then. Which means that the family unit that we are so tied to here on earth is a new thing for our spirit to get accustomed to (As far as our earth family being more important to us than our spiritual family, which literally encompasses everyone). So by extension, that means that our earthly parents, are literally our siblings as well! It's easy for us to think that people of our generation are our siblings spiritually, but when we extend that to our parents, grandparents, and so forth, it seems a whole lot less "common" to our brain. But the role of families is imperative to our exaltation, so there must be something to it other than a random chance that we were born into the familes we currently reside in.
Maybe it's because God knew that we would be able to offer the members of our family something that we couldn't otherwise offer them if we weren't as temporally close to them as we are. Something they NEED in order to make it back to our Heavenly Father's presence. Maybe not something they need, but something that will more easily facilitate that journey.
When people say that they learn something from their children, they really mean it. Children are just as apt to teach adults as vice versa, after all Christ did admonish everyone to "be as a little child." Maybe there's more to that statement than most people realize.
But putting that aside, the chronology of mankind in relation to geneology is in my opinion no mistake. Every person born into a family brings something to that family that no other soul could have. And that will carry over into the eternities, as we make the journey to get there AS a family.
Looking at the different stages in life, our role as adults is to teach those of future generations how to grow accustomed to life with a body, imperfection, repentance, things we didn't have to worry about before this life. Sharing experiences, sharing wisdom, sharing knowledge, facilitating in every way possible your child's desire to once again feel the warmth of their Heavenly Father's embrace. That's what this life is all about. We are all siblings, we must all lift eachother up, especially those in our families. Families are eternal. There are no accidents in who your family is comprised of.
"I always want to be with my own family,
and the Lord has shown me how I can.
The Lord, has shown me how I can."
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