The Brother of Jared

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 The story of the Brother of Jared is one of my very favorites in the entire Book of Mormon (in fact, it may just be my very favorite). I love what it teachers about prayer and faith and personal revelation. Last year when we were going through the process of having a baby with a gestational carrier, I thought of the story so often- particularly about how it teaches us the ways our prayers are answered. Figuring out how to receive and recognize personal revelation has been important to me, especially in the last few years. I feel like I need it for my survival- literally and figuratively. So many life-changing decisions have had to be made in the last few years and often times the choices are impossible to make given when I know. 

The wonderful thing about trials is that most often, God is revealed to us within those trials- just like in the Brother of Jared's challenge to find light for their barges, God's hand was eventually revealed. It is in our struggles that we usually see God the clearest. 

I was thinking about something yesterday that I hadn't thought about before- something else that this story is teaching me. Another lesson to add to those of revelation, faith, prayer, and that is TRUST. The Brother of Jared and his family and friends were in the barges in a storm on the sea for almost a year. The barges had no light except for the 16 stones the Lord had touched, one by one. I was thinking about that, and how so often it feels like blessings and promises come with limits or ends or expirations. I feel like that all the time. I feel like I need renewals on special promises I've felt in sacred moments- or priesthood blessings. I think of promises the Lord made to so many in the scriptures- promises He never forgot about. Some were kept for thousands of years. Some are still in the works today. How silly of me to think that an answer given to me would run out or change, in my short life on earth- or even in just a year- or three. I love that after the Lord touched the stones, the stone's ability to provide light was never brought up again. Were any of the people worried the light would dim or run out? I don't know. But I'm sure it didn't. 

As mortals on earth we are eternal beings that have grown accustomed to mortal rules. One of those rules is that things have limits- even the very best people can break promises. Even the best built machinery at some point, breaks down. Medicine stops working, children grow up, feelings change, etc. etc. But there is one constant- and that is the Savior Jesus Christ. His touch is eternal and unfailing and unbreakable- and I am sure those stones never lost their light, even if it seemed impossible and unfathomable. The promises the Lord made the the Children of Israel have been in the works for thousands of years. And God can also make promises to me. Promises that seem unfathomable and limited. Those usually come in the form of words in blessing by the power of the priesthood. I always feel like blessings can run out- that the promise eventually expires, but that's not how our Heavenly Father or Savior work with us. I think one of the things that tethers us the most to them is our trusting in promises and the Savior's keeping of them.