A Voice in the Darkness

Yesterday for Easter we watched "The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd," which is about Christ visiting the Americas.  It greatly moved me as a teenager when I first saw it, and it moved me even more so now, surrounded by my small crowd of children.

Watching that movie prompted me to study the events leading up to Christ's death in the Americas as recorded in 3rd Nephi in the Book of Mormon.  I had a beautiful experience and I don't want to forget how I felt.

President Nelson, the prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints, has invited us to think deeply and often, "How do I hear Him?"  I've thought a lot about it over the last few weeks.

How do I hear Him?

I hear Him in a myriad of ways.  Sometimes I feel like my heart will burst out of my chest.  Sometimes it's a transcendent feeling, so much so that I feel like I'll float off the ground.  Sometimes it feels like a flash of light in my brain, like everything in the whole world makes EXACT sense at that EXACT moment.  Sometimes it's a deep burning in my heart and soul.  Sometimes it's tears springing to my eyes.  Sometimes it's thoughts and ideas flowing through me.  Sometimes it's a sense of calm.  And sometimes it's just beyond compare, and like Ammon says, "I cannot say the smallest part which I feel."

Sometimes I actually hear a voice in my mind asking these words, "Do you feel that?" It's happened quite a few times over the years.  That question stops me in my tracks and sometimes I even whisper it aloud to myself after I hear it, "Do you feel that?!"  Like, stop right now and acknowledge what you are feeling is real!  Recognize the divinity of what is being communicated with you in this moment!  It almost feels like someone else is whispering it over my shoulder, Erika... do you feel that?  It's such an interesting experience, and this is actually the first time I've ever written it down.

Yesterday as I thought about what happened at the time of Christ's death as recorded in 3rd Nephi 8-11, I had such beautiful and powerful thoughts.  I thought about how the world was in absolute commotion; storms, tempests, terrible thunder, sharp lightnings, fire, whirlwinds, and quaking. Then it ceased.  And the darkness came.

Utter darkness.  So thick the people could feel the vapor of it.  All light was gone.  There could be no candles, no torches, no fire, no sun, no moon, no stars.  No glimmer of anything.  They couldn't see, but they could hear.  And what they heard was mourning, howling, weeping, and groanings throughout the land. Three days of agony, fear, and total darkness.

Then, a voice comes.  A voice who also mourned the wickedness and the destruction, and then asks of those who were spared, "Will ye now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?

"Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are.  I was with the Father from the beginning.  I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified his name.

"...I came unto my own, and my own received me not.  And the scriptures concerning my coming are fulfilled.

"...I am the light and the life of the world.  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

"...Behold I have come unto the world to bring redemption unto the world, to save the world from sin."

The voice of Hope.  I just love that in literally the darkest hour, the Light of the world offered the ultimate hope.

In our dark times, in our trials, in our weakness, in our despair, he will come to us, too.  Maybe we cannot see, but we can Hear.   Are we listening?

The beautiful thing that can happen when one sense is suppressed is that others are heightened.  I've had experiences in the dark.  Where I cannot see the steps ahead.  Where I had to choose to just. keep. going.  But some of those times have brought so much light. Because I turned towards Heaven.  Because I turned to Him.  When other senses fail us, our spiritual ears can intensify.

The darkness WILL cease.  Morning WILL come.

3 Nephi 10:9 "And it came to pass that thus did the three days pass away.  And it was in the morning, and the darkness dispersed from off the face of the land, and the earth did cease to tremble, and the rocks did cease to rend, and the dreadful groanings did cease, and all the tumultuous noises did pass away.

"And the earth did cleave together again, that it stood; and the mourning, and the weeping, and the wailing of the people who were spared alive did cease; and their mourning was turned into joy, and their lamentations into the praise and thanksgiving unto the Lord Jesus Christ, their Redeemer."

Our mourning will be turned to joy because of Him.  We will be made whole because of Him.  We will stand again because of Him.

Later, God the Father spoke. "It was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn."

They knew how the voice made them feel, but they didn't understand it until the third time when they did "open their ears to hear it."

It makes me sad to think about the many times I am sure God has tried to communicate with me, and my ears have not been opened to hear it!  I strive to be better at this, but fail so often.  Life is too distracting, busy, caught up in things that don't matter.

The good news is He doesn't give up.  Through the good, the bad, the light, and the dark, he wants to speak to us if we will just be still and hear Him.