"To Make Them Mighty Even unto the Power of Deliverance"

Here it goes, the first of many posts.  It feels a little uncomfortable, as I've never done anything like this before, but here it goes....

This week I started another year of college.  I was here just a few months ago, when I decided to switch my major yet again and here I am starting into it.  I have learned again how many struggles can come with going to school.  Homework certainly hasn't disappointed as I have spent many hours, often fairly late into the night, working late in the library or laying on my couch struggling to understand questions on a worksheet when my brain is too tired to try anymore.  These new problems just piled onto many old and new personal trials, battles, and struggles that life throws at us all.

I know my trials and hardships in life are barely even minuscule in comparison to most people's problems, but I struggle some days to maintain that realistic and positive mindset.  We all have our days where we hold on to the mindset of "if I can just get through today" for dear life.  Within the last week, I have had a few of those, where life just seemed unfairly hard.  However, I'm glad that I had them.  It is often the hard times that drive us to find the source that we should have stayed close to long before things got rough.

This week drove me to find that source once again.  While I was studying outside the temple on Sunday afternoon, I was able to find a reassuring sense of lasting peace.  This week I started the Book of Mormon over again and rediscovered just how powerful a blessing it can be in my life.  What really struck me this week is in the first chapter of Nephi, I had pointed out to me a detail that I had always seemed to glaze over.  In 1 Nephi 1, Nephi says "...and having seen many afflictions in my days," from these words, someone pointed out to me what really should be obvious to us all, Nephi had a rough life.  I can't imagine that he didn't have those "if I can just get through today" days.  Yet he says, "nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days," without the hard times, we can't recognize the good times and how good God has been to us.  Nephi ends the chapter with verse 20, in which he explains how the people of where he grew up sought to kill his father for the truths that he courageously proclaimed and later explains how his family had to decide to leave their home and all that they knew.  Nephi ends the verse and the chapter with this, "But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance."

The Book of Mormon was written by prophets of God, for our day.  I know that much is true.  Nephi does not say that the Lord's people won't have trials or that they won't struggle.  Nephi says that the Lord will "make them mighty even unto deliverance."  We have and will have struggles and trials, but the Lord will strengthen us.  He will give us power unto deliverance.  He doesn't take our trials away, but he gives us strength to get through them, to learn from them, and to grow.  God lives and He cares, He always has and always will.  My trials may be insignificant and may seem small to others, but they are hard and important to me, as personal trials are hard for us all.  Hold on, turn to the One who can always cares and will always help, and He will, every time and in His own way.