| Ears to Hear [message #1448] |
Thu, 15 November 2012 15:58  |
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JulesGP
Messages: 357
Registered: May 2012
Location: Davis County, UT
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Senior Member |
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I was reading today in 1 Nephi about Lehi's vision, and remembered an experience I had as a youth. It's not remarkable compared to some I've had, but it was one that stuck with me and I remembered it today. It seems different to me now as I remember it with a much different perspective than when I experienced it, and I wonder if those who taught me this even really understood fully, what they were teaching.
I was at girl's camp with the young women one summer, so I was probably about 12 years old. The older girls planned this activity and carried it out. We were individually blindfolded and taken into the woods where we had no sense of direction, and we had no understanding of what was going on - just "abandoned" there. Well I had no idea what to do so I just stood there for awhile. After awhile, someone came and whispered into my ear to start walking. So I did - hoping I would not break my neck tripping on a branch or rock.
As I was walking, this loud, awful noise was put right in front of me - it sounded like rocks being shaken in a #10 can - and they were being shaken right in my face. So I did what was natural and tried to get away from it - still not knowing where I was walking. I remember trying to "cheat" once and peek out of the blindfold to make sure I wasn't going to trip, and someone gently stopped me and told me not to worry, that they wouldn't let me fall. So I kept wandering, and every time I had that awful noise in my face, I would turn and go the other direction - but it seemed to follow me. Every time I was about to step on something or walk into a tree, that unseen guide would whisper softly for me to go another direction.
I wandered around like this for a long time and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Then I had the idea that maybe I was supposed to follow this rattling noise, not shy away from it. So I tried that for a bit and the noise seemed to almost "attack" me... it got in my face even louder and more aggressively. My guide whispered to me at some point to "listen" for another noise and follow it.... Then I realized that off in the distance there was a steady beat being played on a drum - it was not annoying like that rattling in my face, it was consistent and not a sharp drum sound, but a soft drum sound. And it had been there all along - but I had been too distracted by this other rattling noise in my face to realize it until that moment.
I listened for the direction and started walking that way. My guide told me "you are doing good", so I remember moving faster toward that steady beat and it grew louder as I got closer. And I noticed too, that the closer I came to the steady drum, the more distant that rattling noise became... Then as I reached the drum, someone took me by the hand and led me to an area where I could tell the ground had been covered. Someone embraced me in a huge hug and told me "Well done thou good and faithful servant, the Lord is pleased with you - his daughter". I just cried and cried like a baby! The person held me and let me cry, and then told me: "come sit over here, and enjoy the spirit of the Lord". I sat and cried some more and listened as others were greeted as they made it to the drum. The spirit was so strong and I was so glad I had made it.
I felt the spirit again as I remembered this experience and wrote this out, and I thought back on my life so far and how similar it has been to this demonstration. I still almost trip over rocks and walk into trees sometimes, but I'm so grateful I have that "guide" that I can hear more easily as I've walked farther away from the rattling noise and work to move closer to the slow and steady one.
~Jules
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