"...there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy" (Alma 36:21)

Okay, I have a sweet tooth. I have always liked candy and chocolate.  I even have a "candy cupboard". It's where I put the best treats. Now that my kids are older there really isn't a point to having a seperate place for sweets, but it's habit. I buy candy, cinnamon bears, chocolate with pieces of toffee and nuts, yummy!

I think sweets are really good for us. "How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way" (Psalms 119:103-104). Christ's words are sweet. There are many places we can taste His words. We eat them as we read them in the scriptures. We can eat His sweet words when we attend church. We can eat the sweet words of Christ as we implement them into our actions and thoughts and follow His ways.

"Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones" (Proverbs 16:24) Words have a powerful affect upon us. The little saying, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me" came to mind when I read that Proverb. Pleasant words are sweet to the soul and health to the bones. Even the simple words "thank you" are very lifting and helpful whenever they are said sincerely.

Now, there is one thing I don't like with my sweets. It is when someone tries to tell me it is really good, and it tastes...bitter, or better said, gross. Some things are just not meant to be in sweets, and bitter is one of them. The definition of bitter is this:

1. Having a harsh, disagreeably acrid taste, like that of aspirin, quinine, wormwood, or aloes.
2. producing one of the four basic taste sensations; not sour, sweet or salt.
3. hard to bear; grievous; distressful: a bitter sorrow.
4. causing pain; piercing; stinging: a bitter chill
5. characterized by intense antagonism or hostility: bitter hatred.
6. hard to admit or accept: a bitter lesson
7. resentful or cynical
(Dictionary.com)

There is another saying: "Take the bitter with the sweet". But I don't like that saying. I know we have bitter things, or distasteful things that happen, but that doesn't mean I have to sit there and keep the bitterness in my mouth and continue to taste it over and over. I need and can replace it with sweetness. Some people try to tell me that some things that are sweet are bitter, or bitter is sweet. This is false. "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter" (Isaiah 5:20)! One such thing is bitter and not sweet is the need to hold onto resentment, pain, or a grudge, or being unforgiving. These things, no matter how you phrase them, are bitter.

A few years ago I had an experience that was, what I would call, "bitter". It was a life changing experience. While I was going through it, the pain was very deep, emotionally and physically. Alma, a prophet in The Book of Mormon, describes it best: "I say unto you...that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains." (Alma 36:21). I had a choice to make. I could either become very bitter and resentful or I could turn to the Savior and receive His light, and His sweetness, and move through what I needed to go through and become forgiving and loving. I can tell you, it wasn't easy. It was a long road. But now that I have had time to heal, time to "drink the sweet"(Nehemiah 8:10), and as I did so, I realized that I was "neither...sorry; for the joy of the Lord is [my] strength" (Nehemiah 8:10). I can now look back on that experience with gratitude  for all the blessings the Lord has given me. I am a better person for having gone through the experience. (I wouldn't want to go through it again, and I don't wish it on other people, but I wouldn't want it taken away from me.) "Yea, and again I say unto you...that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy" (Alma 36:21).

I have been given much because of Him, even Jesus Christ, who experienced the most bitter so that we could have the most sweet. I know that my Redeemer lives (see Job 19:25). This I testify is the most sweet of all.

There is always sweetness and there is always hope. Sometimes, we just have to seek a little more for it hidden in that back corner of our cupboard, but it is there.