"But behold I say unto you, love your enemies..." (3 Nephi 12:44; see also Matt. 5:44)

Day #15

I am thankful for this scripture and the challenge it gives me every day to do what is not always easy. It is so important to learn how to do this. Christ taught it to the people in Israel and the ancient people of America.

"But behold I say unto you, love your enemies, 

bless them that curse you, 

do good to them that hate you,

and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you." 

(3 Nephi 12:44; see also Matt. 5:44)

There was a year in my life that pretty much I prayed for a woman who I truly thought was my enemy. I felt as if she had declared war on me and was determined to destroy me in the process. It was one of the hardest years of my life. As I look back on it, I am grateful for the chance I had to pray every night, in our family prayer, to help me forgive her, that I might love her.

I have come to learn for myself that loving my enemy doesn't mean I give them permission to treat me badly or that I become accepting of their every act. Rather, loving my enemy is more about my heart. It is about being able to forgive when it seems impossible. It is about letting go of hurt that seems will never heal. And putting my trust in a Master Healer, a perfectly just, and merciful God.

I am grateful for a loving and patient God who knows what we suffer privately and the remedy to heal our hearts. And sometimes the way to heal is to "do good to them that hate you". This I testify.

"...They taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good" (Moses 6:55)

The other morning as I walked in the cold weather, my heart was very heavy. I was having a difficult time focusing on anything positive and was feeling a bit sorry for myself after an incident that had taken place with family the night before. I wanted to quit thinking about it and focus on something else. I really wanted to run away from the problem, but that would do no good and be very selfish. So, as I walked, I looked around at the stark contrast between the white of the snow and the dark branches of the trees. I thought of how the trees go dormant during the winter and that eventually spring always comes after what seems like such a cold and deathly winter; buds appear and bloom into flowers, leaves poke their heads out and grow. Most definitely, "there is an opposition in all things" (2 Nephi 2:11).

I started to make a mental list of all the things that I was grateful for, of oppositions as I walked. This helped me focus on something else other than the heavy heart that I didn't want to keep carrying in the bitter, cold morning. I have to be honest, the "bitterness" came from my foul mood, and the "sweetness" was an effort to change my attitiude. There is not a particular order to this list of oppositions, but each, both the bitter and the sweet, has brought a blessing into my life. I hope you will come up with your own list of oppositions. If we "should never have bitter [or opposition we] could not know the sweet" (D&C 29:39). As the Lord said to Adam, "...they taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good" (Moses 6:55).  Truly, opposition blesses our lives with bitterness so that we may recognize the sweetness of the Lord and His "tender mercies" (1 Nephi 1:20). Without bitterness, we would not recognize what is sweet. Some of these may not make any sense to you, but this is my list of oppositions...and they need only make sense to me. I share them because I have grown from them, and have tasted the bitter and the sweet, and the sweet is "the most sweet, above all that I ever tasted" (1 Nephi 8:11).

My Short Blessing list of Oppositions 

• being hungry and thirsty in opposition to having enough food and water to eat and drink; not only physically but spiritually as well (see Matt 5:6)
• being bitterly cold in opposition to being warm, especially when I return home to the "warm hearts" of loved ones (see D&C 121:9)
• having a sick child in opposition to having a child become well or my children healthy all the time (see D&C 42:48)
• icy roads that I fall on and have to pick my self back up in opposition to roads that have been cleared and are easy to follow so that I don't stumble and fall (see 2 Nephi 4:32)
• being tired and exhausted in opposition to being awake and alert (see 1 Cor. 15:34)
• feeling alone and abandoned in opposition to feeling totally loved and surrounded by loved ones (see D&C 6:20-21)
• being in excruciating pain in opposition to having no more pain or free from pain (see Alma 36:19; Revelations 21:4; Mosiah 27:29) 
• tears of sorrow in opposition to tears of joy (see Psalms 126:5)
• darkness and night in opposition to sunshine and daylight (see Moroni 7:15) 
• making enemies in opposition to making and having friends (see Matt 5:44; 3 Nephi 12:44)
• barren, no growth in opposition to planting trees, pruning shrubs and  bushes and watching the beauty of these grow (see Alma 33:23)
• impatience, fretting, and worrying in opposition to waiting patiently, being calm, filled with faith (Psalms 37:5-11)

As I pondered these oppositions, and looked around me at the cold of winter that covered the earth, I realized that all these things testify of Christ. They all call us to Him, "He that ascended up on high, as also He descended below all things, in that He comprehended all things, that He might be in all and through all things, the light of truth; which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ" (D&C 88: 6-7). As we go through opposition, which gratefully we do, even though it is difficult and hard and sometimes we desperately don't want to, we can look to Him, the One who knows how to succor us according to our infirmities (see Alma 7:12) and heal our all our wounds and our souls and thus, we may know "to prize the good".