This morning I read an interesting article Becoming The Seed of Abraham in the Meridan Magazine. I especially was touched by this comment about how we can help our family who are on the other side of the veil and how they in turn will help us.
Those who give themselves with all their might and main to this work… receive help from the other side, and not merely in gathering genealogies. Whosoever seeks to help those on the other side receives help in return in all the affairs of life.
Later, in the same article, Truman Madsen says:
Forgiveness is the very nature of Christ’s way. I suggest that it may be difficult to forgive your enemies, but it is even more so to forgive your loved ones… It is harder to forgive your loved ones because you care about them and you have to go on living with them, or struggling to, and they can go on hurting you over the years and the decades. But our hearts will never turn to our fathers in the way this spirit of which we have been testifying motivates us to do unless we forgive.
I also like his response when an angry child says "I didn't ask to be born! "“Oh yes, you did. You not only asked for it, you prepared for it, trained for it, were reserved for it…”
In my job as a teacher I see so many children who come from homes where there is little love shown, where they may be uncared for, or abused. I often wonder why? Why must some innocent child suffer? I know members of my own family have suffered at the hands of people who were supposed to love them. How do we justify those actions, or learn what the purpose would be? This article mentions that the very strong are there because the Lord knows they will stop the circle of abuse and in that role, they will save the spirits that follow them.
"No matter what things you may have suffered at the hands of your family, no matter how thoughtless or faithless or even cruel they may have been to you throughout your life, if you have been privileged to receive any of the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant you are called to save them—and this is surely a calling to which you were foreordained in the beginning. Wrote Carlfred Broderick:[36] (I don't take this to mean save the actual person who abuses, but safe the next generation.)
In a former era, the Lord sent a flood to destroy unworthy lineages. In this generation, it is my faith that he has sent numerous choice individuals to help purify them.…
God actively intervenes in some destructive lineages, assigning a valiant spirit to break the chain of destructiveness in such families. Although these children may suffer innocently as victims of violence, neglect, and exploitation, through the grace of God some find the strength to [neutralize] the poison within themselves, refusing to pass it on to future generations. Before them were generations of destructive pain; after them the line flows clear and pure. Their children and children’s children will call them blessed. In suffering innocently that others might not suffer, such persons, in some degree, become as “saviors on Mount Zion”[37] by helping to bring salvation to a lineage."
This just rang true to me this morning. Perhaps it will bring some comfort to others.
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