(From Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and a recent post of ll/27/21) Now let’s talk about those propositions for a moment. Every one of us, in one way or another, great or small, dramatic or incidental, is going to spend a little time in Liberty Jail—spiritually speaking. . . . continuing
We will face things we do not want to face for reasons that may not have been our fault. Indeed, we may face difficult circumstances for reasons that were absolutely right and proper, reasons that came because we were trying to keep the commandments of the Lord. We may face persecution; we may endure heartache and separation from loved ones; we may be hungry and cold and forlorn. Yes, before our lives are over we may all be given a little taste of what the prophets faced often in their lives.
But the lessons of winter of 1838-39 teach us that every experience can be a redemptive experience if we remain bonded to our Father in Heaven through that difficulty. These difficult lessons teach us that mans extremity is God’s opportunity, and if we will be humble and faithful, if we will be believing and not curse God for our problems, He can turn the unfair and inhumane and debilitating prisons of our lives into temples—or at least into a circumstance that can bring comfort and revelation, divine companionship and peace.
Let me push this just a little further. I’ve just said that hard times can happen to each of us. President Joseph Fielding Smith, grandnephew of the Prophet Joseph and grandson of the incarcerated Hyrum, said something even stronger than that when he dedicated the Liberty Jail Visitors’ center in 1963. Alluding to the kind of history we’ve reviewed here and looking on the scene where his grandfather and granduncle were so unjustly held, he said that perhaps such things have to happen—not only can they happen, perhaps they have to. Said he: “As I have read the history of those days, the days that went before and the days that came after, I have reached the conclusion that the hardships, the persecution, the almost universal opposition [toward the Church at that time] were necessary. At any rate they became school teachers to our people. They helped to make them strong.11
Without trying to determine which of these kinds of experiences in our life are “mandatory” and which are “optional” but still good for us, may I suggest that very few of the lessons learned at Liberty—those experiences that were “school teachers” to Joseph and can be to us, experiences that contribute so much to our education in mortality and our exaltation in eternity. ~Jeffrey R. Holland, To My Friends (Deseret Book, 2014, Dwarsligger® edition 2020, p.64-67). . . (continued)
