D&C 121 - Intro

I've been looking forward to section 121 for a long time because it starts what I like to call the "Lessons from Liberty." These sections, 122 specifically has made a huge difference in my life and the way that I deal with adversity and truly has given me more insight into the atonement than I had before. The first time that I realized that the Prophet's experience in Liberty Jail was a bigger deal than I imagined was when I saw a painting of JS kneeling on a stone floor praying with a blankey around his shoulders. I've always lived in hot, sunny places my whole life with the exception of Utah for 3 years, so I have never really understood the harshness of a cold winter before. I am very sensitive to cold, I really don't like it, the heat, I get used to, but the cold, forget it, at about 35 degrees my ears start to ache and I can't see. That's really not that cold in comparison to say, North Dakota where it's below 0 for months at a time. Imagining the living conditions in Liberty Jail really helped me understand why it was such a trial. From what I understand it was the basement of a jail which meant that it was more a crawl space than cells, meaning that the men held there couldn't fully stand up. What's the big deal with that, I've asked myself, it meant that they were hunched over the whole time, and not just slouching hunched, but back breakingly curved in the spine for many months. There was no bathroom, nor were they allowed to use an outhouse or anything like that. Honestly, this is what really made me see the terribleness of this experience. They had to use the bathroom, both #1 and #2 in front of all their fellow captives, and it had to stay in the room there with them, the smell must have been really terrible. They weren't given beds or even cots so they had to sleep on the stone floor with some hay. Hay is itchy, and I don't care how young someone is, sleeping on a rocky floor is painful to be sure. They didn't have adequate clothing or blankets for the Missouri winter and were probably freezing. The IM explains it better than I can saying, "Many inhumanities were heaped upon them while they were there. Insufficient and improper food was their daily fare; at times only the inspiration of the Lord saved them from their indulfence of poisoned food, which all did not escape. (Alexander McRae said, 'We could not eat it until we were driven to it by hunger.') The jail had no sleeping quarters, and thus they were forced to seek rest and recuperation on beds of straw placed on hardened plank and stone floors. They were suffered very little contact with the outside world, espeically during the first month of so of their confinement. And this, at a crucial time when the Latter-day Saints were at the peak of persecution in Missouri, and were desperately in need of their prophet- leader.'" One of the worst parts of this whole experience is that it didn't happen in a vacuum, the saints and the wives and children of these men were being forced out of their homes by violence in the middle of the winter. I found an article I want to listen to on my way home tonight that documents that while bring driven from their homes, "women and children marked their footsteps on the frozen ground with blood. It being the dead of winter." I don't know how I would be able to stand it knowing that my children were suffering like that, it's hard enough for me when I don't think that their dinner is good enough. It's hard for me to imagine a man caring enough about his wife and children suffering to lose sleep over it, but apparently it's a thing. As the prophet of the restoration, I imagine that knowing that the people that you love and have believed in you when no one else did are suffering because of the religion that you are the leader of could be an incredible budern. I feel trapped by my responsibilities and my high paying job and my incredible children and it's almost all consuming, but to be physically restrained and physically suffering and know that you can't get out of it without divine intervention must cause mental anguish that is unlike anything else. I imagine myself being JS in that situation and thinking "what the frick is going on? I've done what you told me to do, the saints are suffering, I need to be with them, I need to be with my family, what possibly could be gained by keeping me locked up here?" I can imagine complete bewilderment, that's how I would feel.