Update 3

I am finally finished with my MBA program, I passed my last class a few days ago so I fully intend on coming back to the blog now, in fact it was one of my main focuses, so that will be good. As far as what has happened to my family, it is still really bad, just soul crushing. This is the worst thing I've ever experienced and I hate every second of it and I don't think that that feeling will ever go away. I was already exhausted from everything else that has happened to me in life and then to add this on top of it is almost too much. I only say "almost" because I'm still here, but truly it is too much. These last 7 months have been absolutely transformative, but not in like a wholesome, Hallmark movie type of way, where everything works out for the best and everyone is happy at the end. But ultimately, I have to repeat that if there was a way to accomplish God's will in a less painful way, but God chose to inflict more pain than was necessary, that would make God cruel, and God is not cruel, therefore, there is no other way. It had to happen this way, and that's difficult to accept, but I am not in charge of this ride, and I have to deal with that which is hard because I am a control freak. So ultimately I have to trust that the plan is being implemented and I can't control that, and that there is no other way. But I don't want to talk about that anymore. What I do want to talk about is:

1. What does Jesus want me to do when it comes to standing up for the rights of others as they are actively being oppressed. This is something I've been thinking about for the last several months. My social media feed is flooded with these videos of ICE raids and the absolute barbarism of their acts and I've tried to decide what Jesus would want me to do in a scenario like that. It's a complicated issue because what is legal and what is moral are not always the same things. Also what is personally gratifying and what is effective are not the same things. I have lived a very violent life, and I'm exhausted, I have a unique view of what I personally want to do in these situations, but I'm not sure that that is what Jesus wants me to do. I will do anything, as long as I know that it's what Jesus wants me to do and I think when I say that or when other people say that they think it means to fight back or to stand up to oppressors or something like that but I'm wondering if maybe the answer is that we aren't supposed to fight back. What I mean by that is it would be incredibly gratifying to physically get involved in protecting someone else if I feel they are being oppressed, and if I truly believed that that was what Jesus wanted me to do then I would do it, no questions asked. However, it goes against my nature to NOT do something like that, to stand back and "watch" but is that what He would want us to do in those situations? Jesus lived during a time of crush Roman occupation and oppression, how many armed rebellions did He lead? None. How many times did He interfer with Romans oppressing His people? None, or they would have killed him much earlier. Did He carry a sword with Him? Almost certainly not. But I don't think that means that we just do nothing while people are terrorized. So my question is, what does He want us to do? I have a lot of thoughts on this, and it's mainly from my perspective as a white woman knowing full well that I almost certainly will not be the one targeted. But my kids are brown and racialy ambiguous which makes me nervous, so it hits close to home. Anyway, I don't want to go into it too much now because I think about it a lot but and I know my sister and cousin do too because we jsut talked about this last night, but maybe no one else is interested.

2. I want to write a book about Battle Doctrine from the Book of Mormon perspective. It will be in contrast to the current, modern day warfare philosophy but also that of the past. I was in the army and am a combat vet and the more I read the Book of Mormon, the more I see how different warfighting is according to God's law vs. how it is in the modern day military. I think about it a lot and think it would be a very interesting subject, not that anyone else would be interested in it, but I certainly would be. I have a lot of ideas and I'll just leave one scriptue quote here to give an idea of what spoke to me about this subject while studying, Alma 48:15-16 which says, "And this was their faith, that by so doing God would prosper them in the land, or in other words, if they were faithful in keeping the commandments of GOd that he woudl propser them in the land; yea, warn them to flee, or to prepare for war, according to their danger; And also, that God would make it known unto them whither they should go do defend themselves against their enemies, and by so doing, the Lord would deliver them; and this was the faith of Moroni, and his heart did not glory in it; not in the shedding of blood but in doing good, in preserving his people, yea, in keeping the commandments of God, yea, and rresisting iniquity." These two verses imply a lot of aspects of warfare like intelligence gathering, motivations, allegiances, etc. There's a lot that I want to talk about in the book that I think would be interesting and these verses spoke to me on the subject.

All of this to say that hopefully I'll be back soon starting where I left off in the Old Testament and getting back into it.