Today’s entry, 2 Nephi 4, is brought to you by guest writer jaklumen, whose favorite scripture this is. I invite you to visit his blog by following the link attached to his username
There is a section of the fourth chapter of 2nd Nephi that is called “The Psalm of Nephi”, which starts with verse 16 and continues through to the end of the chapter. I first became acquainted with this passage when I was on a peer counseling retreat at Camp Ghormley in high school. We were asked to share something very important to us in a meeting later that evening.
I don’t much consider myself an evangelical or missionary sort, but I hadn’t taken much besides a change of clothes and my scriptures. In fact, I was very shy at the time, almost painfully so. I don’t remember all the particulars of how I encountered the passage, but I remember a very, very strong prompting that I should share it.
I started with verse 15, however. Nephi’s statement “I write the things of my soul” seemed very powerful and relevant to me. I felt that I was pouring my soul out, although at the time, I did not fully understand how, or why. I did believe that my soul did delight in the things of the Lord, and Nephi’s psalm seemed to be the only way then to describe it. I was still trying to process a lot of it, so his description that his heart pondered continually on it seemed to apply as well.
The context and circumstances that I was in at the time was very foreign to me, although it wasn’t my first instance in a student support group. Even then, I was very confused as to my place. Much like the last time, some of my peers were battling drug and alcohol addictions. Some problems weren’t immediately obvious-- the other person sent from the music department became a teenaged mother some months later. Yet the retreat wasn’t just limited to my school, as others were coming from the high school downtown. So this prompting to share Nephi’s words was strong indeed, because normally sharing such things to a group that was largely strangers would be very intimidating to me.
As I said, some students were working on addiction recovery, and a few shared their experiences with the 12 Steps. Such a perspective was completely outside my paradigm at the time. I didn’t think I needed the Steps, nor did I think I would ever-- although I came crashing down to the reality that yes, I really did need such an outlook many years later. Yet I could still understand Nephi’s cry of “[oh] wretched man, that I am!” And that impending realization also included “nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.”
Trust was very hard to come by. The teacher who referred me, the high school’s music director at the time, was a raging bully. I didn’t know what to make of his soaring melodramatics or his anger that exploded on a timer that was completely unknown to anyone at the school. He verbally (and sometimes physically) abused students, and I could not hide my fear like the other students did. In fact, I had physically fled the classroom at least once. He was plenty abusive to the choir teacher, and assaulted him in full view of everyone in the cafeteria that connected both the choir and band rooms. Even now I am reluctant to thank him for this experience, much less forgive him of the sheer terror he spread in his wake.
Then again, Nephi had lived in fear of his own brothers.
Moreover, the anger of Laman, Lemuel, and the children of Ishmael had been kindled against Nephi more strongly, for the first part of 2 Nephi 4 concerned the last blessings of Lehi to all of his family before he died. Ironically, I do not know if this teacher of mine ever learned about the things I felt compelled to say. Fortunately, I do know that my peers were deeply touched by the sharing of Nephi’s words. It seemed more of a contrast among those that were not of the Latter-Day Saint faith as I was; I had been afraid that I might be judged quoting from scriptures that were unknown to them. To my surprise, it prompted expressions of their own faith as we, at the end, wrote down how we felt about each other in the shared experience we had together.
Death was not unknown to me at the time, either. My paternal grandfather passed away in 1990 to prostate cancer, and I think that this retreat did happen after that time. I had not considered the impact of Lehi’s death on Nephi, nor was I actively contemplating the death of my grandfather. It was something I had tucked away and hidden, and I was still struggling to understand the dysfunction and pain of my own family.
I did not fully understand the deep awakening that was happening to me, although I did know that my testimony of the Gospel and Atonement of Jesus Christ was beginning to take root. I did not know that I was yet denying that gift of the Savior because of pride from beneath and lack of self-worth. But it was the second time that I had felt a personal connection to a prophet of the Book of Mormon, the other being Alma the Younger; that connection had also happened at about that time. Nephi’s trust in the Lord continues to resonate stronger and stronger with me to this day.
It was not the end to the bittersweet joy mingled with suffering. My father became gravely ill a few years later, and my paternal grandmother died after I reunited with my soulmate (whom she sweetly referred to as “our girl”), and shortly before our daughter was born. Much of this is still intensely personal and private to me, although I do not hesitate to speak of the mercy of The Hero That Became One With The Father. I do not hesitate to agree with Nephi that the condescension of the Lord was in such tender mercy to us mere mortals, that He would make a way and give comfort and strength despite our failings.
It is all I can think to do sometimes, to call on his name. Right now I am struggling with chronic back pain, and the pain overwhelms my senses sometimes. It is more obvious than the anguish that still creeps inside me, the fears of the terrors of the past. I feel backward, because I don’t feel the urge to curse God and die while learning the lessons of another scriptural figure, that is, Job. No, I am still angry at so much of his children, especially those who I believe should have protected and helped me. I am still angry at the rage-filled teacher that sent me to Camp Ghormley. In all the hurt and pain I still feel, often in the middle of the night, all I can think to utter is “Jesus, my master, have mercy on me!”
I still pray for the ability to forgive. I still pray to be forgiven, because like Nephi, I’ve seen incredible things... some I cannot share openly, because they are too personal, too special, too sacred to risk mockery at this time. I still wonder when painful rifts, even within my own family, will be healed.
But I do know in Whom I have trusted.
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