I’ve learned that it is easy to lose things – “too” easy, we might add. Objects are very common things for us to lose, such as our phone, our keys, an old book, a favorite earring, and that infamous missing sock. We can also lose our patience, our nerve, or our temper, and losing those is never a good thing. And, perhaps worst of all, we can lose the finest things life has to offer, such as close relationships, happiness, confidence, and a sense of purpose. Tragically, it seems that life is full of losing things, and sometimes it feels like we lose more than we find.
This isn’t always the case. There are moments when we feel we have found almost everything that we were missing. Those who find love feel that their last “missing piece” has fit into their puzzle – in many ways, I feel that way with Meghan. Those who find joy can feel like there was never a time when they weren’t joyful, or at least that joy masks any past absence of joy. And, happily, most objects we lose are eventually found by us or by others – except for that sock. I never find that sock.
On a sorrowful note, I feel that the worst thing to lose is perhaps what people have lost the most of – light. Light is an interesting thing. We lose light every night, but somehow it always comes back. This is referring to physical light, of course, but I believe spiritual light functions in much the same way, except for one thing:
It NEVER goes away! There is no spiritual night!
But how then do people lose light?
People choose to block out the spiritual light that Heaven sends down upon mankind. People put up their own clouds of doubt and anger that block Heaven’s rays. People put up, as Elder Uchtdorf beautifully put it, “umbrellas” to block out the blessings that Heaven rains down upon the children of men (watch this neat principle here). Becoming distant from God is never something God chooses; it is always something WE choose to do. God is a fixed point. We are the dynamic point, constantly moving either towards or away from Him.
The Lord has promised this very thing:
“Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
(Doctrine and Covenants 88:63)
J.K. Rowling mentioned something similar through the lens of the beloved Dumbledore:
“Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
The common denominator here is that WE CHOOSE when to have light and when not to have light. Yes, circumstances can force darkness upon us, but it is in our power to “shine our own light” and provide a luminous shield of sorts around ourselves and our families. I understand that this is far easier said than done. I myself have succumbed to darkness more times than I like to admit, as all of us have. And many of us have it harder than others due to mental illness or especially difficult circumstances. But God knows us individually, and His light has greater power than ANY darkness ANY of us will EVER face.
All of us know of people who, despite whatever is thrown their way, radiate light. I like to look to history, at people such as George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, etc. These people were not perfect, but they were optimistic, hopeful, and FULL OF LIGHT due to their actions, beliefs and character. We need people like that today.
The good news? We can all be like that! We don’t have to be thrown in prison or beaten or tasked with leading a new country or fight for freedom in order to make a difference and set an example. We all have a local domain in which we live. J.R.R. Tolkien perhaps said it best through Gandalf:
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”
If any of us have lost the light, WE MUST FIND IT! Find it through prayer. Find it through study of the word of God, in whatever form gives you the most connection to Him. Find it through others – I find it through my wife Meghan, through my family, and through good friends. Find it through history – historic figures give me examples of courage that I can apply to my day. Find it in nature.
And, as hard as it may be, find it in the world. Perhaps we need to stop focusing on negative news for once and look at small acts of kindness. Yes, it is important to worry about riots in the Capitol, but it is even more important to worry about helping a woman put in her soap and quarters at the laundromat and hearing about how she used to pick apples in orchards as a child (yes, that happened to me this week).
The world is far bigger than politics and pandemics.
If we have lost our light, let us find it again. Let us connect to God and believe in Him. Let us do our part to be good and kind and happy, for in this we find ourselves.
Anything that is lost can be found again - except for missing socks.
Adam Simpson
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