"Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God"
Not every story worth telling has to be lengthy or extravagant. This is a seemingly small and simple miracle. Miracles don't have to be earth-shaking. Heavenly Father's might and love are often displayed in small and simple ways. When we are willing and worthy to serve, Heavenly Father will use us to bless others.
**NOTE: If you wish to get in contact with missionaries of the Church to learn more, you can do so at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/requests/missionary-visit
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STRANDED
There's a first time for everything. As missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints being sent to a new place, every street was new to us at one time or another. It wasn’t uncommon to explore new places, even if they were off the beaten path. Walking down the same street day after day can get boring. Like much of the city of Reynosa, the Bugambilias Area itself was perpetually under construction so there was always something up and coming amidst the rubble and ruins and overgrowth. Even so, despite the rapid construction of cubic hobbit holes, the sun-baked streets were usually composed of compacted mud or crumbling light gray asphalt riddled with amorphous crater-like potholes. Some streets were wavy, like a petrified ocean. Most streets in Bugambilias were in awful condition as all the residents are well aware of and openly bothered by seeing as the Area was almost entirely residential rather than commercial. Although there wasn't an excess of travel along those main roads of Bugambilias, to begin with, of the side streets, they were "the ones [even] less traveled", if such a thing were possible. Miles and miles of unkept road but cars far and few. A city of stone buried in dirt and entangled in weeds.
Imagine yourselves along vast stretches of
land void of shade's friendship, enjoying nothing of the sparse beauty nature provided in those forgotten parts besides the abundant wild sunflower desert forests because the sun is merciless as is the humidity. Oh, that we could be like the resilient sunflowers that blossom best in the tough ground and always follow the light!
On this particular day, we come to a literal crossroads. We hardly know where we’re going at this point. We can follow the paved road back into town or we can go off-road. We decide to head down an unpopular dirt side street that we’d never taken before. We discover that there are next to no houses down this sunken street besides overgrown ruins of homes long forgotten. I don’t feel like we’re heading in a good direction to find anyone but that quickly takes a turn. There, not far down the road, but just far enough out of view that we wouldn’t have seen it had we not started down it, was a car off on the shoulder of the lopsided dirt road. Next to that car is a woman. As we get closer, we realized that it’s our Ward Mission Leader’s wife! Turns out that her car had broken down and her phone had died and she had no way of getting help. Lucky for her, if you want to call it luck, we happen to have our phone on us. We call up her husband who comes and gets her, and we go on our way.
That was a miracle. Maybe a small one to us, but a big one to her. Of course, the Lord would send the missionaries down the quiet dirt road right when she needed us to! Because that’s what the Lord does. He answers prayers. He works through those who are listening for direction and who look for opportunities to serve. I am grateful that we followed the promptings to be in the right place at the right time even if we didn’t know what it was at first.
THE WIDOW OF NAIN
Jesus Christ is the prime example of one who went out of His way to go after the one. There is an interaction that Jesus has in the Bible that is quickly overlooked because it consists of only 6 verses but which demonstrates Christ going to great lengths to minister to the one. It is one of the handfuls of accounts of Jesus raising someone from the dead and it is the story of "The Widow of Nain." (Luke 7:11-16)
I wish to share with you parts of a BYU devotional which I attended given by a former professor of ancient scripture of mine, Keith Wilson, in the spring of 2017 entitled, "B-Y-You Matter to Him":
"Nain was a small farming village at Jesus' time nestled up against Mount Moreh, which defined the east side of the Jezreel Valley. The town itself was off the beaten path, and access to it was limited to a single road. During Jesus’s time, this hamlet would have been small and relatively poor, and it has remained that way ever since. At times in its history, this town has encircled as few as thirty-four homes and 189 people. Today it is home to about 1,500 inhabitants...
Jesus was in Capernaum the day before and had healed the centurion’s servant (Luke 7:1-10). Then we learn that “the day after,” the Savior went into a city called Nain, and a large group of disciples accompanied Him...
This sequence of events is very important. Capernaum is situated on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee at an elevation of 600 feet below sea level. Nain is about thirty miles away from Capernaum at 700 feet above sea level, thus requiring an arduous, uphill climb of more than 1,300 feet to get to Nain. In order to walk from Capernaum to Nain, it would have taken at least one or two days. Recently it took a group of BYU Jerusalem Center students ten hours to walk this route. This means that Jesus probably had to walk during the night in order to intercept the burial procession “the day after”...He clearly had planned to be there in her moment of need (It was no accident and it was no convenient stumbling across her)...
But this miracle was not just about impressing a community. It was all about rescuing one desperate soul. Jesus was aware that something was very wrong for this woman—someone who was a true “nobody” in her culture. Her situation cried out for His immediate attention. Even if He had to skip a night’s rest, He knew her desperate situation, and He came running.
President Monson spoke undeniable truth when he said, “One day when we look back at seeming coincidences of our lives, we will realize that perhaps they weren’t so coincidental after all.”
I personally don't believe in accidents (See "No Accidents"). I believe that Heavenly Father knows all things and has a Plan of Happiness for us which was prepared from before the world was. He is aware of you and me and He loves us individually. He is personal and knows us perfectly and He answers our prayers. Jesus Christ believes that the worth of every soul is great (D&C 18:10) and that it is worth leaving the ninety and nine to go after the one lost sheep (Luke 15:4-7). No matter who you are, I want you to know that you are a loved child of God and your worth is infinite and eternal. You are worth going the extra mile for.
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