Hold Your Peace

Reading:   Exodus 14:10-14

Unfortunately we are taking a back step on the blog today, let me explain...if you are somewhat new to my blog you might not be aware of the guidelines I have set for this blog...here's the deal; I can only write a blog based on scripture I have read on the day prior to the posting date.  So, yesterday I was about to read after a long day at the new job and, sadly, I feel asleep at the proverbial wheel (iPad in hand, head on pillow, out cold in seconds).  However, I did read scripture during the day as I was preparing for the blog posting on the previous subject so I will utilize those few verses for today's blog.  Way too complicated, I'm sure you could care less, "Get on with it already!"

It is a piteous thing that the Israelites were so quick to turn on Moses and Aaron at the slightest glitch in their lives, especially considering the enslavement they were leaving behind, but, they murmured often.  I'm not going to rehash yesterday's blog about murmurers but I did want to point out their ridiculousness once again...here they are at the Red Sea as the Egyptians approach and of coarse they murmur because there seems to be no escape.  It's too bad Moses was so patient with these whiners because it would be nice to see him raise his rod and unleash hail again.  Anyway, Moses hushes the trembling crowd, rolling his eyes at their feeble faith, and with a stern voice, says ...

EXODUS 14:14

14    The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. 

Here is a relevant story about "holding your peace" from an address given by Virginia H. Pearce in the 1994 April General Conference, General Young Women Meeting.  The talk was entitled Faith is the Answer:

 My great-great-grandmother's name was Mary Goble Pay. She was twelve years old and living in Brighton, England, when the missionaries taught her family the gospel. The year was 1855, and all Mary's mother could think of was to join the other Saints in Utah. And so the following spring Mary's mother, father, and four younger brothers and sisters boarded the ship Horizon for America. 

 By the time they could get outfitted and started on the trail, it was the middle of July. Winter storms came early that year, and the Gobles spent five terrible months on the trail between St. Louis and Salt Lake City. Mary wrote: "We had to keep close to [the handcart companies] to help them if we could. We began to get short of food and our cattle gave out" (A Believing People , ed. Richard H. Cracroft and Neal E. Lambert, Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1974, p. 144). Many died-among them Mary's two-year-old sister, her five-year-old brother, and Edith, a baby sister born on the trail and buried in Wyoming. 

 And then when all seemed lost, the stranded Saints were miraculously rescued by men and teams sent by Brigham Young. But even as the handcart companies crossed the final mountain into the valley, Mary's mother died. 

 Mary describes the scene: "We arrived in Salt Lake City nine o'clock at night the 11th of December 1856. Three out of four who were living were frozen. My mother was dead in the wagon. ... 

 "[We were] taken to a home ... and the sisters brought us plenty of food. ... 

 "Early next morning Bro. Brigham Young and a doctor came. ... When Bro. Young came in he shook hands with us all. When he saw our condition-our feet frozen and our mother dead-tears rolled down his cheeks" (ibid., p. 145). 

 Well, Mary grew up. She married a good man. They had thirteen children whom they taught to love the gospel. She said it made her sad to talk about that trip across the plains, but she always remembered her mother's words: "I want to go to Zion while my children are small, so they can be raised in the Gospel of Christ. For I know this is the true Church." Mary concludes, "I think my mother had her wish" (ibid., pp. 149-50). 

I added this story because it speaks loudly of a people struggling to survive with nothing to hold on to but faith and the warming peace of their own conviction and willingness to continue moving forward.  I'm sure there were many souls among the Israelites that had this type of unwavering faith and conviction but it always seems as though the murmurers are the ones who speak the loudest and proclaim to speak for all.  Bottom line, as Moses said, we need to hold our peace and have faith that God is fighting on our side, oh, and quit your dagum murmuring!

~Kipling