I read a talk this week by Elder Jeffery R. Holland, an apostle of the Lord. It's a fireside talk he gave to the students at BYU in September 2008. The title is "Lessons from Liberty Jail. " (http://speeches.byu.edu) You can also read portions of the talk in the September 2009 Ensign magazine.
I love this talk. I totally agree when he says, "every one of us, in one way or another, ... is going to spend a little time in Liberty Jail--spiritually speaking." The talk made me think about a friend from our ward in California. After hearing her story it seemed she was given a life sentence in prison, not just a little time.Jennifer, a wife and mother of four young children was stricken with a fast, debilitating form of multiple sclerosis in her early forties. I looked at pictures of her before the disease, and was taken back at her beauty. Less than ten years later, the disease had taken its toll.
Many people told me how much she and her husband were in love, or so it seemed. Within a few years of getting the disease, her husband moved her to an apartment to live alone. He kept the children and the house that they had remodeled to accommodate her disability.
When I met Jennifer, she and her husband were still married, and the children would visit once a week. A couple of years after I met her he asked for a divorce, and married their daughter's former soccer coach within weeks. Soon Jennifer found out that their joint businesses and real estate holdings went into financial ruin.
Yet, my visits with her "strengthened my feeble knees and lifted my hands that hung down." With slurred words and a smile on her face she would tell me how blessed she was. Her Liberty Jail experience with all of its painful injustices was transformed into a sacred temple.
Elder Holland tells us that "man's extremity is God's opportunity." I will look at adversity in a more redemptive way.
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