Nephi's Wife

My current method of studying scripture (I've tried several), is to purchase a new copy of the Book of Mormon, label it with a topic, and then seek for and mark all the passages which relate to that topic, meditating on it through the day.

Yesterday, I found 1 Nephi 16:8.

By that moment, Nephi has undergone some harrowing work for the Lord. He has killed in the Lord's name, which must have hurt him, whether the Lord justified it or not. He has obediently followed his father into the wilderness, and yet returned TWICE (traveling for days, each time), the first time to retrieve his geneology, the second to invite the family of Ishmael (which included daughters) to join them. His brothers have beaten him, and his mother has murmured. Nephi did the work the Lord asked of him, and it was a lot of work.

In the seventh verse of the above-mentioned chapter, the sons of Lehi (and Zoram) marry the daughters of Ishmael. Weddings are brilliant! I want one, someday. Nephi adds this editorial to verse eight: "And also, I, Nephi, had been blessed of the Lord exceedingly."

After all the work of escaping the soon-to-be-destroyed Jerusalem, of rescuing Ishmael and his daughters, of killing for the Lord, Nephi didn't sit back and congratulate himself on a job well done, or wait for the Lord to congratulate him. He didn't lecture his listener about retrieving themselves spouses too. He identified his marriage as a blessing - and a BIG one.

I felt touched by this simple identification. I love watching my mother and father, and other, loving couples express how blessed they are in marriage. I love watching the Lord bring beautiful souls together, and seeing them humbly embrace love. I love seeing them, and knowing that I could never have made such a perfect match. And perhaps they weren't born matching, but whom the Lord calls, He qualifies.

It's a job, is being married. Heavenly Father calls his children to join together and become families - he ties us in marriage knots, one generation to the next, until every soul of us is caught in his great, family net. I'm part of that family, and if I am faithful, I, too, will be blessed to take that job. The Marriage Work.

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