On October 6, 2018, the prophet
challenged us to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year:
"I invite you to read the
Book of Mormon between now and the end of the year. As impossible as that may
seem with all you are trying to manage in your life, if you will accept this
invitation with full purpose of heart, the Lord will help you find a way to
achieve it. And, as you prayerfully study, I promise that the heavens will open
for you. The Lord will bless you with increased inspiration and revelation.
As you read, I would encourage
you to mark each verse that speaks of or refers to the Savior. Then, be
intentional about talking of Christ, rejoicing in Christ, and preaching of
Christ with your families and friends. You and they will be drawn closer to the
Savior through this process. And changes, even miracles, will begin to
happen." --Russell M. Nelson
I finished reading the Book of
Mormon today. As usual, I sat down to write and reflect on the experience. I
always learn and understand the most when I try writing my thoughts down. Even
though this was a personal journey, it felt like a good idea to share it here.
No matter how often I gather my courage and share my personal experiences, that
exposed vulnerable feeling that comes with the sharing never goes away! The
part of President Nelson's challenge that I didn't do as well with was being
intentional about talking of Christ with my family and friends. This post will
hopefully begin to accomplish that part of the invitation.
First things first: when I heard
President Nelson's invitation for a speedy Book of Mormon read-though, I
groaned a little and said to myself, "another Book of Mormon
power-read-through? I have read the Book of Mormon plenty of times, both fast
and slow. I don't need to read the Book of Mormon at top speed again. Reading
it quickly with a deadline on the horizon, stresses me out. I don't get nearly
as much out of it as I do when I read it at my own pace. I don't struggle with
remembering to read the scriptures daily, so even that element of the challenge
will be lost on me. I already have a study method going for the Book of Mormon
right now--I don't have time to do both my system and a read-a-thon!"
My pride almost got the better of
me before I checked it and committed to read the Book of Mormon by the end of
the year. I multiplied it out: 531 pages in 86 days came out to 6.1 pages per
day. Not too bad. I geared myself up for a rigorous three month reading
schedule.
Even though the prophet
encouraged highlighting, I decided not to underline every mention of Jesus
Christ. My main reason for this choice was because I forgot about that part of
the challenge. By the time I was reminded of that part of the challenge, I was
already nearly 100 pages in and didn't want to alter my groove. A few years ago
I began a read-through wherein I highlighted every verse that speaks of Christ
for a few books in the Book of Mormon, and it was hard to figure out which
verses to underline. When I tried to mark each verse with Jesus in it, I spent
so much time hemming and hawing over which verses to highlight and how to mark
them (color? underline? outline? circle the verse number?) that I gave up on
the effort. Do you highlight the verses that prophesy horrible destruction just
because they begin with "Thus saith the Lord"? Do I only highlight
the actual names of Jesus, or do I highlight the entire verses? Maybe I'm overthinking
the entire exercise, but rather than obtaining yet another cheap blue
missionary Book of Mormon to color 75% of the pages red, I elected to return to
my beloved leather scriptures for this reading and only read, not mark. I
mentally highlighted verses about Jesus Christ each time he was mentioned. I
figured that was the spirit of the challenge--to seek Jesus Christ actively in
the Book of Mormon.
The beauty of the gospel is we
are each encouraged to figure out how to apply it to ourselves individually. I
am writing about how I personally chose to act on the prophet's invitation, but
what I did is not the only way! It is simply the way that felt right for me.
I decided to do this
read-through in my "official scriptures" (my pretty leather bound
book) rather than in the app. It has been years since I read regularly in paper
scriptures. I have used the Gospel Library app almost exclusively ever since I
got my first smartphone four years ago. The Gospel Library app is amazing for
scripture study, with so many references and resources right at my fingertips.
But when I returned to my paper scriptures, I experienced a surprising feeling
of connection with the words: I was holding a physical book whose only purpose
was to testify of Jesus Christ. That singleness of purpose is powerful in a day
of all-in-one handheld devices.
When I read scriptures on my
phone, I am holding a device that has hundreds of different functions and
capabilities. The act of holding the physical book of scriptures (rather than
my phone) while I read communicated to my family what I was doing much more
effectively than me staring at my phone while telling them "I'm reading my
scriptures." When my kids walked in and saw me with my scriptures open,
they immediately knew exactly what I was doing, no explanations necessary. I
don't know if it made a difference to them, but it made a difference to me--I
am always trying to minimize my phone usage around my family, and reading my
paper scriptures reduced my dependency on my phone at least once a day while
also conveying the silent message that reading scriptures is important to me.
On October 7th, I woke up, opened
the Book of Mormon to page 1, and dutifully began reading. It was fine, just
like always, but after a few days, the familiar cadence of 5-7 pages per day
felt stale to me. I was still reading for the same amount of time each day as
before, but now I was on a schedule. Cue Shaina-stress! My pride balked at
legislation of one of my most personal moments of the day: I viewed scripture
time as my own journey. It was my jurisdiction and my job to figure out how to
make it work for me! (time for a piece of humble pie, Shaina.) I didn't want a
stressful reading schedule invading that safe space! Even though I was going
through the motions of accepting the challenge by reading my page allotment
each day, it took a little longer for me to "accept this invitation with
full purpose of heart."
The farther I read, the more I
started dreading the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi. Isaiah has always been rough
reading for me. Admittedly, I have never read a companion book for study help
alongside Isaiah or used any external explanations. (I'm saving that mental
exercise for when I have a little more guaranteed quiet for my scripture study
time.) George Frideric Handel is the only person who has ever made Isaiah a joy
to me. The obligation to wade quickly through heavy scripture like Isaiah is
one of the top reasons that I resist scripture speed reading challenges.
"If I don't understand much of Isaiah when I read it slowly, how on earth
am I going to survive six whole pages of it per day?" I thought to myself.
The promise was "if you will
accept this invitation with full purpose of heart, the Lord will help you find
a way to achieve it."
The solution came to me unexpectedly:
read faster! Wait, what? Read MORE than 6.1 pages per day. The overall number
of days spent in Isaiah would be less! I wouldn't have to spend the rest of the
year working on/stressing about this challenge! (I know I shouldn't stress, but
at this point in my existence, I mostly try to minimize my stress rather than
remove it entirely, since trying to completely remove stress is stressful.) My
new daily reading minimum in the Book of Mormon became ten pages. That's only
four pages more, but it still was almost double the amount, and in
scripture-time, four pages is a significant addition.
Finally I found a way to accept
the invitation with full purpose of heart. By choosing a daily reading load
that shortened the timeline of the read through, I made the challenge my own
and finally completely committed to it.
When I began reading ten pages of
the Book of Mormon every day, I quickly noticed three things:
- My six page-a-day rut was broken. I was starting and stopping reading at different places than I had on previous end-of-the-year BOM reading challenges, and the entire scripture reading experience felt refreshed.
- Because I was starting and stopping at different places than usual, different themes and verses stood out to me.
- Several big picture themes, patterns, and ideas that I hadn't noticed before surfaced in my mind as I read, thanks to the higher volume of pages I was covering each week.
My ten page minimum forced me to
devote at least 20 minutes a day to scripture study. That doesn't sound like
much, but as a mom it is shocking how difficult it can be to find 20 semi-quiet
minutes where reading the scriptures even seems remotely possible. Some days I
had to break it up into smaller pieces. Lots of days I sat up in bed and read
groggily, first thing in the morning before the kids descended upon me with
their thundering footsteps.
Before this reading challenge,
usually I just read my scriptures each day until one or more of my kids
interrupted me, then called it good and move on with the day. Sometimes that
meant I got 20 minutes in, sometimes I only got 1 minute. My rationale was that
motherhood was an important calling and it seemed to me that Jesus wouldn't
tell someone to "go away while I finish reading this chapter." I
still believe that, but the benefit of consistent daily spiritual nourishment
of a solid square 20+ minutes of scripture time every day is worth the
struggle! In other words, I don't want to give up as easily anymore.
I also don't want to constantly
be ignoring my family to read scriptures, but there is a balance in there and
devoting 20-40 minutes per day to reading the scriptures over the past 44 days
showed me that upping the daily time I spent in the scriptures outweighs the
inconveniences. On that steady daily diet of scripture reading, my personal
peace increased. It's hard to describe. I felt calmer and more peaceful in my
middle, kind of like how I felt after the ten day social media fast, but this
was more of a calm feeling than the quiet I felt then. As an expert worrier and
stresser, I am extra sensitive to peace when it comes. Reading the Book of
Mormon for 20+ minutes every day for six weeks gave me such a steady flow of
peace. As usual, I didn't really realize that the cozy peace was there until
the challenge was over and I started processing the experience.
This morning, I only had one book
left: 13 pages to go! I was rounding the last curve and heading into the
homestretch. But I didn't want to sprint it in. The book of Moroni is always a
treat to read. I was looking forward to it, so I took steps to make the
experience as positive as possible. While I shower, Amber usually watches a
show to keep her out of mischief in my absence. On some days of this reading
challenge, I have extended her show-shower benefits by an extra episode in
order to gain actual quiet uninterrupted time reading the scriptures (it makes
such a difference, as long as I can swallow the mom-guilt brought on by extra
screen time). I decided to give Amber an extra show today so I could read in
peace. I finished showering and snuggled into my chair with my scriptures.
After I read a few verses, my stomach started growling. I wasn't just a little
hungry; I was HUNGRY-hungry. When that happens, I feel nauseous and I must eat
fast to avoid it. The joys of my sensitive stomach and high metabolism are
many. So I paused my scripture reading, made myself an early lunch, and
returned to read while I ate. My phone kept buzzing, so I silenced it.
Beautiful, familiar words about
charity flowed over me.
"But charity is the pure
love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at
the last day, it shall be well with him. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray
unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love,
which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus
Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we
may be purified even as he is pure." --Moroni 7:47-48
And as a powerhouse conclusion,
Moroni's loving invitation:
"Yea, come unto Christ, and
be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall
deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and
strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be
perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can
in nowise deny the power of God." --Moroni 10:32
Then just like that, I reached
the end of page 531. Amen, and it was done.
It felt good. It also felt a
little sad; the challenge was over. Mostly I felt satisfied--that deep
satisfaction that comes from doing the right thing, from finishing what I
started, and from reading the words of truth in the Book of Mormon every single
day. I sat and basked in that feeling for a few minutes before returning to the
fray (aka unplugging Amber).
I took some pictures to
commemorate the day because that's what I do.
I have never had big drastic spiritual
experiences as a result of finishing reading the Book of Mormon. My testimony
of its truth has always been slow and steady, confirmed and strengthened over
and over every single time I read in it. I read the Book of Mormon in 44 days
this time. That's the fastest I've ever read it through, and although speed is
not something I aspire to where the scriptures are concerned, I am glad to have
had the experience of reading the Book of Mormon in such a relatively short
time.
"...as you prayerfully
study, I promise that the heavens will open for you. The Lord will bless you
with increased inspiration and revelation.... You will be drawn closer to the
Savior through this process. And changes, even miracles, will begin to
happen."
What a promise! I have felt it come true for me. I know that the Book of Mormon is true because of the spirit I feel every time I read it. I know that Jesus Christ lives. I love him. He knows and loves me and every person on the earth. My testimony of his gospel is strengthened a little bit more every time I choose to follow him.
Truth and joy
