Alma 15

(September 25, 2013)
This chapter has an incident that has always struck me.  What must have been the reaction of the men in Sidom when Alma and Amulek returned and “related unto them all that had happened unto their wives and children, and also concerning themselves, and of their power of deliverance?”  Wouldn’t your first thought be, ‘why were you saved, Alma, and not my wife?  My child?’  It would be an absolutely heartbreaking thing to hear about the death of your child, but then to hear immediately thereafter about how the Lord stretched forth His hand to protect another (but not your child), that seems to me that it would require a great deal of faith to accept and understand that.

I understand the doctrine of what happened, and I also understand how (with enough faith) you could find peace with what happened.  But I am reminded of when Marjorie Hinckley died and President Hinckley was weeping at her funeral.  The Salt Lake Tribune ran a large picture of it on their front page and seemed to indicate that if he was truly a prophet he would not be concerned about death but would be confident he would see his wife again.  By that same token, I imagine these men wept for their wives and children and had to wonder about the Lord miraculously saving others from death but not their family.