Stones and Light

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the General Women's Session of the October 1986 Conference.

This week I encountered three different references to the story of when the Brother of Jared asks the Lord to touch stones and make them glow with light. One was my friend worrying about the sacrament meeting talk she was trying to write: "I feel like I’m just going to be like a poor version of the brother of Jared and just hand the Lord a pile of rocks and ask him to please please fill them with light."

One was Sister Eubank's talk from April 2019 General Conference:

Not many years ago, I was weighed down and irritated with questions I could not find answers to. Early one Saturday morning, I had a little dream. In the dream I could see a gazebo, and I understood that I should go stand in it. It had five arches encircling it, but the windows were made of stone. I complained in the dream, not wanting to go inside because it was so claustrophobic. Then the thought came into my mind that the brother of Jared had patiently melted stones into clear glass. Glass is stone that has undergone a state change. When the Lord touched the stones for the brother of Jared, they glowed with light in the dark ships. Suddenly I was filled with a desire to be in that gazebo more than any other place. It was the very place—the only place—for me to truly “see.” The questions that were bothering me didn’t go away, but brighter in my mind was the question after I woke up: “How are you going to increase your faith, like the brother of Jared, so your stones can be turned into light?”

And one was here in the 1986 Women's Session, in a talk by Dwan J. Young:

Like the Jaredites, we’re afraid of traveling in the darkness, and we need light, which is hope. Sometimes, in the midst of our problems, we lose the vision of why we’re here or where we’re going. We wonder if we’re equal to the tasks that are given us. It is then that we can ask the Lord to touch the unlighted stones of our lives with light. He can deliver peace and hope when all around us speak against it. 

“Touch my life with light,” we can ask the Lord. “Fill my heart with hope.”

I always try to pay attention when the spirit seems to be repeating something like this, so I've been trying to understand what I'm supposed to learn. I think the thing that stands out most, putting these three ideas together, is that any darkness can be subject to God's enlightenment, if I'll ask him. Whether I need help with an assignment—help with doubts—help with discouragement—or whatever, I can ask God to light up that portion of my life so I can see it more clearly and act accordingly.

For example: I'd been feeling sad and discouraged for a few days recently when I came upon the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 50:31-32—

Wherefore, it shall come to pass, that if you behold a spirit manifested that you cannot understand, and you receive not that spirit, ye shall ask of the Father in the name of Jesus; and if he give not unto you that spirit, then you may know that it is not of God. And it shall be given unto you, power over that spirit; and you shall proclaim against that spirit with a loud voice that it is not of God.

I don't know exactly what all of that means, but it seemed to say that I could ask Heavenly Father to enlighten me as to whether my fears and guilt and worries are actually worth…worrying about. (There are lots of times I'm pretty sure they AREN'T, but I can't stop them anyway!) At that point, if the spirit shines light on the fact that those thoughts aren't doing me any good, I can use that light to chase the discouragement away; to say with confidence "This isn't something God wants me to dwell on; this isn't helping me progress." Or alternatively, "God is showing me this weakness/possibility; He wants me to do something about it."

Thus the "stones" that are my dark unspoken fears are enlightened by either action or peace—both of which are really forms of peace, when you think about it. It's an application of the "stones into light" idea I hadn't considered before!