Visiting the Graves

Lately I haven't been doing too hot with some of the things I've been commanded to do. Not anything serious for most, but it's something I was told to do at least 7 times in my Partiarchal blessing. So, why haven't I been doing it? Because it takes time, and that is time I like to spend on other things. So I've been feeling kinda guilty about that, but it all came to a head today in Sacarament meeting.

Today was, of course, fast and testimony meeting. And during the course of the meeting I began to feel really, really uncomfortable. Well, the thought continued to plague me and as soon as I could I left. Hoping no one would look, talk to, or see me. As I left church I started driving. When I finally came to a stop I was in a place I'd never been before. Somehow I'd managed to park in the middle of one of the local cemetaries. I got out of my car and started to walk up and down between the grave stones.

At first I was amazed at how illkept they were, covered in leaves with deer droppings all over the place, but as I started to clean off grave stones I noticed the seeming injustice of life. A couple, married for 80 years, have their gravestone right next to three children, none of which lived to see their first birthday. The heartache that must have been in those parents eyes as they stood there to bury their infant and they looked over and saw someone else who had lived a long and happy life. Did they wonder why it had been their child? Why did God have to take their precious little boy? Where is the justice in taking the young?

As I kept walking I came to several other grave sites that caught my attention. One, was a 14 year old boy, with a caption similar to this: Think of me, when there is snow in big cottonwood canyon, and the sun rests on the slopes of Rock Canyon. And know this, that I am free. Another, on two girls who shared the same gravestone. July 1982 - June 1983, her sister, August 1983 - August 1983. Imagine how those parents felt... The last, was a military grave. He was 20 when he died. A sargent in the 7th infantry, he died in World War II.

As I saw these people, young men and women that could have been my friends, or people who gave their life defending the right I had to have friends. I wondered what I was doing with my life? Why was it so hard for me to give twenty minutes a day to the Lord? Is the time he is giving me really worth it? Shouldn't one of these had had that chance to live? Wouldn't they have done more with it? And the tears came, I'm not sure what I did to deserve it, but I need to make the most of what I've been given.