What Does The Book Of Mormon Teach About Mothers?
First of all I want to wish a late happy mothers day to all of the mothers out there!
There is a wonderful story of the power of mothers in The Book Of Mormon. As mentioned in earlier posts there are two main nations or groups of people in The Book Of Mormon: the Nephites and the Lamanites. The Nephites are the descendants of Nephi or those that believe in God and Jesus Christ. The Lamanites are the descendants of Nephi's older brother Laman or those who don't believe. The two nations don't get a long well, in fact much of The Book Of Mormon is about their wars and contentions. It was normal for Lamanites to be hostile towards any Nephite found in their lands. Around 90 BC a handful of brave Nephites go on a mission to attempt to teach Christianity to the Lamanites. Against all odds and with miraculous help from God these men are able to convert thousands of Lamanites.
The Lamanites are known to be a people of war, raised with a strong hate of the Nephites. These converted Lamanites are convinced of the wrong doings of their fathers and of the grace of God to forgive them of their sins. They are ashamed of their murders and make a life long promise to never fight or murder again. Not only do they make this promise internally but they literally bury in the ground all of their weapons of war.
The unconverted Lamanites were angry with these people's decision to leave as well as with the Nephites' warm welcome to the converts. They waged an attack on the Anti-Nephi-Lehiis and met no resistance. Eventually, when the Lamanites saw that these people would not fight back they became even more angry and began to attack the Nephites. The Nephites respected the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's desire to abstain from fighting. From then on the Nephites protected the Anti-Nephi-Lehis and were given support for their armies in return.
About 27 years later (63 BC) The Nephites were involved in another brutal war with the Lamanites. The Anti-Nephi-Lehis felt so compelled to help that they almost broke their covenant to join the Nephites in battle. A man named Helaman who was one of the military leaders of the Nephites urged the Anti-Nephi-Lehi's to keep their promise to God. He did observe however that the sons of those original converts had never entered into that same promise with God.
The first time they were faced with an opportunity to battle this was their response according to Helaman:
"For as I had ever called them my sons (for they were all of them very young) even so they said unto me: Father, behold our God is with us, and he will not suffer that we should fall; then let us go forth; we would not slay our brethren if they would let us alone; therefore let us go, lest they should
overpower the army of Antipus. Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught
by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it."
"And now it came to pass that when they had surrendered themselves up unto us, behold, I numbered those young men who had fought with me, fearing lest there were many of them slain. But behold, to my great joy, there had not one soul of them fallen to the earth; yea, and they had fought as if with the strength of God; yea, never were men known to have fought with such miraculous strength."
"Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and
even according to their faith it was done unto them; and I did remember the words which they said
unto me that their mothers had taught them"
"And it came to pass that there were two hundred, out of my two thousand and sixty, who had fainted because of the loss of blood; nevertheless, according to the goodness of God, and to our great astonis-hment, and also the joy of our whole army, there was not one soul of them who did perish; yea, and n-either was there one soul among them who had not received many wounds. And now, their preservati-on was astonishing to our whole army, yea, that they should be spared while there was a thousand of our brethren who were slain. And we do justly ascribe it to the miraculous power of God, because of t-heir exceeding faith in that which they had been taught to believe—that there was a just God, and whosoever did not doubt, that they should be preserved by his marvelo-us power. Now this was the faith of these of whom I have spoken; they are young, and their minds are firm, and they do put their trust in God continually."
I love this story because it illustrates the great power and influence that mothers have. These young men trusted in God because they had good moms who taught them to do so by their words and by their example.
I'm grateful to my mom for always teaching me to trust in God. She also taught me that God will someday hold me accountable for my actions. I'm also grateful for my wife who has become a wonderful mother over the past 9 months. I want to give a shout out to all the mothers out there who put so much time and effort into teaching their children to trust in God. Where would the world be without you?
