2 guys were walking along the street talking. One was a baseball player, he was the starting pitcher for a university, we'll call him Benny, the other man was planning on going to university very shortly, we'll call him Scotty. After a few hours they picked up some abuse in the form of a young group of boys around 14-17 years old that started following them and yelling the 3 words of profanity they knew again and again at the men. Eventually they started throwing rocks which Benny and Scotty pretty much completely saw coming as they continuously tried to walk quickly and diligently away from the neighborhood.
They hurried down the street but Benny lost his cool as the children chased them, it might have had something to do with getting hit with a rock or two. He stooped and picked up a rock. Scotty was about to express his concerns for the situation but then it was too late. As the abuse escalated and the shouting intensified, Benny pivoted, and threw the rock as hard as he could towards the children. BANG! as the rock hit a stop sign right in the dead center and left a large gash in the metal. The children went absolutely silent. The throw had been so fast, and so accurate and unexpected. For weeks after this, whenever the men would walk by, the children would run out and bring rocks to Benny so they could watch him throw them.
This story is one that I love! To me I learned from it that a lot of incredible things in life come from difficult beginnings. The men were persecuted and went through a hard time. But out of that situation, because it was handled in a good way they were able to become friends with the kids. If you think about this story, the children would have never found out about Benny's incredible throwing arm if bad things hadn't happened first.
Bearing that in mind, I wanted to talk about what is called the great apostasy which led into a restoration. From my last post I said that an apostasy is a time when there is no prophet on the earth. This is a difficult situation comparable to the story. After the death of Christ and the apostles, there was an apostasy. The priesthood authority was lost, there was no longer a prophet of God on the earth to maintain the standard of worthiness and receive revelation on behalf of the world. From this apostasy many churches were created by men. Eventually truth seeking men and women realized there was a problem and called for change, they were known as the reformers.
These people recognized that they were not prophets but called for change, some even recognized the need for an eventual restoration of the gospel. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints I believe that Christ's church was lost from the earth, but now has been restored by God, that he has called a living day prophet, and a quorum of 12 apostles just like the organization that existed in Christ's original church. From a difficult situation, a lot has come. When we handle difficult situations correctly we often have miracles in unexpected ways.
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