The Hobbit and the Restoration

Today, I watched The Hobbit. I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I love it.

As I watched this scene, I thought of something I always taught my girls at camp.

Even in our darkest hour, when we are just about to give up and lose all hope, Heavenly Father will always be there to our rescue.

Each week at Oakcrest, I had the opportunity to teach about Joseph Smith, the First Vision, and the Restoration (Joseph Smith--History 1:5-20). 

"After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.

But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which has seized upon me, and that the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction--not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being--just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me."--JSH 1:15-16

Joseph Smith was at the lowest of lows. And at the moment he was about to give in to Satan's power, Heavenly Father came to save him.

Heavenly Father loves each of us and will never leave us. He will let us struggle to learn and gain experience but he will never desert us.