"How Sweet the Voice of a Friend Is"

(Greg Olsen, "Peace Be Unto Thy Soul," 1990)

These past two weeks have been quite eventful for me.  A week and a half ago, my brother-in-law John came into town on military business and generously took me to dinner the night before returning to Georgia.  Then this past Wednesday, my parents came into town to see me.  My dad and I went to the BYU football game, which despite the unfavorable results of the game, was a wonderful experience.  At the game, I was able to briefly visit with my friend Marianne Swenson, who had come into town for the game.  Needless to say, after two months of being away from my family and many of my friends, it was wonderful to have an opportunity to see some friendly faces and enjoy a few precious moments with family and friends.

Thinking about how wonderful these experiences have been reminded me of something that the Prophet Joseph wrote while in Liberty Jail.  It was a part of a long letter  to the Saints in Quincy, Illinois.  Portions of this famous letter later became D&C 121, 122, and 123.  It was in this letter that Joseph penned that heartfelt cry, "O God, where art thou?" (D&C 121:1)  In one of the uncanonized portions of this letter, the Prophet described receiving letters from several members of the Church.  He then wrote these beautiful lines:

"We had been a long time without information; and when we read those letters they were to our souls as the gentle air is refreshing....And we need not say to you that the floodgates of our hearts were lifted and our eyes were a fountain of tears, but those who have not been enclosed in the walls of prison without cause or provocation, can have but little idea how sweet the voice of a friend is."  (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 134).

While I would not want to suggest that I even remotely understand, much less have experienced, the circumstances that prompted those lines from the Prophet, I believe we can apply their meaning to our own, less profound, trials.  Life has its own individualized "prisons" for each one of us.  These "prisons" seldom if ever equate to the despicable circumstances of the poorly named Liberty Jail, but they can be just as dark and limiting in their effects upon our lives.  Whatever the nature of our trials, I believe that all of us have, at one point or another, felt discouraged and we have wondered whether we can go on.

Often times, these "prisons" may not even be visible to those around us.  I remember being surprised when my saintly Mission President once told us missionaries that after a long day of helping and uplifting us in our various problems, he had wondered who was there to help and uplift him.  Of course the answer immediately came to him.  But I remember being surprised because he was the kind of man who I just believed could and did handle everything that could be thrown at him with relative ease.  His demeanor was always so positive, that I had never considered the fact that the life of a mission president was chalk full of its own share of problems (mostly in the form of 19-22 year olds like myself).

In such moments, when we feel that we have the weight of the world resting down upon our shoulders, we too declare, "How sweet the voice of a friend is!"  The comforting and reassuring voices of family and friends truly is like "the gentle air refreshing," allowing us to take a deep breath and then realize that we can continue to endure trials and difficulties for the small moment that we are asked to bear with them.  More than that, it can cause us to remember that we too have an obligation to be "the voice of a friend" to those around us, even those whose struggles may not appear on the surface.

I thank our Father for the numerous voices of friends that he has sent to comfort me throughout various times in my life.  It would be impossible for me to enumerate the times that friends and family have been prompted to say the right words, do the right things, and, in general, just to be there when I found myself in need.  My hope is that I have likewise been attentive enough to the Spirit to be the voice of a friend to others when they have needed me.  Thank you to all of you who have done this so many times for me.

Brett