"Be Still My Soul" is a classic hymn that everyone loves to hear. Tonight I heard it again at a fireside I went to and it was beautiful. This song always has a different meaning to me though.
Two years ago my grandmother passed away. She had not been doing so great for a while and it was a good thing that she could escape her state. However, she left her husband, my grandfather, behind. My grandfather began wondering if there even is a life after this. He doubted everything he had taught everyone else for years. In his heart he knew it was true, but having his sweetheart taken from him was extremely difficult. I cried because he cried. For a year he suffered in pain of old age and in pain of having lost his wife. On a Saturday morning I received a call that my grandfather had passed away, almost exactly a year after my grandmother had passed away. I was sad, but I knew that it was better this way.
The next day in church I got up to sing with the ward choir. We were singing "Be Still My Soul", which I was nervous about because I have heard it butchered many times. However, the choir sounded beautiful. When we reached the third verse we sang the words "The hour is hast'ning on when we shall be forever with the Lord, when disappointment, fear, and grief are gone, sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored." It was at that moment that I realized that I should not mourn for my grandfather. He had reached this hour. The pain he had felt for a year was gone. He did not have to be disappointed when he woke up and my grandmother was no longer there. He did not have to fear that he would never see her again. He did not have to grieve another moment. He was free!
This is my motivation today. There is a life after this one. When a loved one dies then we will see them again. It may hurt now and seem unbearable, but loves purest joys will be destroyed. My grandfather lived in the terrible state describe by the song for a year. We constantly prayed for him, but there was nothing we could do. The hour came when it all disappeared. He is ok now! So even when life gets hard and you don't feel like you can carry on remember that the hour is hastening on. This too shall pass.
