Surrounded by Angels....

Making Sense of Suffering

Surrounded by Angels

Dearest children, holy angels watch your actions night and day.

Our heavenly associates “think it not beneath their state to abide in the hovels of the poor, to stand by us in the most menial labor.”  They know of our amnesia and our trouble focusing on important things.  To them, we are both needy and precious—the perfect project.  Bundled with our joy is theirs.  We get some idea of this when it is our privilege to watch over others: our affection increases, their needs occupy our minds, and we want to do for them what they cannot do for themselves.

You cannot tell the interest felt in eternity for you, my brethren and sisters, by those of our dead who have gone before us.  Their hearts yearn after us.

So why do they not intervene more often in our suffering?  Intervening may be interfering, if it interrupts growth, and this they cannot do. The more clearly we understand the great plan of growth and enlargement of souls, the more we understand their restraint.  But they do intervene in certain ways.  They “come down and join hand in hand” in our labors.  They point our minds to the truth.  They encourage our repentance.

He is near by, His angels are our associates, they are with us and round about us, and watch over us, and take care of us, and lead us and guide us, and administer to our wants in their ministry.

By ourselves, we are small and generate only modest force.  But we have the privilege of aligning ourselves with the powers of heaven.

Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

Chief among these giants are the Father and the Son, the ultimate companions.  Through the priceless gift of the Holy Ghost, these two Supreme Beings will be close to us “unto the end of the world.”  They join the angels in rejoicing over our integrity, and along with all the heavenly hosts, their watchful eyes weep over our suffering, sorrow, and sin.