And Peace Will Come – October 15, 2000
Our lives here on earth are not always joyful, and our days not always filled with beauty. The tragedies, disappointments, and difficulties with which we so often contend may seem almost more than we can bear at times, and our anguish can turn to despair. At these times of difficulty and pain, we are prompted to look upward, to pour out our souls to our Creator, and to ask for His divine help. The words of the prophet Isaiah still resound today: “Everlasting joy . . . shall be upon their heads; . . . sorrow and mourning shall flee away.”1 God always stands waiting, arms outstretched, ready to offer us His peace, comfort, and everlasting joy.
In a small town in central Utah, a woman named Florence Bale knew this great truth. Widowed far too young and badly crippled through most of her adult life, she lived a life of great difficulty and constant pain. Every day she poured out her troubled soul in poetry—hundreds of poems, carefully crafted and meticulously honed, nearly all of which went unpublished in her lifetime.
In perhaps her finest poem, Florence Bale asked these poignant questions: “Where can I turn; what can I do that will bring back the fullness of the life I knew? Where can I find the things that will replace the joys I lost?” But she knew there would be an answer: “Help me remember that all wounds are healed with time. . . . Be thou my guide and strength. . . . Be patient, O my soul, and peace shall come.”2
This great truth resounds throughout the centuries. Wherever people have been lost and afraid and in pain, they’ve cried out to their God and they have been heard. For God loves His children, and His peace and His everlasting joy are always at hand.
Program #3713
12 Nephi 8:11; see also Isaiah 51:11.
2As quoted from “And Peace Will Come,” unpublished manuscript, used by permission of the Bale family.