Peace Be Unto Thy Soul

¹“Let thine anger be kindled against our enemies; and, in the fury of thine heart, with thy sword avenge us of our wrongs. My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;” (D&C 121:5,7). I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed before that Joseph Smith is talking about anger and fury and vengeance and the first thing that the Lord says to Him is Peace. To be sure, in this section the Lord goes into some detail about all of the gruesome fates that await the enemies of His servants, but none of that is Joseph’s concern, or ours. It is natural to feel anger at those who wrong us, natural to want them to have a share in the pain they’ve caused us so that they may pay for their crimes and get their just deserts. I have a feeling that when we get a chance to see Justice and Mercy dispensed at the Final Judgment, we will find that it is both kinder and crueler, fairer and harsher, better and worse than we could have ever imagined. I have no doubt that in some ways even the very worst of criminals will get more mercy than we think they deserve, and even the least offenders will receive punishments that we would not wish on our worst enemies. The ways of God are strange and wonderful to us, but they will all make sense one day. In the meantime, we can choose to have peace. One of the greatest blessings of the Atonement is that even when someone has done something unforgivable to us, the consequences of which will hang about our necks like a millstone for years and years to come, and nothing that they can do will ever come even slightly close to making things right, nevertheless, we can still feel peace right now in this moment. And when the hurt and the anger bubble up again and again, we can ask for and receive that peace again and again. God will make everything right in the end, but he can make some of it better right now, at the very least inside our hearts if nowhere else. Our enemies may still be out there. They may be unrepentant and preparing for another volley. But we can have peace anyway.