The Parable of the Barnacle

              When I was on my mission, my mission president suggested that I write down my parables when the ideas came to me.  This is one I wrote about a year ago that came to my mind earlier today.  I have always found parables to be helpful.  I think my mind just associates ideas and principles better this way.

               This parable I call the parable of the barnacle.  I wrote it when I was going through a particularly difficult time and hadn't been making the best choices.  I was trying to decide whether or not to talk with my bishop about what I had been doing but I knew that doing so would most likely result in me losing my membership.  I thought about how life was filled with all sorts of ups and downs, and how everything seemed to be happening in waves, now here is how my mind works; I then thought of ocean waves, then I thought of the beach and the rocks in the tide pools, then remembered how ugly the barnacles were, then I pondered on that and how they are kind of like sin, and I came up with this: 

The Parable of the Barnacle
                Barnacles will attach themselves most frequently on objects that are idle and still. Like sin, we cannot always tell that they are there from the outward appearance, but they slow the vessel down and severely disfigure it. The best way to prevent barnacles is to just keep moving, but sometimes we struggle to endure to the end, everyone sins from time to time and when they do, they get one of the spiritual barnacles attaching to them. The barnacles will continue to grow as a horrible disfigurement. Once a barnacle has been obtained it must be taken off manually and with hard work. Our spiritual barnacles can be removed only by the chisel of repentance. The longer we sit in the waters of sin, the more barnacles we collect. The more barnacles we have, the harder it can be to repent, but there are no barnacles that can resist the chisel and the chisel of the atonement is sufficient to remove all barnacles. Once they are gone, we need to continue to keep our vessel clean by moving forward and onward, enduring to the end in our journey through the seas of life until we reach that glorious shore of Eternal Life.

                There is always hope through the Atonement.  I am still learning that now.  I haven't always believed that it could be for me, I think even now I am still working on fully believing that.  I have always known that the Atonement works; I have seen it in the lives of others.  I saw it impact those I taught on my mission. I taught them how to access the Atonement, I watched as they prayed for the first time, and I listened to their experiences as they reflected on the things they had done in the past that they regretted, prayed for forgiveness, and felt them all taken away.  I have always known the Atonement was real; however I never really understood how to use it in my own life.  I felt like I was out of His reach, that I had to try harder than others to access it.  This is a story I still struggle with today.  I understand it is not true, but to know it isn't a true story is different from being able to fully believe it.  That is the step that I am on now, realizing that Christ suffered and died for me.  I already knew He did that for everyone else, but believing he did it for me I felt was a completely different story.

                I do know the Book of Mormon is true; I even owe my life to it.  I believe The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the same church that Christ set up restored once again to the earth.  I believe we have a prophet today, and that he is called of God, and I believe that Joseph Smith was God's prophet called to restore His church in these days.  I know all of these things and that is what keeps me going.  I can't turn my back on something that I believe in, and I look forward to the day that I will be able to once again enjoy all the blessings that come with being a member of God's church.

Until next time,

The Rainbow-plated Armadillo