Tight like a dish

In my study of the Book of Mormon, one of my favorite books is Ether.  One statement has always caused me to reflect.  The Lord is instructing the brother of Jared in building the barges they will use to cross the ocean. He describes the barges by saying they were "tight like a dish".  I have always wondered why that is repeated so many times in this chapter.  After much contemplation this last week I think I have come to one possible scenario.  I think the brother of Jared was trying to teach us something. I think he was trying to tell us that as we cross the oceans in our life that it is not always going to be easy sailing.  There are going to be rough waters that will toss us here and there.  There are going to be times where we are literally plunged deep into the ocean.  We will be buried by things along our journey.  We will be swallowed by the water all around us.  We will think that we will never surface again.  However, we are tight like a dish.  I remember when I was a kid we would play in the river or the pool and we would take a ball and put it under the water and sit on it or hold it between our legs. It would stay under the water for a little while and then shoot out from under you and come flying to the top of the water.  It was tight like a dish.  No mater how many times the ball was buried in the water it always shot to the top of the water.  We are like that ball.  No matter how many times the waves of life crash down on us and bury us deep in the water we will come shooting to the top of the water.  I love the fact that the waves that push us down under the water are also the exact thing that push us to where we want to go.  Without the storm pushing the waves which in turn push us down under the water, we would never move forward. It is the storm that moves us closer to the desired destination.  I know this is true in my life.  I can see that during the hardest trials is when I made the biggest push towards the person I was meant to become and made the  fastest strides in the direction I wanted to go.  The storm which can sometimes be terrifying especially when we stay down deep under the water is a necessary and much needed step in our lives. The storms are scary but without them our progress would be stagnant.  We can't move forward without them.

I am so grateful for all the things I have learned from the Book of Mormon.  I finished reading it this week.  Everytime I read it I get a powerful witness of my Lord and Savior.  I am profoundly grateful for his sacrifice for me.  I know that his power sustains me when I am buried in the depths of the ocean.  I am however tight like a dish and will always resurface!