My Thoughts After Finishing the Book of Mormon

Just for the record, I have read the Book of Mormon before.  When I finished reading it a few days ago, I did not have the kind of spiritual witness that we like to hear about.  I did not feel a sudden warmth that enveloped me.  I did not hear a voice say, "It's true!".  I did not experience an angelic visitation. So what did I feel?

The day that I finished reading the book, I knew I would be finishing it.  I even cut myself off earlier the night before because I knew I wanted to reserve the end for another time.  So, I left Moroni chapters 8-10 for the next day.

I knew I would be reading this passage that night:

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how ^amerciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ^bponder it in your ^chearts.

 4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ^aask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not ^btrue; and if ye shall ask with a ^csincere heart, with ^dreal intent, having ^efaith in Christ, he will ^fmanifest the ^gtruth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. 

 5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may ^aknow the ^btruth of all things.

As I said earlier, I've read the Book of Mormon before, a couple of times.  I have asked my Heavenly Father before about the truthfulness of this book.  I will probably always do this each time I finish reading it - I will ask again to reaffirm my testimony.

Fast-forward to the next day.  After work I came home to fulfill my other job as Mother.  There were kids to get to football practice, pages of homework to check and tuck safely into backpacks, kids to feed, a remodeling job to clean up, and family home evening to attend to.

The details of how the evening progressed aren't as important as my response to them and the end result, so I'll bypass all of those details.  Suffice it to say, by the time I was ready to sit down and finish reading the Book of Mormon, I had lost my temper and spoken unkindly to a couple of my children and there was unrelated tension between Nathan and I.

As I pulled out the scriptures to read, I knew that there were things that I would need to do before I started to read.  I said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father to forgive me for yelling at my kids.  I asked him to forgive me for my role in the tension between my husband and I.

I finished my prayer and got up.  I needed to make things right with my kids.  I went to them, told them it was wrong for me to lose my temper and speak unkindly.  I apologized and told them that I loved them. I went to Nathan and apologized.

Then I sat down to read.  When I was finished, I sat there quietly.  Listening, pondering... listening.  Waiting for my answer.  You know what I felt?

Nothing.

Honestly, I was disappointed and confused.  I had done what I needed to do to be able to feel the spirit and I got nothing??

The next evening after the kids were all tucked into bed, I confided in Nathan my disappointment and confusion about my experience.  I knew I wouldn't have an angelic visitation or hear a voice of thunder proclaiming this book to be God's word, but why hadn't I experienced at least a small burning in my chest?

As Nathan thumbed through the pages of the Book of Mormon that I had been reading for the last 5 months, he turned to a couple of pages and asked me what all of my "rainbow" markings meant.  I told him that they were things that I liked.

"Why do you like them?" he inquired further. I told him they were things that provided instructions for a better, happier life.  They were warnings and cautions against iniquity and bondage.  They were passages that brought to mind a time in my life when I had felt the spirit strongly.  They were messages that burned within my heart when I read them.

And maybe by divine providence, he stopped on this page.  2 Nephi 4:15: "For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them..."

Where I had written something I knew to be true about myself.  "Truth is often felt before it is understood."

I had also glued a piece of paper into the binding with a thought from Harold B Lee.

Harold B Lee described the growth of a testimony as the process by which a person's heart tells him things his mind is yet to understand.

So often in my life I feel things deep inside the corners of my heart before I even know how to wrap my brain around them or put them into words.

I am not a thinker.  Don't get me wrong here, I am not saying that I am stupid, I've just never felt that I have gained much from sitting and thinking about something for a long time.  My husband has never accused me of being logical or reasonable.  Good or bad, I am ruled by how I feel.  My actions and thoughts and desires are based on what my heart tells me.

So, although I hadn't physically felt anything that night, what had my heart told me?  As I sat talking with Nathan and pondering on the things he was saying, I realized that when I finished the Book of Mormon that night I had felt something.  

I felt stillness.  Stillness within my heart.

Stillness in my heart is not the same as sitting still or being still.  Anyone can sit still for a few minutes, but to feel still inside, well that is completely different.  I didn't need to feel a burning that night because I had been feeling and learning the truth for the last 5 months as I read.  That night I just needed to feel still.

Sometimes I think that the often quoted scripture about stillness only applies to times of trouble or sorrow.  But this experience reminds me that anytime I can feel stillness in my heart, I can feel God and know truth.  I can know it even if I can't explain it or understand it fully.

I don't know if these thoughts technically qualify as a testimony that I know the Book of Mormon is true and is the word of God, but it is all I can verbally (by way of typing) express right now.