Love, peace, wolves and firearms

I recently was accused to being a terrorist.  

Wolves have been brought into our area and are currently rounding up our neighbor’s cattle.   I can see it now, one of my children becoming a meal to these sweet creatures.  During this line of thought I realized I need to refresh myself on what ammunition goes to which gun and for my older children to do the same.  Obviously, that called for Family Home Evening to be centered on shotgun loading and unloading.

I shared this on Facebook:

Then received feedback:

“Sitara Solowiej This energy is the same energy in Paris. Violence begets violence. I'm always so amused with those who claim to follow Jesus but then so outwardly regard his teachings. We are just one side of another. The other side is also teaching their children to use guns. It's in these choices that we choose to continue the violence and this video is a direct example of why we are still killing each other. And most ridiculously over religion. Spirit is a knowing deep within. It's all the same spirit. Jesus spike against this yet many hide behind Jesus and don't face the truth that they are what Jesus was against. Love and peace. Guns will not be in a truly evolved world of love and peace. Change comes form each one of us. We must choose and be the change lest we be disease.”

First of all where did this come from?  How do you clam a higher way of life and proceed to tear apart others and their families?  

Then I thought of all the reasons, in this person’s defense, that the Lord does not need firearms.  He created the earth.  At his word the earth was and therefore yes, he does not share the need for guns.  But love and peace is not always a picture of rainbows and unicorns either.

In the Book of Mormon when Alma the younger was going about with his friends rebelling against God, an angel of the Lord is sent to admonish him.  My attention was drawn to what even the voice of an angel can do:

“… and he spake as it were with with a voice of thunder, which caused the earth to shake upon which they stood…” Mosiah 27:11

Sometimes when the Lord sends an angel it comes like a storm and an earthquake.  After the angel departs from Alma and the sons of Mosiah we read:

“And now Alma and those that were with him fell again to the earth, for great was their astonishment; for with their own eyes they had beheld an angel of the Lord; and his voice was as thunder, which shook the earth; and they knew that there was nothing save the power of God that could shake the earth and cause it to tremble as though it would part asunder.”  Mosiah 27:18

I feel the Lord speaks to us on the level at which we understand best.  To Joseph Smith in the grove as a young boy, he saw Heavenly Father and Christ in awe and wonder.  Alma the younger needed to feel the earth shake him so violently he fell.  Is that how every knee shall bend?  Some on their own will and others due to quaking and trembling?  I pray to be ready and willing to listen to the word of God minus the storm.