The answers are in the scriptures

Today I was trying to find where I'd written my flight information. I was looking through my bags and saw my Book of Mormon and thought, "the answers are always in the scriptures". I opened it up and sure enough, I'd used the paper with my flight info on it as a bookmark. The answers were in the scriptures.

It marked Mormon chapter 6. In mourning the loss of my car, I sought out a pattern of how to deal with tragedy from the scriptures. I'm not sure how much this theory will hold up against social science research, but here are some principles that I picked out from my study.

Now i'm not claiming that my car dying is comparable to the death of near a quarter million Nephites and the ultimate destruction of their civilization, but Mormon was in a position of extreme loss and mourning. And even though my situation pales in comparison, there are still lessons to be learned. Here we go:

• It is okay to be torn up about tragedy (or, as Mormon words it, having a soul "rent with anguish".
• It is natural to question how this came to be. "Oh ye fair one, how could ye..."
• And to wish for how it might have been otherwise. "Behold, if ye had not done this...".
• But it is important to eventually accept the reality of thing. "But behold, ye are fallen..."
• And it is okay and good to mourn and feel sad. "And I mourn your loss."
• And it helps to understand that the questioning and the pain will linger for a while.
• But eventually, notwithstanding the natural course of mourning, you must not dwell there forever. There must be acceptance. "But behold, ye are gone, and my sorrows cannot bring your return."

So I think I'm at the acceptance/mourning phase. I've accepted that it is gone and that my sorrows cannot bring my car's return. But its still sad and challenging. Anyway...I love the scriptures. It's where the answers are.