“Brothers and sisters, whatever your distress, please don’t give up and please don’t yield to fear. I have always been touched that as his son was departing for his mission to England, Brother Bryant S. Hinckley gave young Gordon a farewell embrace and then slipped him a handwritten note with just five words taken from the fifth chapter of Mark: ‘Be not afraid, only believe.'(Mark 5:36). I think also of that night when Christ rushed to the aid of His frightened disciples, walking as He did on the water to get to them, calling out, ‘It is I; be not afraid.’ Peter exclaimed, ‘Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.’ Christ’s answer to him was as it always is every time: ‘Come,’ He said. Instantly, as was his nature, Peter sprang over the vessel’s side and into the troubled waters. While his eyes were fixed upon the Lord, the wind could toss his hair and the spray could drench his robes, but all was well—he was coming to Christ. It was only when his faith wavered and fear took control, only when he removed his glance from the Master to look at the furious waves and the ominous black gulf beneath, only then did he begin to sink into the sea. In newer terror he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’ Undoubtedly with some sadness, the Master over every problem and fear, He who is the solution to every discouragement and disappointment, stretched out His hand and grasped the drowning disciple with the gentle rebuke, ‘O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?’ (Matt. 14:27-31)
If you are lonely, please know you can find comfort. If you are discouraged, please know you can find hope. If you are poor in spirit, please know you can be strengthened. If you feel you are broken, please know you can be mended.”
In Nazareth, the narrow road, That tires the feet and steals the breath, Passes the place where once abode The Carpenter of Nazareth.
And up and down the dusty way The village folk would often wend; And on the bench, beside Him, lay Their broken things for Him to mend.
The maiden with the doll she broke, The woman with the broken chair, The man with broken plough, or yoke, Said, “Can you mend it, Carpenter?”
And each received the thing he sought, In yoke, or plough, or chair, or doll; The broken thing which each had brought Returned again a perfect whole.
So, up the hill the long years through, With heavy step and wistful eye, The burdened souls their way pursue, Uttering each the plaintive cry:
“O Carpenter of Nazareth, This heart, that’s broken past repair, This life, that’s shattered nigh to death, Oh, can You mend them, Carpenter?”
And by His kind and ready hand, His own sweet life is woven through Our broken lives, until they stand A New Creation—“all things new.”
“The shattered [substance] of [the] heart, Desire, ambition, hope, and faith, Mould Thou into the perfect part, O, Carpenter of Nazareth!”
Poem by George Blair, “The Carpenter of Nazareth,” in Obert C. Tanner, Christ’s Ideals for Living (Sunday School manual, 1955), 22.
(emphasis added)
Jeffrey R. Holland, “Broken Things to Mend,” Ensign, May 2006, 69–71
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