FAREWELL MY STRIPLING WARRIOR

 

 

A couple of days ago I did a post entitled “Hearts of the Mothers”. I posted this picture of the painting entitled “Farewell My Stripling Warrior” by Del Parson. I get highly emotional whenever I think of the inspiration which the artist used for this painting. This inspiration came to him when he watched his wife and his son say their goodbyes at the airport as his son was leaving for his mission. His wife was struggling to let go while the son, who was hugging her, was looking past her at the plane that was waiting for him. He was ready to go.

Del Parson said this farewell of his son made him remember the 2,000 Stripling Warriors (Alma 53:17-22). It is always difficult to watch your children move on but sending them off to war is another level of apprehension and anxiety. My daughter had a turbulent teenage-hood so when she went on her mission, it was the best eighteen months of my life. I knew where she was, what she was doing and who was watching over her. And she was on home soil. My worries about her completely ceased. She is now inactive again and the worries have returned as she navigates her journey through this perilous life.

This painting has made me reflect on our time on earth. I have wondered how the tender feelings of our heavenly parents were affected as we ‘looked towards the plane’, eager for new experiences, eager to prove ourselves, eager to be ‘grown up’. Did we feel we had outgrown our heavenly home? The question, however, that begs to be asked even more is, do we feel eager to return? When I reflect on this question, I remember Alma recounting his conversion story to Helaman during which he saw God sitting upon his throne and he said, his soul longed to be there (Alma 36:22).

And now that we are here, are we being Stripling Warriors exercising faith in God worthy of our return? In his book, “But A Few Days”, Elder Neal A. Maxwell, spoke of our home coming in these terms:

“If there is an imagery upon which I would focus, it is two scriptures from the Book of Mormon. The one in which we are reminded that Jesus himself is the gate keeper and that ‘he employeth no servant there’ (2 Nephi 9:41). I will tell you…out of the conviction of my soul…what I think the major reason is (why he ‘employeth no servant there’), as contained in another Book of Mormon scripture which says he waits for you ‘with open arms’ (Mormon 6:17). That’s why He’s there! He waits for you with open arms. That imagery is too powerful to brush aside….It is imagery that should work itself into the very center core of one’s mind – a rendezvous impending, a moment in time and space, the likes of which there is none other……”  (Neal A. Maxwell, “But A Few Days”, p 7).

Can you imagine such a reunion? The crimson drops of Calvary would become the happy tears of home coming……

 

I yearn to see the dwelling of Thy heart

And remember the splendour of my home;

I yearn to feel the closeness of Thy presence

And the warmth of Thy embrace.

Grant me Father eyes that I might see,

And a heart that it might understand

The power of Thy love and Thy eternal grace.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Farewell My Stripling Warrior by Del Parson)