Mighty Unto Deliverance

What would you think if you were abruptly awoken before the dawn on Sunday morning with an urgent message to meet with the bishop at the church? Throwing on some clothes, you grab your rifle and make your way through the empty, unlit streets to the ward building. A thousand scenarios are flooding your mind and you fear the worst. The Red Flaggers are demanding all the weapons in town - they say that if you will turn over your guns they will protect you. But if you don't surrender in your firearms, they will kill every man, woman and child in town. So what do you do? Outnumbered ten to one, do you hunker down and fight to protect your families like Captain Moroni? Or do you comply with their demand and give up your only way to defend yourselves? Are you going to trust the safety of your homes and families to the mercy of the mob? This scene is not the plot to some futuristic apocalypse novel. This is exactly what my grandparents experienced in 1912 in the Mormon Colonies of Mexico. The distant, darkening clouds of political unrest quickly turned into crashing lightning and a pounding torrent of war swirling around them. There are moments that turn our pleasant Sunday-go-to-meetin' worship into I-need-thee-every-hour dependence on Providence. The Mexican Revolution was such a moment for the Saints in the Mexican colonies. Their story teaches powerful lessons of faith and trust in the Lord, so that when storms crash around us we can have confidence that the Lord truly is mighty unto deliverance.