"And it came to pass..."

This is an old pic, but it will illustrate my point! Yesterday morning was really hard for us-Abby and me. Josh was already at church and Abby was just not in a happy mood! But I pressed on and decided to read a few verses from the scriptures to her like I try to do every morning. Amazingly, she sat still and listened and I immediately thought of the hymn, "Sweet is the Peace the Gospel Brings"...We were definitely not having a peaceful morning, but for those few moments as I read the last 20 verses of Jacob 5 (We FINALLY finished it!), she sat quietly and looked at me the whole time. It was a really sweet experience for me and became even sweeter this morning...
I was making our grocery list as Abby ate her breakfast. By the time she finished, I still hadn't so she decided to take the Book of Mormon and read scriptures for herself. She has done this before and made me laugh with the gobbledy goop and a few words that made sense, like "Jesus" and "prophet", but this morning after a few minutes of not really paying attention to her, I realized that she was saying real words. I looked up at her as I finally understood..."it came to pass...it came to pass...it came to pass...it came to pass". I giggled, but didn't want to make fun, so I said, "Read me some more, Ab.." And she continued, "It came to pass...and it came to pass..." It struck me how much they really do pay attention...and even though it was those particular seemingly unimportant words that she latched on to, a thought struck me. A while back I heard someone give a talk about trials in our lives. They said something to the effect that one of the most used phrases in the scriptures is this exact phrase. "And it came to pass..." generally just means that "something happened", but to the speaker it meant much more, and he/she chose to think of it like this...We all have trials and things that happen in our lives that are not pleasant, but we just need to realize that those things "come"..."to pass". They come and then they pass and we learn and grow from them.
My sweet daughter taught me a lesson today and I was grateful to a loving Father who knew that at this particular time in my life, I needed to know that the things I am trying to teach her are not in vain.
So just remember that everything in the scriptures can mean something in our lives...EVERY WORD is there for a purpose...And it came...to pass...
Sweet is the peace the gospel can bring into our lives...