I Don't Want to be An Alien!

This morning as I was preparing a group lesson for church I ran across this great poem that I feel is very poignant. The story goes that a very rich man was lying on his deathbed and not a single member of his family came to be at his side as he was about to leave this mortal life. A stranger was standing near and asked the man, "What have you learned during your life's sojourn?"

This was his reply,"

"I’m an alien, to the faith my mother taught me.
I’m a stranger to the God that heard my mother when she cried.
I’m an alien to the comfort that, “Now I lay me,” brought me.
To the everlasting arms that held my father when he died.
When the great world came and called me, I deserted all to follow.
Never noting in my blindness I had slipped my hand from His.
Never dreaming in my dazedness that the bubble fame is hollow.
That the wealth of gold is tinsel, as I since have learned it is.
I have spent a lifetime seeking things I spurned when I found them,
I have fought and been rewarded in many a winning cause,
But I’d give it all, fame and fortune and the pleasures that surround them,
If I only had the faith that made my mother what she was."

N. Eldon Tanner, “Constancy Amid Change,” Ensign, Nov 1979

I cannot imagine a life without faith and hope in the Savior....what a bleak choice! He is the way, the truth and the life!

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