I actually went to a Book Club!!! Well, we went out for dessert at the Cheesecake Factory afterwards and I'm moving away from these wonderful women so I really wanted to spend some time with them while I could. Looks like I was the benefactor.
We talked about two books that were about Emma Smith. One was, Emma Smith: An Elect Lady by Susan Easton Black and the other that was brought up was Judge Me, Dear Reader by Erwin Wirkus. We had a wonderful discussion on the two books and on Joseph and Emma Smith and their challenges and on what became of Emma after Joseph was killed in Carthage.
Emma, was a strong willed and upright woman and very well educated for the time. She remarried a rough man who was a womanizer and was abusive-the opposite of Joseph. She stayed in Nauvoo after all of the saints were driven out or left to travel west for religious freedoms.
There are a lot of recorded instances where she was very mean and angry and spiteful towards others. She made some very questionable life decisions. Anyway, I thought quite a bit out all of this but I still don't want to judge her too harshly. She faced a lot of very very hard circumstances that could have contributed to her bitterness.
No matter what her life's outcome, I thought long and hard about a quote that came from one of the books.
It reads:
"Brigham Young was absolutely correct in his statement, because Joseph would find her in the hell that she had created for herself, and I firmly believe that, because of his love for her, he would redeem her from that state. I have real sympathy for Emma and see her as a person who became burned-out mentally and therefore spiritually. I believe that she suffered a severe mental breakdown when she saw her dead husband. We must also remember that she had asked Joseph to come back to Nauvoo even though he had said that if he were to return and stand trial he would be killed or 'he was not a prophet of God'."

The thought that really hit me was " in the hell that she had created for herself". I think we all create our own "hells" in this life. We are mean to people, maybe we covet another person, or we put our own wants before the needs of others, or maybe we are even overly judgemental, or we feel the need to be better than everyone, or need attention on a regular basis so we back bite or act innocent while backing up some terrible power struggles, etc. etc. etc. Hell is all about having regrets and living in the sadness of those thoughts. Hell is not forgiving. Hell is not loving unconditionally. Hell is not being loved and not knowing why and wanting it so badly. Hell is not having faith.

Regrets, regrets, regrets.

It kind of backs up another interesting idea someone shared on a program talking about out of body experiences where certain people had died and come back and spoke about it. One guy said that after his spirit left his body he was bombarded by a constant barrage from people who he had hurt or disappointed. They would come at him with questions of why. That stuck in my head at the time as quite possibly more of what I would have thought hell to be like. No rest just sadness and regrets and anxiety.

So, my question is,
do we really want to live in hell?
Then why create it?

Forgive.
Love.
Have faith.
Live a life with ALL of these qualities.
Could it be this simple?
It looks like we get to chose . . .
heaven
or
hell.