3 Nephi 8

This chapter has given me one of those "don't let this be you" moments. The setting is the Americas. The people are the mostly depraved and wicked Nephite and Lamanite people. The time is the day of Christ's Crucifixion. It seems that all the earth mourned the loss of its Savior as we see this American continent, on the other side of the world, go through terrible storms and violent earthquakes, ravaging fires and whole cities breaking off and sinking into the ocean.

After all these great upheavals the land became quiet, but pitch black. No light was seen for three days. The dark was so thick and intense that no light could penetrate it, no fire could be lit. It was what the people said in these dark and dreary circumstances that impresses me:

23 And it came to pass that it did last for the space of three days that there was no light seen; and there was great mourning and howling and weeping among all the people continually; yea, great were the groanings of the people, because of the darkness and the great destruction which had come upon them.
24 And in one place they were heard to cry, saying: O that we had repented before this great and terrible day, and then would our brethren have been spared, and they would not have been burned in that great city Zarahemla.
25 And in another place they were heard to cry and mourn, saying: O that we had repented before this great and terrible day, and had not killed and stoned the prophets, and cast them out; then would our mothers and our fair daughters, and our children have been spared, and not have been buried up in that great city Moronihah. And thus were the howlings of the people great and terrible.

The cries of the people or what get to me. They had reached the point of regret. There was no going back to fix things now. The time for repentance was, at least in one sense, past, meaning that they could not repent now and regain bring back their friends and family who had died, or get back to the life they had before. All that was over and now these who survived had a new opportunity to move forward make a new life of it.

The warning that sounds in my ears after reading this chapter is that I must not let this happen to me. I can learn from this people's mistakes. I can choose to repent early and often, and stay up to date with my repentance each day.