John Loveless sat on the banks of the Missouri River. Emotions rushed inside him like the cold waters below. On the other side of that river was everything he had known before. Good and bad. Peace and Chaos. Good and holy times. Heart-rending pain and anger.
Water lapped at the banks, and memories came forward and receded. With each memory, another wave of emotion.
John Loveless wasn’t afraid to admit to heavy emotions. These kinds of emotions had led him to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints only two days after meeting missionaries.
He had lived as a farmer for twenty-four years, but in the next two, he had served two missions and built a branch in Ohio. He remembered moving to Jackson County, Missouri, arriving just after mobs burned the Church’s printing press there. John remembered, “a complete uproar and state of excitement prevailed.”
Another cold December breeze drifted off the water as John remembered leaving Missouri. It brought the memory of his wife’s face after he found her hiding in the woods from a mob. After that, he signed over all his property and left Missouri with other saints.
He thought of this injustice now.
“In this war, I was an eyewitness to the scenes that until this day, when called to mind, make my blood run cold and would almost make me fight a legion; women were ravished, men murdered, houses burned.”
But he couldn’t fight a legion. He could only move on and relocate to Illinois.
He remembered another river. It was on a riverboat, returning from a mission, that he had heard of the Prophet Joseph’s death.
“A perfect shout was set up by the devils incarnate, on our boat, who were on their way up to Nauvoo to fight the Mormons. Had I possessed the strength of Sampson, I would like him, sink the whole mass in the gulf of oblivion and sent them to their congenial spirits, the howling devils of the infernal regions.”
But he didn’t have the power.
So he moved on and returned to his family.
He remembered the day he came home to find his family once again in hiding for their own safety. The sight of his home in disarray. The smell of smoke as his neighbors’ houses burned. The shouts of a nearby mob.
He started preparing to move west. Far west. To the unsettled Rocky Mountains with the rest of the Saints.
Now he sat on the cold banks of the Missouri River and faced east.
“I witnessed scenes of suffering, destitutions and heart-rending distress that would have melted the heart of adamant and make a demon shed tears of blood and cause a man, yes even a man of God to curse and call upon God to curse and swear eternal vengeance against the perpetrations of all this horrid misery.”
But what could he do? There was nothing. He sat on the riverbank and remembered.
But as John considered his life thus far, a fuller picture came into view.
“[I] reviewed my past life experience and suffering, and as well called to mind, all the blessings and knowledge I had received from the associations and councils of my Brethren… all the instructions and teachings of the Prophet; Prophet, yes the Prophet of the Living God, he who was chosen and set apart to create a new era in Christianity, to proclaim the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; to bring life, light, and knowledge into the world and to build up the kingdom of God and to hold the keys of the Everlasting Priesthood, and to show the people the way, the only way to heaven. … There comes the consolation, thank God he yet lives and fully approves of the council and instructions of his successor to the Saints, is continually pleading for the faithful and is watching over them.”
As John rose from the frozen banks, he turned his back on the river. At the same time, he turned his back on all that was behind him. He was ready to move on again. To face the future with hope. He would find a new home with the Saints, where they could finally live without fear.
The water continued rushing behind him. It ran from the peaks of the Rockies through the Great Plains and down into the midwestern states. John, however, was going the opposite way. He was going up.
John would continue to face hardship with the rest of the Saints. However, it would always be mingled with the mercy and power of God. The uphill trek would be hard, but John Loveless and his family would be, as always, “blessed in every undertaking”.
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