Love Your Enemies Like Your Life - And Theirs! - Depends On It

It would seem that the greatest act of faith for the people of Anti Nephi Lehi was to kneel down in prayer, weaponless, before an army of Lamanites and praise God in the very act of being cut down and killed by their enemies, but I would argue there was an act of faith even greater still. After the massacre, in which more than a thousand Anti Nephi Lehis were murdered, it is said that more of the soldiers joined up with the Anti Nephi Lehis than were slain. I can't imagine the kind of faith and compassion and humility and deep, unquenchable love that would allow a people to welcome with open arms more than a thousand of those who had mercilessly murdered their fathers and brothers and sons, and I'm not sure any other people could have done it. The people of Anti Nephi Lehi themselves had been murderers and plunderers and a callous, cruel people before their conversion to the gospel and though all had had their swords stained with innocent blood, nevertheless the Savior had made bright and clean their weapons of war. The swords of those who had just massacred many of them were more newly stained, but I think they recognized the deep anguish that those enemy soldiers felt at recognizing they had killed innocent people, and they knew the exact journey of repentance these former enemies would need to take for they had taken it themselves. It takes a lot of faith to die for our beliefs but more faith to live for our beliefs, and even more still to welcome into the fold those who had murdered or betrayed or hurt us deeply and yet were repentant and seeking forgiveness. If we are struggling with the faith and the courage and the compassion to forgive, we can remember the people of Anti Nephi Lehi who did not wait even for their dead to be buried to forgive and adopt into their family those who had committed the massacre.