A Refuge From the Storm–Book Review

With LDS General Conference having been only a couple of weeks ago, reading A Refuge from the Storm by Boyd K. Packer is like getting in an extra session or 12. It is a collection of addresses given at various conferences and trainings throughout his years as an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The blurb on the dust jacket says, “In our tempestuous day, where can we turn for refuge?” We definitely live in tempestuous days. Between my Facebook feed and the evening news, the world is getting crazier and stormier by the minute.

And so it is up to us to create a refuge for ourselves and our families from the turmoil of the world. A Refuge from the Storm is a reminder that we can use the power of the priesthood, the family and the church to create that refuge and haven from the world. If this is our foundation, we will not fail.

The book is divided into three sections, priesthood, family and church, each with a half-dozen or so of President Packer’s most powerful talks on the subject. I was initially a little disappointed that there was no new wisdom, no new insights that would tell me how I can make all of this work. Don’t we always want the new, improved and easy answers? But then as I began really reading through his talks–and studying what he really had to say, it struck me how they are so apropos to our world today. They could have as easily been written in the last year as the last decade. The more things change, the more truth remains the same.

So while there may not have been any newly written insights, I still received insights and learned from these talks nonetheless. They are all good reminders of the importance of the gospel in our lives, of fully living it and of teaching gospel principles to our family.

I think this quote from the chapter titled “Counsel to Youth” really sums up the whole book:

“If you will follow these principles, you will be watched over and protected and you yourself will know by the promptings of the Holy Ghost which way to go, for “by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:5).

A Refuge from the Storm is available from Amazon.com in hardcover and Kindle.

A copy of this book was provided to me for review and my opinions are always just mine.