Nephi’s Prayer on the Eve of Christ’s Birth
(See 3 Ne. 1:10–15.)

by Nani Lii S. Furse

Oh God, thou everlasting Father,

How long must I wait

As the wild earth waits?

I wake to dark-born morning,

Bowed in my wilderness where

Heart shreds against winter grass

For those eyes that sear with searching

The zenith sun, believing.

I would bear my cry on wings,

Seek skies in white quest and find—

Yet words slide into shadows

Gathered by stones.

Come, come—fold heaven’s love in flesh,

In star, in that day and night

And day which shall be

One, as if there were no dark.

Let not upturned eyes

Hoard blackness like these stones;

Stay earth’s thrust towards night—

But now—now the sun’s wake swells with

Voice and light:

“On the morrow I come,

I come into the world …”

Oh, lift to see the sign—

Star-rise in my wilderness.

Photography by Jonathan Baet

Photography by Candy Young