It was a recent spring morning perhaps not unlike the "beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of 1820" when Joseph Smith as a 14-year-old boy went into the woods to pray (see JS-H 1:14), inquiring of the Lord in response to a scriptural invitation:

"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. . . ." (James 1:5.)

On that recent beautiful morning in California's Sierra foothills, the brother and sister hiked up the mountain above her home. They had not been together for more than a year, and there was much to talk about. He lived in Utah and she 700 miles away in California, but now, as she was so sick, he had come to spend a few days with her. It turned out to be their last visit together. She died two weeks later.

But on that beautiful morning, they hiked up the trail that she had climbed so many times before. They hiked through the mountain meadow with its blaze of tiny yellow and white wild flowers just coming into bloom. As the trail grew steeper, her breathing grew more labored and it was a struggle for her to keep going. At the huge rock alongside the trail, she stopped to rest, just as she had done so many times in the past.

They talked of many things, about parents and children, suffering and the trials of mortality, God and prayer — and death and dying. Hiking further, they reached the crest of the hill. Before them laid a valley and then more foothills as far as the eye could see. It was a peaceful scene. "I love coming up here," she said. "I feel I'm all alone with Heavenly Father," and then pointing to a grove of trees across a ravine to the side, she remarked:

"See that grove of trees? That's my grove."

"What do you mean?" came the response.

"When I really need to talk to Heavenly Father, I come up her and pour out my heart and soul to Him," she confided.

It was a place where she could be free from the problems of the world and find peace and comfort. It was a place where she, in solitude, could be alone with God.

"Solitude is rich and profitable," President Spencer W. Kimball said. "When we pray alone with God, we shed all sham and pretense, all hypocrisy and arrogance. The Savior found His mountains and slipped away to pray. Paul, the great apostle, could not seem to get into the spirit of his new calling until he had found cleansing solitude down in Arabia. . . . Enos found his solitary place in the forest. Moriancumer went to the mountain top to ask the Lord to touch the stones to light his people's way. And Nephi learned to build a ship through communication with his Lord on a mountain far from human ears. Joseph Smith found his solitude in the grove with only birds and trees and God to listen to his prayer. In solitude we, too, may pray with greater depth and fervor." (Faith Precedes the Miracle, p. 209.) Each of us needs our our private place where we can communicate with Heavenly Father in prayer; where we can escape the cares and concerns of the world and seek answers from Him to our problems and worries, some of which can be very weighty; where we, too, can find peace and comfort.

For some, that place may, in reality, be a grove of trees in the mountains. But, likely, for most of us, it is probably nothing more than in the quiet solitude of our own homes. Indeed, our homes can be our sacred chambers.

". . . Pour out your souls in your closets, and your secret places, and in your wilderness." (Alma 34:26.)

At one time, the Prophet Joseph turned the vile Liberty Jail into his own sacred site as he poured out his heart to God. Sections 121-123 of the Doctrine and Covenants are among the most beautiful writings ever recorded, and we have been greatly enriched because of what came out of that prison-temple.

Have we found our own sanctuary of solitude? As we seek for wisdom, are we taking the opportunity to communicate in private with God, who "giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. . ." ?(James 1:5.)

In the quiet solitude of our own chambers, a rich closeness to God can be developed.