TRIALS

OPPOSITION

I have learned that opposition is a very healthy thing to have in order to have balance in our lives. With it, we can learn to appreciate the good and recognize our blessings.

We must experience the sorrow to be able to appreciate and fully feel true joy. We cannot have one without the other.

When we are sick – it sucks. Sometimes we quickly forget how nice it is to be healthy and not in pain as we get so focused on other things in our lives. We easily forget our blessings/health. It is good to be reminded through trials once in awhile to not take things for granted.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf (Young Women Conference 2010):

. . . you need to know that you will experience your own adversity. None is exempt. You will suffer, be tempted, and make mistakes. You will learn for yourself what every heroine has learned: through overcoming challenges come growth and strength.


It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself, that determines how your life’s story will develop.


Though it may seem that you are alone, angels attend you. Though you may feel that no one can understand the depth of your despair, our Savior, Jesus Christ, understands. He suffered more than we can possibly imagine, and He did it for us; He did it for you. You are not alone.


If you ever feel your burden is too great to bear, lift your heart to your Heavenly Father, and He will uphold and bless you. He says to you, as He said to Joseph Smith, “[Your] adversity and [your] afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if [you] endure it well, God shall exalt [you] on high.”3


Enduring adversity is not the only thing you must do to experience a happy life. Let me repeat: how you react to adversity and temptation is a critical factor in whether or not you arrive at your own “happily ever after.”


Everywhere you look today, you will find promises of happiness. Ads in magazines promise total bliss if you will only buy a certain outfit, shampoo, or makeup. Certain media productions glamorize those who embrace evil or who give in to base instincts. Often these same people are portrayed as models of success and accomplishment.


I understand that, at times, some may wonder why they attend Church meetings or why it is so important to read the scriptures regularly or pray to our Heavenly Father daily. Here is my answer: You do these things because they are part of God’s path for you. And that path will take you to your “happily ever after” destination.


“Stand . . . in holy places, and be not moved,”5 regardless of temptations or difficulties. I promise you that future generations will be grateful for you and praise your name for your courage and faithfulness during this crucial time of your life.

WE CAN’T COMPARE

We cannot compare trials as it can be difficult for one and easy for another person. I remember someone getting up in church and talking about how difficult it is to give blood for them as they fear needles. I do not have the same fear and so it may seem miniscule to me. I realized that I have to still be understanding of someone else’s trial even though I don’t experience the same feelings.

I don’t believe it is fair to compare and somehow think that you are superior for handling a situation/trial better. You can say, “I can’t imagine what that must be like, here is something that I’ve been through.”

Celebrity Apprentice: “Nobody knows what it’s like unless you’ve been through it.”

We search for understanding and sympathy, but many people can’t give it because they haven’t been through it – Christ has been through it ALL. God is the only one who can fulfill that emptiness inside of us of longing to feel understood and connected.

Elder Uchtdorf: “. . . let our hearts and hands be stretched out in compassion toward others, for everyone is walking his or her own difficult path.” (General Conference: “You are my hands”)

WITH GOD

I used to think that Heavenly Father wouldn’t give me a trial that I couldn’t overcome. The scriptures talk about not being given more temptation than we could bear. I have learned that He allow trials and afflictions in our lives that are more than we can bear. What I have learned is that with God I can do ANYTHING. He hasn’t left us and He has heard our cries. He can give us strength to overcome what we cannot overcome by ourselves.

Trials have changed my whole perspective of life. Recently I heard that sometimes we have to be brought lower so that we can be taken higher. The more I have leaned on God for strength, the more confidence and trust that I have built with Him, knowing that with Him I can overcome anything.

I used to think God wouldn’t give us more than we could handle and then I’d wonder why people committed suicide, etc. He DOES give us more than we can handle WITHOUT Him.

Our prayers are not always answered the way that we would like them to be and we must trust God that things will work out for the best in the end. He will consecrate our afflictions for our good if we allow Him to do so.

ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE

I have always tried to keep an eternal perspective, striving to make righteous decisions now to be blessed in the future. The trials that I have faced in life have changed my perspective a little bit of what my “eternal life” will be like. I have now had to take it to a whole new level, actually imagining myself as a goddess in the eternities, looking back at my relatively short earthly life and thinking to myself, “these were only earthly tribulations/heartaches that gave me knowledge and experience and I don’t have to live with these trials and their consequences throughout eternity.”

JESUS CHRIST

Elder Donald L. Hallstrom: If you feel you have been wronged—by anyone (a family member, a friend, another member of the Church, a Church leader, a business associate) or by anything (the death of a loved one, health problems, a financial reversal, abuse, addictions)—deal with the matter directly and with all the strength you have. “Hold on thy way” (D&C 122:9); giving up is not an option. And, without delay, turn to the Lord. Exercise all of the faith you have in Him. Let Him share your burden. Allow His grace to lighten your load. We are promised that we will “suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ” (Alma 31:38). Never let an earthly circumstance disable you spiritually. (Emphasis Added)

His most exemplary act, the Atonement, required Jesus to descend “below all things” (D&C 88:6) and suffer “the pains of all men” (2 Nephi 9:21). Thus we understand the Atonement has broader purpose than providing a means to overcome sin. This greatest of all earthly accomplishments gives the Savior the power to fulfill this promise: “If ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in him, and serve him with all diligence . . . , if ye do this, he will . . . deliver you out of bondage” (Mosiah 7:33). (General Conference, “Turn to the Lord;” Emphasis added)

We may have a weight in our hearts through tribulation that wasn’t there before, but Christ can lift our burdens and make that weight lighter as we turn to Him.

Elder Quentin L. Cook: He faced mental, physical, and spiritual afflictions that are beyond our comprehension. In the garden, He prayed to His Father, saying, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” As His disciples, there will be times when we will be tried and persecuted unjustly and mocked unfairly and face temporal and spiritual storms of a magnitude that will seem unbearable to us and experience bitter cups that we pray would pass from us. No one is exempt from the storms of life. (General Conference: “We Follow Jesus Christ”)

PATIENCE

Spencer W. Kimball: “Now, we find many people critical when a righteous person is killed, a young father or mother is taken from a family, or when violent deaths occur. Some become bitter when oft-repeated prayers seem unanswered. Some lose faith and turn sour when solemn administrations by holy men seem to be ignored and no restoration seems to come from repeated prayer circles. But if all the sick were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended.


“If pain and sorrow and total punishment immediately followed the doing of evil, no soul would repeat a misdeed. If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil – all would do good and not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, no satanic controls.


“Should all prayers be immediately answered according to our selfish desires and our limited understanding, then there would be little or no suffering, sorrow, disappointment, or even death; and if these were not, there would also be an absence of joy, success, resurrection, eternal life, and godhood.”

Elder Uchtdorf: From that experience, I learned that patience was far more than simply waiting for something to happen—patience required actively working toward worthwhile goals and not getting discouraged when results didn’t appear instantly or without effort.


There is an important concept here: patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can—working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!


Impatience, on the other hand, is a symptom of selfishness. It is a trait of the self-absorbed. It arises from the all-too-prevalent condition called “center of the universe” syndrome, which leads people to believe that the world revolves around them and that all others are just supporting cast in the grand theater of mortality in which only they have the starring role.


Every one of us is called to wait in our own way. We wait for answers to prayers. We wait for things which at the time may appear so right and so good to us that we can’t possibly imagine why Heavenly Father would delay the answer.


Often the deep valleys of our present will be understood only by looking back on them from the mountains of our future experience. Often we can’t see the Lord’s hand in our lives until long after trials have passed. Often the most difficult times of our lives are essential building blocks that form the foundation of our character and pave the way to future opportunity, understanding, and happiness.


Patience means staying with something until the end. It means delaying immediate gratification for future blessings. It means reining in anger and holding back the unkind word. It means resisting evil, even when it appears to be making others rich.


Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being “willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father.” Ultimately, patience means being “firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord” every hour of every day, even when it is hard to do so.


Patience means to abide in faith, knowing that sometimes it is in the waiting rather than in the receiving that we grow the most. This was true in the time of the Savior. It is true in our time as well, for we are commanded in these latter days to “continue in patience until ye are perfected.”


My dear brethren, the work of patience boils down to this: keep the commandments; trust in God, our Heavenly Father; serve Him with meekness and Christlike love; exercise faith and hope in the Savior; and never give up. The lessons we learn from patience will cultivate our character, lift our lives, and heighten our happiness. (General Conference)