I taught Relief Society last minute yesterday. It was basically an answer to a prayer. A strange answer, but an answer. I was supposed to teach this coming Sunday and knew I had a really big week coming up. I almost told the president I couldn’t do it. Then I got a call late Saturday night saying the teacher was sick….so I decided to stay up late one night instead of stress a whole week about it. I said a prayer and got on LDS.org and started looking for a topic. I got a lot of this lesson from the talk “Mountains to Climb” by Elder Eyring from April conference and also the talk called “It’s Better to Look Up” by Carl B. Cook. I think a lot of my lessons have been on “Having Faith in God”, so I guess it is something I need to be reminded of!
A few weeks ago I had a little break down, probably because I had just turned 30, I don’t know but I felt stressed about life, and I was lacking in the faith department. I moped around for an evening and even cried a bit {I know big shocker}. The next morning I woke up and just wanted to stay in bed all day. My awesome husband literally picked me up out of bed and said that he wouldn’t let me. My wonderful kids all came to my side and gave me a big hug. The whole week leading up to this day I kept feeling like I needed to read my patriarchal blessing, but I felt grumpy and didn’t. Finally later in the afternoon I found my house quiet, kids in their rooms playing with toys and reading and again I felt like I needed to get out my blessing…so I finally did. At that moment I felt like everything would be ok, that the financial struggles, the job situation, the parenting struggles, LIFE would all work out if I had faith. Do you know how many times the spirit has told me that in my life…..TONS
I think it is interesting, and sometimes I feel like Lamen and Lemuel after an experience like this. Like after they had seen an angel, or heard Gods voice, and then they forget and start acting naughty again. I always think when I read that part of 1st Nephi, Man they are so stupid, they have seen an angel and they are choosing to be bad again. Sometimes I feel like that with my faith. I have felt the spirit tell me life is going to be just fine tons of times in my life, but I till have a breakdown and forget! I have a moment where God reminds me that life is going to be ok and then I feel good inside and go on with life with peace….and then I slowly stop doing the things I know I should be doing every day, I get stressed out and life all the sudden seems way to hard and my faith decreases. Why can’t we just REMEMBER and always have faith? Why is it that we forget some of the things he has promised us?
{I played a song during my lesson from Mercy River called “Blessings”. If you haven’t heard you you need to! It’s amazing.}
President Eyering heard President Kimball say once,
“There are great challenges ahead of us, giant opportunities to be met. I welcome that exciting prospect and feel to say to the Lord, humbly, ‘Give me this mountain,’ give me these challenges.”My heart was stirred, knowing, as I did, some of the challenges and adversity he had already faced. I felt a desire to be more like him, a valiant servant of God. So one night I prayed for a test to prove my courage. I can remember it vividly. In the evening I knelt in my bedroom with a faith that seemed almost to fill my heart to bursting.Within a day or two my prayer was answered. The hardest trial of my life surprised and humbled me. It provided me a twofold lesson. First, I had clear proof that God heard and answered my prayer of faith. But second, I began a tutorial that still goes on to learn about why I felt with such confidence that night that a great blessing could come from adversity to more than compensate for any cost.The adversity that hit me in that faraway day now seems tiny compared to what has come since—to me and to those I love. Many of you are now passing through physical, mental, and emotional trials that could cause you to cry out as did one great and faithful servant of God I knew well. His nurse heard him exclaim from his bed of pain, “When I have tried all my life to be good, why has this happened to me?”
There are hard mountains to climb in life….No one has it easy. NO ONE!
Sometimes, and I think {hope} others feel this way, but I look around at other people who I “see” look like their life is perfect and I think…”wow their life is easy, have they ever had to go through anything hard?” Am I the only one that ever thinks this way?
Sometimes, and I think {hope} others feel this way, but I look around at other people who I “see” look like their life is perfect and I think…”wow their life is easy, have they ever had to go through anything hard?” Am I the only one that ever thinks this way? I learn so much form the story about “Looking Up” that Elder Cook talks about in his talk….
At the end of a particularly tiring day toward the end of my first week as a General Authority, my briefcase was overloaded and my mind was preoccupied with the question “How can I possibly do this?” I left the office of the Seventy and entered the elevator of the Church Administration Building. As the elevator descended, my head was down and I stared blankly at the floor.The door opened and someone entered, but I didn’t look up. As the door closed, I heard someone ask, “What are you looking at down there?” I recognized that voice—it was President Thomas S. Monson.I quickly looked up and responded, “Oh, nothing.” (I’m sure that clever response inspired confidence in my abilities!)But he had seen my subdued countenance and my heavy briefcase. He smiled and lovingly suggested, while pointing heavenward, “It is better to look up!”
I love that story and I love President Monson’s outlook. Life is NOT easy, but if we have faith (by looking up) we will be comforted. I have also recently come to know that this doesn’t mean that he will give us exactly what we want. He will just help us get through hard times.
Elder Cook says…”Experience has taught me that if we, like President Monson, exercise our faith and look to God for help, we will not be overwhelmed with the burdens of life. We will not feel incapable of doing what we are called to do or need to do. We will be strengthened, and our lives will be filled with peace and joy. We will come to realize that most of what we worry about is not of eternal significance—and if it is, the Lord will help us. But we must have the faith to look up and the courage to follow His direction. his way to the temple. When he bid me farewell, his parting glance spoke again to my heart, “Now, remember, it is better to look up.”
I like that that quote says “if we exercise our faith and look to God for help, we will not be overwhelmed with the burdens of life” instead of it saying that “there will be no burdens in our life if we have faith.” No matter what we are going to go through hard things.
This year has been a big one for me, turning 30, and our 10 year anniversary. I was chatting with my mom and telling her how much I love my life, my husband, and my kids, but then I was also telling her that It’s not exactly where I thought I would be when I was 30. I thought we would be rich and famous by this time, that my kids would be perfect and that life would be a breeze, that we would own our own home and that I wouldn’t ever feel sad, or stressed or upset. Okay that was a little over dramatized, but you get what I’m saying. I mentioned to her that I pray a lot about these things…doesn’t the lord answer our prayers after 10 years. She laughed and said “he will answer your prayers when it’s time, it might be 3 mins it might be 30 years.” I laughed and said, “Oh great”
It’s interesting to me that when I look back at situations we have been through and people that we have met and things that have crossed our path I really wouldn’t want it to change and Heavenly Father has really answered my prayers, maybe not my specific prayer yet of owning a home or being rich, but my life has been richly blessed. I need to REMEMBER to keep looking up because he really does care.
Elder Eyring closes his talk by saying…
When hard trials come, the faith to endure them well will be there,It is never too late to strengthen the foundation of faith. There is always time. With faith in the Savior, you can repent and plead for forgiveness. There is someone you can forgive. There is someone you can thank. There is someone you can serve and lift. You can do it wherever you are and however alone and deserted you may feel.I cannot promise an end to your adversity in this life. I cannot assure you that your trials will seem to you to be only for a moment. One of the characteristics of trials in life is that they seem to make clocks slow down and then appear almost to stop.There are reasons for that. Knowing those reasons may not give much comfort, but it can give you a feeling of patience. Those reasons come from this one fact: in Their perfect love for you, Heavenly Father and the Savior want you fitted to be with Them to live in families forever. Only those washed perfectly clean through the Atonement of Jesus Christ can be there.
He tells of his mother fight cancer for 10 years going through many many trials. He says, “One of the speakers at her funeral was President Spencer W. Kimball. Among the tributes he paid, I remember one that went something like this: “Some of you may have thought that Mildred suffered so long and so much because of something she had done wrong that required the trials.” He then said, “No, it was that God just wanted her to be polished a little more.” I remember at the time thinking, “If a woman that good needed that much polishing, what is ahead for me?”
If we have faith in Jesus Christ, the hardest as well as the easiest times in life can be a blessing. In all conditions, we can choose the right with the guidance of the Spirit. We have the gospel of Jesus Christ to shape and guide our lives if we choose it. And with prophets revealing to us our place in the plan of salvation, we can live with perfect hope and a feeling of peace. We never need to feel that we are alone or unloved in the Lord’s service because we never are. We can feel the love of God. The Savior has promised angels on our left and our right to bear us up. And He always keeps His word!
I love that….If we have Faith in Jesus Christ, the hardest as well as the easiest times in life can be a blessing! Sometimes it’s hard to have faith during those hard times, but God loves us and we need to Remember , and have faith to “Look Up” and be courageous even during hard times. That’s the difference between us and Lamen and Lemual…. they just gave up. Things got hard and they just gave up. So let’s remember to have faith always. Heavenly Father loves us so much and cares about us. We just need to REMEMBER to always have faith in his plan and he will bless us!
It’s always easy to think the grass is greener in someone else’s lawn, but I’ve found that I’d much rather have my trials and struggles than anyone elses. And everyone does struggle, some trials are just more public than others. Whenever I get to feeling life is hard I listen to the byu program Enduring it Well and get a good reminder that life really is great.
I also love the perspective of this quote by Elder Scott “Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain.”