Have you ever felt like life sucked? I mean, legitimately, down to
the bone, sucked? I'm not talking about just your average bad day, or even
week. I'm talking about the moments when all Hell breaks loose, and every
important aspect of your life gets flushed down the toilet?
Welcome to my life
at the moment.
My Grandma used to
say, "You can never have two bad days in a row".
Lies, Grandma, Lies.
To demonstrate,
let's make a check-list of all the things that aren't exactly going to plan:
Major= check.
Family= check.
Health= check.
Interpersonal
relationships= check and check.
But you see, the
point of this post isn't actually to whine about how sucky my life is. I can
see where you would see otherwise. However, the point is as follows:
Hebrews 12:6--
"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he
receiveth.”
Ordinarily, when I
feel like my life is crumbling into tiny pieces, I realize that it's really
hard to keep an eternal perspective. However, I have to realize that I need to
be grateful for my super crappy life right now.
Elder
Christofferson said the following, "[We need to] willingly accept and even
seek correction."
Now, I’m very aware
that when I’m going through a hard time, the first place I look to for a source
of refuge and peace is God. I cling to him like no needy girl does when dating
a boy. Thus, in my times of need, I am constantly re-evaluating what more I can
do. Can I make my personal study of the gospel more enriching? Can my prayers
be more meaningful? Can I find more opportunities to serve others? These
things.
I love what he says
later on, "Though it is often difficult to endure,
truly we ought to rejoice that God considers us worth the time and trouble to
correct. . . . The fruit of God's chastisement is repentance leading
to righteousness."
“Though it is often difficult to endure…” Those few words strike such
deep chords. Yes, it’s excruciatingly hard to endure. I often find myself
asking for relief. Although I sometimes wish I could be left alone and be
completely worry free, I know that’s not the point. We should be happy that God
loves us so much that he lets us go through difficult times so that we can
experience personal growth. (Easier said than done, I know).
For instance, last night as I was crying to the Lord, I was informing
him that I could no longer handle what He had given me to carry. I was begging
him to take away what I did not want/believe I could bear.
This morning, however, I read the words from Doctrine and Covenants
Section 136, verse 31. It reads as follows:
“My people must be tried
in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for
them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my
kingdom.”
Ouch, right? As Elder Paul V. Johnson
said, “…we must be careful not to resent the things that help us put on divine
nature.”
I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty difficult
for me to swallow. If I didn’t have these things called “emotions”, that would
be just fine and dandy. However, having to accept that your trials won’t
necessarily be taken away from you for the shear fact that you need to go
through them in order to become more like God—now that’s hard. Especially in
those deepest moments of pain.
In my New Testament class on Wednesday, my
teacher said something that really was impressed upon my mind. She said, “Quit
trying to control outcomes.” She emphasized that if we were faithful to the end
that we would be blessed. Her point was more that these blessings may not be immediate, but that they would be there, nonetheless.
Take Job. Job had a pretty sucky life. It
almost seemed like the more he did right, the worse things went. However, he
was blessed in the end.
My teacher also brought up the prophet Moroni
from the Book of Mormon. His people basically got killed off, and he spent the
remaining years of his life all by himself, trying not to get killed by the
Lamanites. So here he was, lonely but yet faithful. What reason did he have to
be faithful except for his love for God? Now, if you look at the top of each
temple, you’ll see a statue of Moroni pointing the way to Christ. How could
Moroni have known that his faithfulness to the end would cause him to be an
emblem of faith in these latter days? He didn’t.
It reminds me of that popular song “I happy
ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this…” But not
necessarily. Just because things aren't going to OUR plan, it doesn't mean that there won't be a "Happily Ever After" for us. God knows what’s best for us. However, sometimes the blessing won’t
come until the REAL Happily Ever After. Until then, we get chastened so that we
can qualify to be in God’s Kingdom.
