I keep forgetting and being re-taught this lesson: that the point of our lives here isn’t to seek and enjoy pleasant times and good things, although those are really nice to experience; it’s to be tested, in all things, so our souls can be refined and we can triumph over all.
This is clear in the Gospel; we know we are to be tested, and that our Saviour’s atonement was necessary to save us, because it’s so hard. And it does feel hard, so I keep thinking that’s enough – while trying to make the hard things go away. I want to get to the good stuff; to where it’s mostly good, not just sometimes. I want happiness; I want to feel content. I hate feeling bad – who doesn’t? So I try to avoid and escape it, and I think that means seeking good experiences, having good people around me, and achieving the ‘right’ things; trying to fill in the space so I don’t need to feel sad or disappointed, or any other unpleasant feeling. If I’m feeling good, then life is going well, and I’m succeeding at it.
The problem, of course, is that life often isn’t going well, and I don’t feel like I’m succeeding. If my happiness is tied to that, then I’m going to feel bad most of the time. Clearly, something’s wrong – either my approach, or my life.
Is this how it is for you? Are you always seeking to feel good, and attaching that to things going well – life going nicely, good experiences, fun times with friends, no sad goodbyes, no business projects not turning out, no impossible-to-budge circumstances you hate? After all, it’s not like those desires are bad – we just want nice things, right? We all want to feel good, obviously. But are we going about it the right way? Is feeling good what we should be seeking, or does it come through seeking something else?
You probably know the answer, like I do – but I keep forgetting it.
If the point of mortal life is to be tested in all things, then I have to be tested in the hardest thing for me.
If I’m experiencing what I never wanted to and never thought I could endure; if something just won’t move and I feel so frustrated with my efforts to move it that keep not working; if there’s something, even, that I have little power to change, and yet my prayers to God aren’t moving me out of it or taking it away, then that’s not evidence He doesn’t love me and that my life is going all wrong. I don’t have to feel ashamed, disappointed, frustrated, discouraged, or hopeless.
If I am experiencing my hardest thing, for this stage of my life, or all of it, the answer isn’t to try with all my might to escape it, although I still try to change it. The answer is to hold faster to my covenants with God, to seek even more sincerely for His power to endure, and to find in Him my purpose and solace. Not just to ‘endure the hard things while regretting they exist’, but to give everything up to Him – my own will/purpose/desire to have the good things included.
Our Saviour endured and overcame His hardest thing, and through it, gained the power to help us overcome our hardest things. We, too, must go through our own Gethsemane experiences, and with the power that Christ gained from His Gethsemane, ours, too, will become our beautiful triumph and not our shame. Like the Nephites, our hardest things are our greatest opportunity to deepen our faith in Christ, and receive the power that can only come in this way. As we extend our hands to grasp His always-outstretched one, we will be transformed, and what we thought was the worst thing that could happen to us will instead connect us to the ‘deep, deep magic’ of sanctification.
If you’re experiencing what is the hardest thing for you, a thing you never thought you could endure, and never wanted to; if you have circumstances you can’t move, or good things that are ending and you’re afraid of life getting harder, remember that it’s not evidence God doesn’t love you and that your life is going wrong. Having to experience your hardest thing(s) is proof that God does love you and is helping you. It’s His invitation to reach for His hand, and let Him pull you up to a higher plane, where the rewards will be such that what you were seeking for, because you thought it would make you happy, doesn’t compare.
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So true!! When our son killed himself many people said to me, “No mother should have to go through that.” I always thought Why not? Who am I that I wouldn’t have to experience really hard things. Going through terrible things increases my gratitude for the Savior who is able to succor and comfort me through it all; and hopefully I’m more compassionate to others who are experiencing their own hard things.
I love your perspective, Rozy. Such an extremely hard thing, and it has brought you closer to God and allowed you to more deeply feel His love. Because the hard things will happen, and we will not be able to control many of them, God has the perfect solution: He turns them into good things, if we believe Him and humble ourselves to receive His lessons. Then He can work miracles.
I used to think that I would have been compassionate, anyway, and felt like the really hard things weren’t needed to make me that way, so why did I have to experience them still? But there’s a thing you only learn over time, which is that God knows better, and yes, there are things I could only learn – refinements to my soul – through the difficult things. Not that God ‘makes’ them happen, but that He turns them into good for us, and others, no matter what.