But for a Small Moment

Here's a talk from Elder Maxwell given back when I was two.  I can't say I recall him giving it, since I clearly was not present for the talk, but I have read it recently and quite liked it.  Elder Maxwell was a master at teaching that our lives were meant to be tests, and that we should expect trials in them, but that those trials were for our good and would be, as this talk is titled, "but for a small moment"....

But for a Small Moment

NEAL A. MAXWELL

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Neal A. Maxwell was an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when this fireside
address was given at Brigham Young University on 1 September 1974.
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I am delighted to be with you tonight, my brothers and sisters, to partake of the spirit that is here and of that marvelous music. I wish you knew how much as a generation you inspire those of us who have the privilege of working with you. I want you to know that I regard you highly--collectively and all here whom I know individually–and have great expectations for you. The highest compliment I can pay to you is that God has placed you here and now at this time to serve in his kingdom; so much is about to happen in which you will be involved and concerning which you will have some great influence.

It is because you will face some remarkable challenges in your time; it is because the Church has ceased to be in the eyes of men a mere cultural oddity in the Mountain West and is now, therefore, a global church--a light which can no longer be hid; it is because you have a rendezvous with destiny that will involve some soul stretching and some pain that I have chosen to speak to you tonight about the implications of two things we accept sometimes quite casually. These realities are that God loves us and, loving us, has placed us here to cope with challenges which he will place before us. I'm not sure we can always understand the implications of his love, because his love will call us at times to do things we may wonder about, and we may be confronted with circumstances we would rather not face. I believe with all my heart that because God loves us there are some particularized challenges that he will deliver to each of us. He will customize the curriculum for each of us in order to teach us the things we most need to know. He will set before us in life what we need, not always what we like. And this will require us to accept with all our hearts--particularly your generation--the truth that there is divine design in each of our lives and that you have rendezvous to keep, individually and collectively.

God knows even now what the future holds for each of us. In one of his revelations these startling words appear, as with so many revelations that are too big, I suppose, for us to manage fully: "In the presence of God, . . . all things . . . are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord" (D&C 130:7). The future "you" is before him now. He knows what it is he wishes to bring to pass in your life. He knows the kind of remodeling in your life and in mine that he wishes to achieve. Now, this will require us to believe in that divine design and at times to accept the truth which came to Joseph Smith wherein he was reminded that his suffering would be "but a small moment" (D&C 121:7). I'd like to talk to you about some of those small moments that will come your way in life and that come to each of us.

Let me begin by reminding you that we so blithely say in the Church that life is a school, a testing ground. It is true, even though it is trite. What we don't accept are the implications of that true teaching--at least as fully as we should. One of the implications is that the tests that we face are real. They are not going to be things we can do with one hand tied behind our backs. They are real enough that if we meet them we shall know that we have felt them, because we will feel them deeply and keenly and pervasively.

The Lessons of the Atonement

Christ on the cross gave out the cry "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" That cry on the cross is an indication that the very best of our Father's children found the trials so real, the tests so exquisite and so severe, that he cried out--not in doubt of his Father's reality, but wondering "why" at that moment of agony--for Jesus felt so alone. James Talmage advises us that in ways you and I cannot understand, God somehow withdrew his immediate presence from the Son so that Jesus Christ's triumph might be truly complete.

From Gethsemane and Calvary there are many lessons we need to apply to our own lives. We, too, at times may wonder if we have been forgotten and forsaken. Hopefully, we will do as the Master did and acknowledge that God is still there and never doubt that sublime reality–even though we may wonder and might desire to avoid some of life's experiences. We may at times, if we are not careful, try to pray away pain or what seems like an impending tragedy, but which is, in reality, an opportunity. We must do as Jesus did in that respect--also preface our prayers by saying, "If it be possible," let the trial pass from us--by saying, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt," and bowing in a sense of serenity to our Father in heaven's wisdom, because at times God will not be able to let us pass by a trial or a challenge. If we were allowed to bypass certain trials, everything that had gone on up to that moment in our lives would be wiped out. It is because he loves us that at times he will not intercede as we may wish him to. That, too, we learn from Gethsemane and from Calvary.

It is interesting to me, brothers and sisters, to note that among the qualities of a saint is the capacity to develop patience and to cope with the things that life inflicts upon us. That capacity brings together two prime attributes--patience and endurance. These are qualities, in the process of giving service to mankind that most people reject or undervalue. Most people would gladly serve mankind if somehow they could get it over with once, preferably with applause and recognition. But, for the sake of righteousness, to endure, to be patient in the midst of affliction, in the midst of being misunderstood, and in the midst of suffering--that is sainthood!

I am struck quite forcibly by the idea that no man has yet become President of the church of him who suffered so much who has not himself undergone some special challenges previous to that moment. The challenges vary from President to President, but the ways in which these men have coped with these challenges are strikingly similar.

If we use Jesus as a model in the midst of the suffering about which we're speaking, then it is also noteworthy that even in the midst of his exquisite agony he managed to have compassion for those nearby who were then suffering much, though much less than he--those on the adjoining crosses or about him below the cross. How marvelous it is when we see people who are not so swallowed up in their own suffering that they cannot still manage sympathy, even empathy, for those who suffer far, far less. How many of us here may have undergone the embarrassment of being comforted by those who had more reason to be comforted than we? Yet we recognize in that act of theirs a saintliness to which we would so gladly aspire.

If we at times wonder if our own agendum for life deliver to us challenges that seem unique, it would be worth our remembering that, when we feel rejected, we are members of the church of him who was most rejected by his very own with no cause for rejection. If at times we feel manipulated, we are disciples of him whom the establishment of his day sought to manipulate. If we at times feel unappreciated, we are worshipers of him who gave to us the Atonement--that marvelous, selfless act, the central act of all human history--unappreciated, at least fully, even among those who gathered about his feet while the very process of the Atonement was underway. If we sometimes feel misunderstood by those about us, even those we minister to, so did he, much more deeply and pervasively than we. And if we love and there is no reciprocity for our love, we worship him who taught us and showed us love that is unconditional, for we must love even when there is no reciprocity.

Most of our suffering, brothers and sisters, actually comes because of our sins and not because of our nobility. Isn't it marvelous that Jesus Christ, who did not have to endure that kind of suffering because he was sin-free, nevertheless took upon himself the sins of all of us and experienced an agony so exquisite we cannot comprehend it? I don't know how many people have lived on the earth for sure, but demographers say between 30 and 67 billion. If you were to collect the agony for your own sins and I for mine, and multiply it by that number, we can only shudder at what the sensitive, divine soul of Jesus must have experienced in taking upon himself the awful arithmetic of the sins of all of us--an act which he did selflessly and voluntarily. If it is also true (in some way we don't understand) that the cavity which suffering carves into our souls will one day also be the receptacle of joy, how infinitely greater Jesus' capacity for joy, when he said, after his resurrection, "Behold, my joy is full." How very, very full, indeed, his joy must have been!

I should like, therefore, to speak to you on the premise that it is a part of discipleship for us to be prepared for the kind of rigors that Jesus always leveled his disciples. He said, "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" (D&C 136:31). That is hard doctrine. Peter made it even more rigorous. Peter didn't want us to take any credit upon ourselves for the suffering we endure because of our own mistakes. He was willing to see us take credit for the suffering we endure because of discipleship, but not because of our own stupidity or our own sin (1 Peter 2:20). Then Moroni reminded us, "For ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith" (Ether 12:6). That's the rigorous path of discipleship, brothers and sisters, about which I wish to speak at least in this one dimension tonight, giving you some examples, if I may.

If God chooses to teach us the things we most need to learn because he loves us, and if he seeks to tame our souls and gentle us in the way we most need to be tamed and most need to be gentled, it follows that he will customize the challenges he gives us and individualize them so that we will be prepared for life in a better world by his refusal to take us out of this world, even though we are not of it. In the eternal ecology of things we must pray, therefore, not that things be taken from us, but that God's will be accomplished through us. What, therefore, may seem now to be mere unconnected pieces of tile will someday, when we look back, take form and pattern, and we will realize that God was making a mosaic. For there is in each of our lives this kind of divine design, this pattern, this purpose that is in the process of becoming, which is continually before the Lord but which for us, looking forward, is sometimes perplexing.

Traps Impeding the Ability to Meet Challenges

I should like to suggest some traps into which we can fall, if we are not careful, as we try to meet the challenges that life delivers at our doorsteps. The first temptation that we must resist, brothers and sisters, is the Jonah response, in which we sometimes think we can escape the calls that come to us, that we can somehow run away from the realities that will press in upon us. Jonah, you recall, had been called to go to Nineveh. He didn't want to go to that urban center that was so big. We are told it took the people hours to walk across that city. He tried to find a ship going to Tarshish. He "paid the fare thereof," hoping to leave the presence of the Lord. You and I will one day know, if we do not know now, there is no way we can escape from God's love, because it is infinite. However many times in our lives we might rather go to a Tarshish than a Nineveh, he will insist that we go to Nineveh, and we must pay "the fare thereof."

Recently a young man was called to his Nineveh. The president of the Salt Lake mission home, President Rawson, told Sister Maxwell and me that not too long ago a young man came in on a Saturday to the Salt Lake mission home and said, "President, may I see you?"

The president said, "Surely, son, come into my office."

He came in and said, "I need a blessing."

"Why do you need a blessing?"

"I need a blessing because I am the only member of my family who is a member of the Church. Yesterday, when I went to leave home, one parent told me never to come back again, the other wouldn't speak to me, and the only person who said goodbye was my little brother, who came to the front gate to say goodbye to me. I'm on my way overseas and I need a blessing."

Now, brothers and sisters, that is the kind of devotion we must have in preparation for the Ninevehs of life to which we are called. However rigorous the circumstances are, we must, as this young man did, be willing to go, to trust and to surrender ourselves to our Father in heaven, who knows why in his divine plans it must be so.

A second trap into which we can fall is the naïveté that grows out of our not realizing that the adversary will press particularly in the areas of our vulnerabilities. It ought not to surprise us that this will be so. The things that we would most like to avoid, therefore, will often be the things that confront us most directly and most sharply. Some of you may recall that the British military planners who built the fortress of Singapore, which was supposed to be invincible, fixed the guns of Singapore so that they would fire only seaward. The Japanese very cleverly came from behind on land. Churchill and others were stunned that this citadel and fortress had fallen so quietly and so simply. Some of us have guns that fire only in one direction. We are vulnerable, and our vulnerabilities will be probed by the vicissitudes of life. One of the great advantages of life in the Church (in which the gospel is at the center) is that we can overcome these vulnerabilities; otherwise, we shall be taken by surprise and swiftly.

A third trap into which we can fall, if we are not careful, is to fail to notice that at the center of many of our challenges is pride, is ego. In most emotional escalations with which I am familiar, if one goes to the very center of them, there is ego asserting itself relentlessly. The only cure for rampant ego is humility, and this is why circumstances often bring to us a kind of compelled or forced humility--so that we may recover our equilibrium. Humility can help us to dampen our pride. Ironically, for those of us who most need to serve to develop our capacity to love, our very egos often make us unapproachable so far as others are concerned. We, therefore, are underused and we wonder why. And this is typical of the trials that we impose upon ourselves.

A fourth trap into which we can fall is that we may at times assume that the plan of salvation requires merely that we endure and survive when, in fact, as is always the case with the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is required of us, not only that we endure, but also that we endure well, that we exhibit "grace under pressure." This is necessary, not only so that our own passage through the trial can be a growth experience, but also because (more than we know) there are always people watching to see if we can cope, who therefore may resolve to venture forth and to cope themselves. Every time we navigate safely on the strait and narrow way, there are other ships that are lost which can find their way because of our steady light.

A fifth trap, and a major one, is the trap of self-pity. One man has said that "hell is being frozen in self-pity." Indeed, at times when we think our lot is hard or when we feel our selves misunderstood, it will be so easy for us to indulge ourselves in feeling some self-pity. A contrasting episode comes to us out of ancient Greece: Several hundred Spartans were holding the pass at Thermopylae, that narrow pass, and the Persians came in overwhelming numbers and urged the Spartans to surrender. Hoping to intimidate them further, the Persians sent emissaries to the Spartans, saying they had so many archers in their army they could darken the sky with their arrows. The Spartans said, "So much the better. We shall fight in the shade."

Now, brothers and sisters, the disciple has to be ready to fight in the shade of circumstance. One of the ways we can have perspective that will permit us to fight in the shade of circumstances is to read the scriptures and have involvement--intellectually and spiritually--with the case studies in the scriptures of those men and women who have coped, and coped successfully, who have undergone far more than you and I are asked to undergo. When we understand these models, we may then understand that God is totally serious about his purpose "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man," that his chief concerns are not real estate and political dominion, but the growth of souls, the celestializing of the souls with whom he works.

I am one of those, for instance, who does not believe the Mormon colonies in Mexico and Canada had much to do in the Lord's eyes with real estate or physical empire, but I feel rather that these colonies were established for the preparation of a people. I call your attention to the fact that two members of the First Presidency and the wife of President Kimball have come out of those colonies in Mexico and Canada--individuals prepared beforehand for the mighty roles they now carry on in the kingdom. I don't think God's too interested in real estate. He owns it all anyway. He does seem to be incredibly interested in what happens to us individually and will place us in those circumstances where we have the most opportune chances to grow and to carry out our purposes.

A sixth trap into which we can fall quite easily, brothers and sisters, is the trap in which we sense that something special is happening in our lives but are not able to sort it out with sufficient precision and clarity that we can articulate it to someone else. That is so often true of the gospel. Its truths are too powerful for us to manage on occasion. Let me give you this simple illustration of how we can know something and yet not be able to communicate it fully without the help of the Spirit. If I were to bring one of you into this hall and if, instead of all of you, it were filled with fifteen thousand mothers and if I were to say to you, "Somewhere in that audience is your mother; find her," you could do it, and I suspect it wouldn't take you very many minutes. But if I said to you, "Wait outside. There are fifteen thousand mothers in there and one of them is your mother. Now, you describe her to me with sufficient precision and clarity so that I can go find her," you couldn't do it. You would still know what she looked like, but tongue could not transmit what you knew. It is that way often with the gospel. That is why we are so in need of the Spirit–so that knowledge can arc like electricity from point to point, aided and impelled by the Spirit--aid without which we are simply not articulate enough to speak of all the things which we know.

It would be interesting, for instance, if I were to ask one of you to describe to the satisfaction of all here the color yellow. Yellow, of course, is a primary color, but it would be difficult for you to describe it to us without comparing it with other colors. Yet you have no difficulty recognizing yellow when you see it. We know more than we can tell! Sometimes the things we know take the form of knowledge about what is happening to us in life in which we sense purpose, in which we sense divine design, but which we cannot speak about with full articulateness. There are simply moments of mute comprehension and of mute certitude. We need to pay attention when these moments come to us, because God often give us the assurances we need but not necessarily the capacity to transmit these assurances to anyone else.

I would like to share with you at this moment a highly personal experience. I will not mention the name of the man involved. I mention the experience only because of one of my own tendencies (those on the stand and elsewhere who know me know that I am often too verbal and silence does not come easily to me). Fortunately, on this occasion there was a kind of mute comprehension on my part that the most important thing I could do was to be still.

A few days after April conference, a very bright, able professional man called my secretary for an appointment. Fortunately she gave it to him, and fortunately it was of sufficient duration that there was time for the chemistry of this experience to operate. He came in and we greeted each other. I, frankly, was not sure of the purpose of his visit. I assumed it might even be that he had come to complain about something. There are portions of our time as General Authorities that are given over to being ombudsmen. But I said little and sat down. I resisted the temptation to fill the silence that then ensued. Tears welled up, filling his eyes. It seemed to me we must have sat there for ten minutes, but I am sure it was only three or four. I kept still, resisting the natural temptation to rush in with supporting words, and simply let the Spirit operate. Then out it came--a marvelous, manly confession, in which he said for him to become active in the kingdom again it was necessary that he set certain things right. Over the years he felt he had been unfair to me and unkind to me, and he wanted to come and to ask for forgiveness. I again largely resisted the temptation, which by then was strong, to rush in with some quick reassurances that might put him at ease. As thoughts tumbled on thoughts and verbalizations on verbalizations, this sweet man cleansed his soul. Indeed, I had not felt injured by him. I was not aware of his concerns, but it would have been folly for me to have so said before there was full closure in the matter at hand.

He is a marvelous, sweet man. I admire his courage. He said even that morning he had wondered if he could come, or if he shouldn't cancel his appointment. I love him. We embraced and have stayed in close contact since. He is able and is making marvelous progress in the kingdom. I'll always be grateful for that sensing of mute comprehension that something special was about to happen which I couldn't describe but in which my role for that occasion was mostly to be still and to listen. There are times when life will visit us with challenges in which we will have a mute comprehension of what is underway but cannot transmit it fully to someone else.
A seventh trap, brothers and sisters, is that some of us neglect to develop multiple forces of satisfaction. When one of the wells upon which we draw dries up through death, loss or status, disaffection, or physical ailment, we then find ourselves very thirsty because, instead of having multiple sources of satisfaction in our lives, we have become too dependent upon this or upon that. How important it is to the symmetry of our souls that we interact with all the gospel principles and with all the Church programs, so that we do not become so highly specialized that, if we are deprived of one source of satisfaction, indeed we are in difficulty. It is possible to be incarcerated within the prison of one principle. We are less vulnerable if our involvements with the kingdom are across the board. We are less vulnerable if we care deeply about many principles--not simply a few.

An eighth trap to be avoided, brothers and sisters, is the tendency we have--rather humanly, rather understandably--to get ourselves caught in peering through the prism of the present and then distorting our perspective about things. Time is of this world; it is not of eternity. We can, if we are not careful, feel the pressures of time and see things in a distorted way. How important it is that we see things as much as possible through the lens of the gospel with its eternal perspectives.

I should like, if I may, to share with you on this point the fine writing of your own A. Lester Allen, a dean and scientist on this campus. This is what I have come to call the "Allen Analogy" about time. Let me read you these lines, if I may. Their application will be obvious. Dean Allen writes:

Suppose, for instance, that we imagine a "being" moving onto our earth whose entire life-span is only 1/100 of a second. Ten thousand "years" for him, generation after generation, would be only one second of our time. Suppose this imaginary being comes up to a quiet pond in the forest where you are seated. You have just tossed in a rock and are watching the ripples. A leaf is fluttering from the sky and a bird is swooping over the water. He would find everything absolutely motionless. Looking at you, he would say: "In all recorded history nothing has changed. My father and his father before him have seen that everything is absolutely still. This creature called man has never had a heartbeat and has never breathed. The water is standing in stationary waves as if someone had thrown a rock into it; it seems frozen. A leaf is suspended in the air, and a bird has stopped right over the middle of the pond. There is no movement. Gravity is suspended." The concept of time in this imaginary being, so different from ours, would give him an entirely different perspective of what we call reality.

On the other hand, picture another imaginary creature for whom one "second" of his time is 10,000 years of our time. What would the pond be like to him? By the time he sat down beside it, taking 15,000 of our years to do so, the pond would have vanished. Individual human beings would be invisible, since our entire life-span would be only 1/100 of one of his "seconds." The surface of the earth would be undulating as mountains are built up and worn down. The forest would persist but a few minutes and then disappear. His concept of "reality" would be much different than our own.

That's the most clever way I have seen time and intimations of eternity dealt with. It is very important that we not assume the perspective of mortality in making the decisions that bear on eternity! We need the perspectives of the gospel to make decisions in the context of eternity. We need to understand we cannot do the Lord's work in the world's way.

The Church's Basis in Christ

Now, brothers and sisters, may I prepare to close with these thoughts: The Church is fully Christ-centered. The Church is also Christ-powered, and it is also designed to help its members become more Christlike. Since the gospel of Jesus Christ focuses on the truths that deal with everlasting things and not on obsolescent realities, it is very important for us, brothers and sisters, to recognize that the truths in which we traffic as members of the kingdom pertain to eternity as well as to this life.

I am surprised (I would be amused if the cost were not so great) that people think they can remove the foundations of our social structure--things like work, chastity, and family and then wonder why other things crumble. You can't remove the foundation of a building while standing inside and not be hit with falling plaster. We are now in the interesting position in the kingdom of trying to warn about what is happening in the world and, at the same time, of keeping ourselves personally secure. We must be Christ-centered individually. We must have his and God's power to do our work, and we must take seriously the challenge of becoming more Christlike. You're soon going to go out into a world full of marshmallow men. Like the act of putting a finger into a marshmallow, there is no core in these men, there is no center, and when one removes his finger, the marshmallow resumes its former shape. We are in a world of people who want to yield to everything--to every fad and to every fashion. It is incredibly important that we be committed to the core--committed to those things that matter, about which our Father in heaven has leveled with us through his Son, Jesus Christ, and his prophets.

I saw an interesting cartoon not too long ago that bears on this point of marshmallow men. It showed two multicolored desert lizards conversing. One said to the other, "Of course you're going through an identity crisis. You're a chameleon."

Of course the world is going through an identity crisis. Of course it's adrift: it's got no anchor. It does not have core principles upon which to decide all other things. I am grateful that our beliefs are related to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful that God has told us that we must be ready for the trials that life will bring our way.

I speak to this generation with some sense of vicarious anticipation in your behalf of what lies ahead--urging you to pour out your hearts in supplication and prayer. There is nothing more powerful than prayer, nothing more masculine or more feminine (at the same time) than prayer. There was more power processed and expended on that single night in Gethsemane, in that small garden, than all the armies and navies have ever expended in all the battles on the land and sea and in the air in all of human history. The catalyst of prayer helped Jesus to cope with suffering, and by his suffering he emancipated all men from death and made possible eternal life. This cardinal fact about the central act of human history, the Atonement, ought to give us pause, therefore, as we face our challenges individually.

I believe it was George Macdonald who reminded us that the only door out of the dungeon of self is the love of one's neighbor. How proud we ought to be, in a quiet way, that we are members of the church of the most selfless being who ever lived. How proud we ought to be to belong to a church that makes specific demands of us and gives us specific things to do and marks the strait and narrow way, lest we fall off one side of the precipice or the other. I am so grateful that God loves us enough to teach us specifically. Had secularists written the Ten Commandments, they might have said, "Thou shalt not be a bad person." Note what the Ten Commandments say: "Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, thou shalt not commit adultery," and so on. The gospel of Jesus Christ is specific because God cares specifically for each of us and, caring for us, will mark the way carefully lest we fall out of happiness.

A vague creed is fitted only for a vague God. We have a Father who loves us specifically and gives us things to do and, because he loves us, will cause us, at times, to have our souls stretched and to be fitted for a better world by coping with life in this world.

May God bless us with that kind of commitment, with the capacity to be serious disciples and to accept both the agendum that he has prepared for each of us because he loves us and the curriculum, prepared for each of us, which he has customized to teach us the things we most need to know, because he loves us.

There is a man I hope someday to meet--a brother of yours and mine in the kingdom. He lives somewhere behind the Iron Curtain. Another man, a priesthood leader behind the Iron Curtain, was told that there was such a man, who had not seen another member of the Church for many years. This good brother, moved by the Spirit, saved his money (which he didn't have much of), made his way through the red tape of crossing borders, and found this brother of yours and mine; he learned that he who was found had not seen another member of the Church for over twenty years. And when the man who was the finder indicated that it was possible, because he had been so authorized, to give this brother a patriarchal blessing, this good brother demurred momentarily until he got the tithing which he had saved for over twenty years and gave it to this other man so that he would be fully worthy of that blessing!

I don't know what the divine design is in the challenge of that kind of solitude. I know that this man, our brother, is meeting that challenge. Some of us will have to be most courageous, not when we're alone, but when we're in a crowd. Whatever the form the test takes, we must be willing to pass it. We must reach breaking points without breaking. We must be willing, if necessary, to give up our lives--not because we have a disdain for life as some do, but even though we love life--because we are the servants of him who did that in such an infinite way for all of us.

I testify to you in the solemnity of my soul that we are prophet-led, that this is the church of Jesus Christ, presided over by a prophet who himself knows a great deal about suffering. We are all the servants of him who suffered most that we might have with him a fullness of joy. May we be committed to that task this day and always I pray in the name of him whose church this is, even Jesus Christ. Amen.

Beauty in the Storm

I read this sitting in a Del Taco, with tears running down my cheeks as I considered the words of President Lee.  He shares a remarkable testimony of the purpose of trials in our lives, and his love for his wife (and hers for him) is readily apparent.

Find Beauty in the Storm

REX E. AND JANET G. LEE

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Rex E. Lee was president of Brigham Young University
when this devotional address was given on 23 January 1990.
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Janet: We welcome you back to a new semester and a new year. For us, as for many of you, last semester was a first time BYU experience. And we really loved it. Over the years, Rex and I have shared many things, but since his training is in law and mine in education, we have never shared a job. Now, for the first time, we are even sharing that, and it has been one of many unanticipated joys that we have experienced over the last six months.

Rex: It reminds me of something I think Willie Mays said right after he started playing professional baseball: "I can't believe they pay me for doing something that's so much fun." Maybe I shouldn't describe a job that is so demanding as fun, and in some respects it isn't, but on balance I agree with Janet; I've never done anything that I have enjoyed more.

Janet: Today we want to tell you a story. In a very real sense, it is a love story--our love story. We want to discuss with you some of the things that we learned, together, from the most trying and unpleasant experience that either of us has ever had, our experience with cancer. Rex made a brief allusion to it in his devotional talk last fall, and several news commentators have reported on some aspects of that experience. But we have never publicly given our own account of what happened and what we learned during that time. Some aspects of it are not easy for us to talk about. But we have decided that we want to tell that story. We want to do it only once, and you are the right audience. We really do feel a close identification with you. To be sure, we do not know each of you personally, but we have felt the warmth of your spirit and your sustaining influence and interest as we have taken on our new responsibilities.

Rex: We recognize we are not the only ones who have suffered adversity. Many of you, though much younger, have already endured trials at least as great, and in some cases greater, than the one we went through two years ago. But there are lessons we can learn from adversity, and we can all learn by sharing these lessons with each other.

Janet: The spring of 1987 was probably the happiest and certainly the most prosperous time of our marriage. We had moved back to Provo from Washington, D.C. Rex loved his work, both teaching at the law school and arguing Supreme Court cases. My life was easier and more pleasant than it had been in years. All seven of our children were doing well and living in Provo. We had our daughter's wedding in April and were looking forward to our son's marriage in June.

Rex: On May 18 I wrote in my journal, "Life is interesting, enjoyable, and busy. I cannot imagine any combination of activities and circumstances that could make me as happy right now as I am with the combination I have. I love living in Provo, being a bishop, being on the BYU law faculty, being a Sidley & Austin partner who does mostly Supreme Court work, and married to Janet with whom I have seven wonderful children. This isn't just a Pollyanna statement. Life could not be better."

Janet: My journal entry at about the same time was: "Washington was wonderful, but it's great to be back in Provo. Our lives have never been busier, but also never happier. A day never goes by without realizing how very blessed we are. Life is as close to perfection as it can get in this life. It makes me uneasy. I feel there must be a challenge ahead. I know the cycle well. Each time our lives become too easy, it is time to grow again."

Rex: And then came the rapid-fire events of the morning of Monday, June 22. For several weeks I'd had a pain in my back, which over the weekend had become unbearable. My friend, jogging partner, and personal physician, Lyman Moody, wanted to run some tests at the hospital, which had to be done very early in the morning because by 10 a.m. we had to leave for our son's wedding reception in Boise. An X ray was followed by a CAT scan, and as I came out of that, I heard Lyman say to another doctor over the phone: "Then they are definitely destructive lesions."

Destructive lesions? I'd never heard that phrase before, but my friend confirmed my worst suspicions: I had cancer.

Janet: I was just hanging up the telephone when Rex opened the door, calling my name. "Do you know?" he asked. Holding back tears, I whispered yes. Although his pain was severe, Rex spent the next several hours writing a legal brief and making financial calculations for the survival of his young family without him while I drove silently to Boise in my own world of pain. Both of us thought we were spending our last summer together.

In my journal, I described the rest of that week--after we returned from Boise--as follows: "The past several days have been a blur--tests and more tests, each confirming the diagnosis: Cancer! Lymphoma! T-cell immunoblastic lymphoma, in the final stage! All such ugly, terrible, ruthless words. I wish we could run away, but where can we run? There is no way to run away from truth--from the awful facts. In a few short days, my beautiful, wonderful life has been shattered, and I am terrified!"

It was also during that week that we made the very difficult decision about where to take the treatments. Thanks to some unsolicited efforts by one of Rex's law partners, we found that he was entitled to full, all-expense-paid treatment at one of the nation's premier cancer treatment centers' the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. It was not an easy decision. We had the highest confidence in our local doctors, and it would have been easier to stay here in our own home with our own family. But Washington was also our home--we had moved from there only ten months earlier.

The irony was that though I had spent seven years in government service, it was not that service that entitled me to free treatment at NIH, but rather the fact that I had one of the kinds of cancer that NIH was studying at the time. So, it's not whom you know but what kind of cancer you have.

For exactly four months, July through October 1987, my twenty-four-hour-a-day home was the NIH hospital, where I underwent the most intense dosages of chemotherapy and radiation that in the opinion of my doctors my body could absorb and still survive. My principal physician, Dr. Richard Rosenberg, told me that what they were doing was bringing my body just as close to death as they could without pushing me over the line. And then they hoped I would be able to make it back.

In short, those were not recreational drugs they were giving me, and I've never been so sick or so debilitated in my whole life. But even in those four months some things happened that were among the most memorable and most pleasing of our lives.

Janet: Among them was the realization of what dear friends we have, how much they mean to us, and how much they truly care for us. For example, special fasts were held in the wards of some of our college friends, many of whom resided thousands of miles away. The entire stake where Rex grew up in Arizona had a daylong fast, as did our home stake in Provo. Our ward had several. The mother of a longtime colleague at the Department of Justice persuaded her Protestant congregation to do the same. Rex's mother, brothers, aunts, uncles, countless cousins, and our own children submitted to blood tests in an effort to find a possible donor for a bone marrow transplant. Rex wanted very much to remain a bishop; this was made possible because of extra-mile efforts by his two counselors. Both our stake president and Rex's father gave him blessings, assuring him without qualification that his time had not come, that the Lord had other things for him to do in this life.

Our Utah and Virginia friends helped with our children, giving untold hours of loving service. Hundreds of cards and letters were sent, wishing us well and expressing love and cheer. The sisters in our Provo ward made a beautiful quilt bearing the names of all the families in our ward. It is displayed in our home and will always be cherished for its excellence in workmanship and its symbol of love.

Several very helpful insights were contained in letters we received. My sister Lois encouraged me to find beauty in the storm. She reminded me of a time as children when we feared the dark clouds, explosive thunder, and rain slamming against our windows. As the storm passed, however, a contrasting cleansing calm settled and the sun shown again, now clearer and brighter than before. The next time the storm clouds gathered, we were not afraid. "Remember, dear sister," she said, "the storm exposes some surprise jewels of insight and compassion for others as well as individualized lessons borne of sacrifice rendered all the dearer. Find beauty in your storm." That metaphor seemed to summarize our whole experience and helped me find something beautiful within my darkest days.

Our good friend Larry Wimmer, who had recently gone through a similar experience with his wife Louise, sent us a piece he had written entitled "When Someone You Love Has Cancer." This thought from his essay seemed especially pertinent: "Commonly, it is believed that there are winners and losers in the battle against cancer. Louise eventually died of her disease, but she did not lose. In life and in death, Louise was a winner who taught us how to live, how to suffer if that be our lot, and eventually how to die."

But the most focused and the most heartwarming of all the efforts came from our immediate family. Remember that while we were in Bethesda, the children were in Provo, and four were still living at home. The three married couples helped with the younger ones. When school started, our youngest came back to live with me, and one of our newly married couples moved into our home, taking over everything from laundry to parent-teacher conferences while carrying full schedules at BYU. Each child did his or her part as they pulled together to make life work.

Rex: One day in August, our home teacher in Provo called and asked how long we would be in Bethesda. I told him it certainly would be several months and might be as long as Christmas. He said something to the effect that that was too long to be without our children. The next thing we knew he had arranged to fly all seven of them back to see us. His plane and pilot waited in Washington for several days while the children visited with us. For those of you who are trying to think of something nice to do for your home teaching families, you might keep that one in mind.

Janet: One of the most touching personal incidents involved one of the nurses, Juildene Ford. Probably the most serious continuous threat was infection because the chemotherapy almost destroyed Rex's immune system, which was already dangerously low long before he had cancer. I called the hospital once in the early morning hours when I knew he had been running a fever that the antibiotics had not been able to control. Ms. Ford responded: "He's going to be okay now. Let me tell you what happened. During the night when his fever continued to climb, I went into the nurse's station and prayed, 'Lord, this is a good man. Let him live.' After only about twenty minutes I went back in his room to take his vital signs. His fever had begun its decline, and now it is almost normal." I could barely pronounce a choked-up thank you. I hung up the phone and cried with relief.

Rex: I have often wondered if Ms. Ford--for whom I developed a great fondness--saved my life that night. Probably no more so than the hundreds of others in LDS or other congregations across the country who were praying for me. But my doctors--who may or may not have had any religious convictions--were as convinced as I am that those kinds of things really do make a difference. Their explanation was different from the one you or I would have given, but the result was the same.

Janet: There was one particularly pointed illustration of that fact. In November, after Rex had left the hospital but was still spending most of each day there as an outpatient, one of the greatest concerns was his extremely low platelet count, which endured for weeks. One Sunday Rex asked permission to go to church, a luxury he had not experienced for months. Dr. Rosenberg granted permission on the condition that he have a blood test first and then call from the chapel two hours later when the results were in to determine if he would have to return to the hospital for a platelet transfusion. Rex made the call and learned that his platelet count had more than tripled. The next Sunday when Rex was given permission to leave for a while and asked for instructions, Dr. Rosenberg said, "I have only one: Go to church."

Rex: We learned so many things during those months and also during the more than two years that have intervened. You probably won't want to consider cancer, chemotherapy, and radiation as a kind of academic steroid. But in my case, at least, they enhanced my capacity to gain knowledge. In the time remaining, we would like to tell you of just three of the many things we learned.

First, one of the enduring questions coming out of this experience has been, and continues to be, why me? Actually, included within that simple little two-word question are two subparts. The first is, Why was I the one who got cancer? That one, interestingly enough, was never one I asked myself. But many of my friends did ask it, some of them with a tinge of resentment, and some with more than just a tinge. The second subpart of the "why me" question is, Why did I survive, when others, every bit as worthy, every bit as needed by their families, and for whom just as many family and friends prayed just as fervently, are not alive today? That second question is the one that I asked.

Janet: With regard to the first question, Why did Rex get cancer, we found our friends' comments were based on two quite opposite premises. The first, and probably the more common, was that bad things--or at least really terrible things like cancer--just shouldn't happen to good people. That is a notion that has very ancient roots.

Rex: Consider Job. His friends had basically the same notion as our friends had, except they were more blunt and less charitable in the way they expressed it. In their view, his terrible illnesses were a manifestation of his wickedness. Some of our friends were more charitable toward me, but the premise was the same. Similarly, the Savior was asked, concerning a blind man, "Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:2).

I received a card from a longtime friend at the Justice Department with whom I have carried on a longstanding and good-natured banter about the net value of my Mormon lifestyle. His card contained a six-word variation on this basic theme that some have held from Job's day to ours. His card said, "Well, so much for clean living."

Janet: The other assumption, made by another group of friends, was quite the opposite from the first. In their view, Rex's cancer was due to his righteousness, rather than the lack thereof. He was being tested because he was so valiant.

Rex: It reminded me of Elder Dallin Oaks' story about the man who was being ridden out of town on a rail and commented that if it weren't for the honor of the thing, he would just as soon walk.

For me, the answer to the first aspect of this "why me" question seems fairly clear. I got cancer not because I was particularly wicked or because I was particularly righteous. The Savior himself made that clear in his answer to the question about the blind man. The Savior explained, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him" (John 9:3). We believe that what this and other scriptures teach is that the plan under which we are here necessarily assumes that we are on our own as to many matters, and one of those is susceptibility to serious illness or other disasters. If our Heavenly Father intervened to spare the really good ones from those kinds of experiences, much of the effect of this life's developmental and testing process would be blunted. If it were readily and objectively determinable that living a certain kind of life--either good or evil--in effect immunized a person from many of life's crises, it would be much easier to persuade people to live such a life. As it is, the case must be made exclusively on the merits of living a good life.

What about the second question, not the one my friends asked but the one that I asked myself: Why didn't I die two years ago? Here again, my friends--this time by the trainload--have been willing to supply the answer. My life was preserved, they say, because there were important things for me to do here, specifically, to fill the position that entitles me to be speaking before you on this occasion. I think in her heart that is what Janet believes.

I respect that view. I acknowledge that it may be correct. I am reluctant to announce unequivocally that it is, however, for three reasons. First, it seems inappropriate and immodest for me to take that view. Second, every argument--and I mean every argument, including the one that the Lord needed a BYU president to succeed Jeff Holland--that could be made as to why I ought to be left on this earth can also be made for my friend Terry Crapo, whose cancer took his life almost eight years ago. And finally, the only thing that is really certain is that we just don't know why some people recover from serious illness while others, with the same illness, the same worthiness, and the same faith and prayers, do not. Both the scriptures and my own personal experiences and observations make it very clear that formal, extraordinary efforts (principally fasting and prayer) to invoke divine intervention on behalf of loved ones are proper, should be undertaken, and frequently bear fruit. But for the same reasons already explained in connection with why some of us acquire these afflictions in the first place, we cannot be assured this will always be the case. Otherwise, two of the fundamental premises of this existence--the need for independent earthly experiences and the need to be tested--would be frustrated.

What I do know is that I am alive, able to live outside a hospital, away from an I.V. pole, to work in a job that I love, to jog, and to live with a family that I love and particularly with a wife who during less happy times gave me a new insight into what love really means. Far more important than knowing why this recovery happened is taking full advantage of the fact that it has, in fulfillment of the most fervent prayers that I have ever offered.

Janet: Through all of this, I learned how to really pray. Now, like most of you I had been praying since I was two or three and through the years had learned the fundamentals of expressing gratitude for blessings received as well as asking for what was needed. There had been times when I not only prayed with real intent but had listened carefully for answers that gave new direction to my life or helped me know I was on the right path. Now, for some reason, faced with a frightening ordeal, I forgot much of what I had learned and became a child again. During those first few days, as I look back now, I must have sounded like a two-year-old, demanding and insisting that I have my way. "Please, Heavenly Father," I would beg over and over, "make him well." I had to pray. I knew nothing else to do. No one on this earth could help me. But such a prayer did not offer the healing balm that I needed for my wounded spirit. Prayer had always brought relief, but there was no peace for my soul.

Soon, without realizing it, my prayers took on another focus. I began to instruct, reason, even bargain with the Lord. "Surely," I would plead, "there are things on this earth for him to do. He is still useful here. Send him anywhere, ask him to do anything, and I will be at his side helping him. Take away everything we own, but please leave him here. Canst thou see how much I need him, how much I love him? Please let him live." Again peace did not come.

Then one day, after I had been fasting, I went into a wooded area across from the hospital. I knew many others had been fasting, too, and I felt strengthened as I found a quiet place to pray. I don't know why, but for the first time since Rex's diagnosis my prayer was significantly different. "If it be thy will," I began, "let Rex recover from his cancer. Thou knowest the desires of my heart, but I recognize that I do not understand all things. Please strengthen me to meet the challenges ahead, and calm my troubled heart." Finally, peace came.

This same type of prayer became my greatest source of strength during the ensuing months. Sometimes I would awaken in the night frightened and alone, in need of help. Although Rex had been told in blessings that his time had not come, reality seemed to indicate otherwise. It was at these times--when I could not shut out the doctors' diagnosis--that I would fall on my knees in prayer, asking for the strength and peace that would always follow. I realized more fully than ever before that changing the circumstances is not always an option, but being given the strength to deal with what we are facing is the greatest blessing of all.

Scriptures I had known and loved for years took on new meaning. Certain passages seemed to be speaking directly to me and would be recalled when I needed them. "Be of good cheer," I would remember from the Doctrine and Covenants, "for I am in your midst, and I have not forsaken you" (D&C 61:36).

I used to think that faith in God came in the form of feeling certain that life would be as I wanted it to be. I have grown to understand that to have ultimate faith in God is to know he is with us and will give us unfailing strength to help us through life's challenges. My greatest strength came not in knowing for a surety that Rex's cancer would be cured forever but in putting aside anxious thoughts as my faith in God matured.

Rex: The final thing we learned that we want to talk about today is something that each of us may describe in different words, but I will call it the real meaning of love. Like many of you, Janet and I first fell in love when we were students at BYU. Over the years, our love matured. But my most profound insight into the meaning of love developed two years ago in the 3-B-South wing of the NIH hospital.

I have concluded that we achieve the ultimate in love for someone else when that other person's welfare, happiness, and sometimes even survival are in every respect just as important to us as our own. The Savior told us that the greatest commandments are to love our Heavenly Father and to love other people as ourselves. He was the only person who ever attained that measure of love for all people, and that is why he was willing to do what he did for us. For most of us, we certainly care for other people, and the level of our concern and affection varies from person to person. But how many people do you know for whom you can literally say that you care just as much about them as you do about yourself--that their welfare and happiness are truly as important as your own? In the summer and fall of 1987 it became very apparent to me that I am the recipient of the fullest possible measure of love from at least one person.

Those of you who have spent any time in a hospital know how much fun it is. During those four months, July through October, I had no choice. I had to stay there. But day after day, Janet was there also, not just part of the time, not just in the morning or the afternoon, but all day. I would tell her, "Look, I can't leave this place. But you can. I'll be fine without you for a morning, an afternoon, or even a day. Get out of here and preserve your own sanity. Go see your friends. Go sightseeing. Go to the park. Go anywhere. Certainly I would if I could." And friends would call, inviting her to go places. She usually found ways to turn them down. Occasionally she went, at their insistence and mine. When she got back, she would invariably tell me she had felt uncomfortable all the time she was away.

At first I thought that was positively weird. And then I began to realize: This was no put-on. She wasn't just trying to make me feel good. As astounding as it was to me, Janet really preferred to be there in that miserable hospital with me. My life, and every aspect of my welfare and happiness, were just as important to her as they were to me. And that, my friends, is love. It is also a part of our experience that I will never forget.

Janet: Watching someone suffer, and helping in the care of a possibly terminally ill loved one, had been one of my greatest fears. How could I ever give care and love under those circumstances and not fall apart emotionally? I had read books and articles about strong people who became stronger through a family crisis, but I didn't want to become strengthened in that way. To me, it seemed far less distasteful to fight severe illness myself than to suffer through it with someone I love.

When faced with the threat of losing my husband and the demands of his care, I was surprised to discover by-products of my trauma that gave me strength. Instead of being repelled by the effects of chemotherapy, my love for him intensified. As I applied cool towels to Rex's fevered brow or rubbed his legs and feet, a new dimension to our love appeared. He had helped me through seven pregnancies and births. Now I was getting a chance to care for him.

Rex: It wasn't the same. I performed for a few hours at a time. She was there for months. There was also a qualitative difference. She learned enough about my kind of cancer that she actually became something of a collaborator with the doctors.

Janet: My love for him increased each day as I administered to his needs. Now please don't think that what I did was entirely unselfish. While serving him I felt my greatest peace. I was in torment when I left his room. Nights were agony for me. My only joy during those months came in making him happy, comfortable, or in helping him with his work.

When his cancer was first diagnosed I had envisioned sitting by his bed, holding his hand, and gazing into his eyes while we told each other how in love we were (like in the movies). This lasted for about forty-eight hours. It then appeared there were other needs--especially for him. Even confined to a hospital bed, he needed to feel that he was an important part of ongoing life. He needed to work, to be productive.

Rex: She's wrong. The fact is, I was essential to the cause of right, truth, and justice in America's courtrooms.

Janet: I was horrified when he first suggested that we set up an office in his room. I thought working would be too difficult for him and the most romantic words he would speak to me would be, "Will you please read from pages two through five of this legal brief." But as I sat on the foot of his bed facing him, reading what he was too sick to read for himself, I felt a powerful outpouring of love and admiration for him. Sometimes he would close his eyes and I would think he was asleep, only to hear him interrupt to make a pertinent comment. This went on for months, with days when he could work only a few minutes, and days when he could barely hold up his head to take a bite or two of distasteful, often rejected, but much needed nourishment.

I was fearful that working would take a negative toll on Rex, yet this hospital office served him well. It was there he prepared for a Supreme Court case argued early in October. On the day of the argument, we literally unhooked his I.V.s, got him out of bed, dressed him, and took him to the Supreme Court. A nurse went with us carrying a bag full of medicine to meet any emergency. The Supreme Court clerk's office had a stool for him, in case he couldn't stand for the full half hour. He didn't use it. We were all frightened, but I sincerely believe that this was one of many experiences that helped to save his life. He was a vital, needed part of society.

There were painful tests, treatments, X rays, CAT scans, ever-present nausea, and those endless I.V.s and transfusions. Rarely did he ever lose his sense of humor or curiosity about his disease and treatment. He joked with the doctors and nurses even during the most grueling procedures. Before his illness when I had read about others in my circumstance, I often thought that given their situations I would want to leave or run away. My comfort came in being there, in comforting my husband, talking to the doctors and nurses, being informed, and helping make decisions about his care. To watch his strength, humor, and indomitable spirit in the face of all he was going through made me love and admire him in a way that was never before possible.

I realized that his failing body was only the temporal part of him as I grew to know his spirit more intimately. He was completely bald, his face was swollen from medication, and he had lost over twenty-five pounds. He looked like an old man in his feeble attempts to walk. His shoulders slumped, and he shuffled his feet as he slowly pushed his I.V. pole trying to get in a few minutes of daily exercise. Was this the same handsome husband who only weeks before had run with me and joked when I asked how it would feel if one of us would someday not be able to join the team? "Oh, I'll describe the run to you when I get back," was his quick reply. We laughed like children in the warm spring sunshine, unaware of what was ahead. I loved him with all my heart. He was strong and healthy and still young after twenty-eight years of marriage. How could I ever love him more? That was the last time we ran together before he was hospitalized, and as I sat by the bedside of someone who barely resembled my husband, I knew that I loved him more completely than I had ever loved before.

I also gained a deeper understanding of our Heavenly Father and his love for us. How could I have ever missed this part of our lives together? I would not have chosen this way to learn the lessons I was learning, but I was there and I had to take a crash course in many things. The alternative to learning was to fail the most important test I had ever been given.

Rex: She's right. It was a test. And it may not yet be finished. As students, you know about tests. You take a lot of them. Whether they occur in the classroom or some other place, tests will always be experiences from which we should learn. We learned some things from this test of ours. We learned about love, about prayer, about each other, and about ourselves. We don't seek life's storms, but they will come. And we can find beauty in them. That our Heavenly Father will help us to understand and appreciate not only tests but also life itself, of which tests are an important part, is our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Learning from our Trials

I read the Ensign "Reader's Digest" version of this talk today at lunch and quite liked it.  I haven't reviewed the entire talk, but figured that I'd put it here rather than the edited form.  I am reminded of two instances in reading this.  The first was a gospel doctrine class where we were discussing depression.  A good brother, who has since become a very close friend, commented that depression comes as the result of sin.  I almost just accepted the comment and moved on, but the Spirit told me that I needed to consider my wife's situation.  I responded that yes, sin does bring depression, but sometimes it just comes as an adversity.  Brother Richman's talk mentions a continuum from sin to adversity that may be the source of our trials. I think it fits.

The second involved a time right at the end of law school.  In a priesthood lesson that was from D&C 121-123, we were discussing the Lord's instruction to Joseph that his trials would give him experience and be for his good.  At the time I was 3 weeks from graduation, didn't have a job, and was going to be kicked out of my apartment.  When the instructor asked how knowing that our trials will be for our learning and good is a comfort, I felt compelled to comment that I didn't want to know that;  in the middle of the trial, I wanted a job--I wanted OUT OF THE TRIAL.  Bless his heart, he didn't falter and simply bore testimony to me that the Lord's word was sure and he would bless me.  The following day I received a job offer.  Amazing.

Learning through Life's Trials

Larry Richman

Brigham Young University–Idaho Devotional

October 30, 2007

The gospel teaches that all men and women on this earth are spirit children of a loving God, and as such, each of us has a divine nature and destiny.1 Before we came to this earth, we knew and worshipped God as our Eternal Father. We used our agency to accept His plan whereby we could obtain a physical body, gain earthly experience, and qualify to return to His presence and enjoy eternal life. In fact, we “shouted for joy” at the chance to receive a body and experience mortality.2 This plan of salvation is also called the “plan of happiness.”3

Now we are here on earth, and there is a lot of joy, but there are also times of trial, misfortune, and grief. We experience the heartache over the unexpected death of a loved one. Some couples cannot bear children. Others never marry in this life. Some devote their lives to care for a loved one who can’t care for himself. Others suffer intense feelings of inadequacy or rejection, or dark times of depression. Some find themselves married to a spouse who fails to keep the commandments. Some endure painful illnesses. When mortality offers times of grief, stress, worry, confusion, and discouragement, we must remember that these experiences are part of the great plan of happiness and will ultimately lead to joy. This life is a “probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God.”4 It was meant that we experience opposition in all things—to learn the difference between righteousness and wickedness, good and bad, life and death, and happiness and misery.5 To receive a fullness of joy—and “men are, that they might have joy” 6—we must experience and successfully respond to the trials of this life.

It is important to recognize that living a righteous life does not guarantee that bad things will never happen to us. A common misperception among members of the Church is that if we strive with all our might to live the commandments, nothing bad will happen to us. We may believe if we are married in the temple our marriage will automatically be heaven on earth, or if we live the Word of Wisdom we will never get sick. But the truth is that bad things may happen to the best of people. The consequences of good and bad actions will come, but all of the consequences do not always come immediately, and they may not even come in this life.

Today we’ll discuss the origins and purposes of adversity and review suggestions on how to patiently trust in the Lord and His eternal plan and how to use these trials to learn and grow stronger.

The Origins of Adversity

Some of life’s trials come as a result of sin, others because of unwise choices, and others simply because we are mortals living in a fallen world.

Adversity Because of Sin

Suffering that comes as a result of our sins or the sins of others is man-made. A husband who chooses to rule his family through intimidation or physical abuse causes suffering and heartache. An individual who chooses to disobey the Word of Wisdom may find himself ensnared in the bondage of addiction. When people use their agency to disregard the commandments of God, they follow Satan’s plan of misery rather than God’s plan of happiness. If people would embrace and live God’s plan of happiness, there would be peace and joy in the world. Much of the suffering we know today would be eliminated if people just lived the gospel of Jesus Christ.7

Adversity Because of Unwise Choices

Other problems in life are the result of poor decisions and unwise choices by us or other people. For example, many people struggle with the burden of financial debt because they choose to make purchases on credit rather than use self-discipline to delay purchases until they can afford to pay for them in cash. Some students fail classes and later have trouble finding employment because they chose to waste time playing video games.

Adversity Because We Are Mortals Living in a Fallen World

Some problems we face in life are a natural result of mortality and the world we live in. We are mortals with bodies that will age and that can become ill or injured. Our mortality is an important part of God’s plan of salvation. God created natural laws and put His plan in motion. Although he can control the elements and thus prevent earthquakes and other natural disasters, for the most part He allows nature to run its course.8

Degree of Fault for Problems in Life

So how do we know when a difficulty is our fault or not? Often, we judge ourselves harshly, concluding that problems occur because of something we did wrong or because we failed to do something to prevent them.

 

As we consider the degree of our personal fault for the trials in our lives, it may be helpful to think of a continuum with sin at one end and adversity at the other.

Our degree of fault is high at the end of the spectrum marked as sin. We should accept full responsibility for these problems we cause. We should repent of these and continually strive to do better. However, as we continue down the spectrum, our fault drops to zero at the end marked by “adversity,” where we may bear no responsibility at all. These are trials that may come to us, as they did to Job in the Old Testament, regardless of any conscious action on our part.9 If we blame ourselves for things that are not our fault, we make a bad situation worse by seeing ourselves as bad people who deserve bad things. At times it may be difficult to judge our level of responsibility for problems that fall between these two ends of the spectrum. In these cases, it may be unproductive to spend much effort on establishing blame and searching for answers because it may cause us to lose focus on the very reason for the trial.

The Atonement Heals All Suffering

In the face of misfortune, we can take comfort in knowing that Christ’s Atonement can heal all suffering. We often speak of the Atonement in terms of relief from sin and guilt. But the Atonement is more. Alma taught that Christ would “go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”10

           

Regardless of the source of suffering, the Atonement can heal the effects of all pain and affliction in mortality.11 When suffering is our fault, we can be cleansed through repentance, and “after all we can do,” the Atonement can compensate for the consequences of our sins. It can also compensate for the harmful effects of our ignorance or neglect, the pain caused by the willful actions of others, and the suffering that comes as a result of living in a natural world.

 

Elder Dallin H. Oaks taught, “If your faith and prayers and the power of the priesthood do not heal you from an affliction, the power of the Atonement will surely give you the strength to bear the burden.”12

The Purposes of Adversity

Life Is for Refinement

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the plan whereby we can become what our Heavenly Father wants us to become. Elder Oaks explained:  “The Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts—what we have done. It is an acknowledgment of the final effect of our acts and thoughts—what we have become. It is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions.”13

 

It wasn’t until well into my adulthood that I finally realized that life was about more than accumulating points for good deeds. What really matters is what those good actions do to build our character—what they help us to become. Take, for example, the parable in Matthew, chapter 20, of the laborers in the vineyard. The master of the vineyard hired laborers at different times of the day. Some worked all day and others only an hour, yet he paid them all the same wage. You will recall that some of the workers murmured at the seeming unfairness of their relative wages. One lesson we can learn from this parable is that we will not earn our eternal reward by a heavenly accounting of the number of hours worked. What will matter is whether our efforts have caused us to become something better. We may be able to refine some aspects of our lives in a few hours work, while other characteristics may take days, years, or our entire lives. God allows each of us to experience the challenges, the suffering, and the trials we need to grow and finally become all that we can be.

Adversity Builds Strength and Character

Elder Orson F. Whitney explained:  “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.”14

 

Spiritual growth and strong character can often be achieved more readily by trials and adversity than by comfort and tranquility. Trials can teach us that faith in our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, is the source of inner strength. One of the survivors of the ill-fated Martin handcart company said:  “We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? Not one of that company ever apostatized or left the church, because everyone of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities.”15

 

Trials give us opportunities to show the Lord and ourselves that we will be faithful. President Henry B. Eyring reminds us that “the test a loving God has set before us is not to see if we can endure difficulty. It is to see if we can endure it well.”16 How well you endure trials is up to you. You can feel sorry for yourself and ask, “Why me?” or you can grow from your trials, increase your faith in the Lord, and ask, “How can I be faithful in the midst of this trial?”

Responding to Trials

Whether your trials are small or significant, it is important to respond to them well. You can let adversity break you down and make you bitter or you can let it refine you and make you stronger. The result is up to you. You can allow the adversity to lead you to drift away from the things that matter most, or you can use it as a stepping stone to grow closer to things of eternal worth.

 

Since adversity will come to us all, consider the following ideas to help you face your trials and benefit from them.

Through Your Trials, Develop a Relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ

My first suggestion is to develop a relationship with your Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as you experience your trials in life. Elder Richard G. Scott explains that God loves you perfectly and “would not require you to experience a moment more of difficulty than is absolutely needed for your personal benefit or for that of those you love.”17

 

President Harold B. Lee once remarked:  “Don’t be afraid of the testing and trials of life. Sometimes when you are going through the most severe tests, you will be nearer to God than you have any idea, for like the experience of the Master himself in the temptation on the mount, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and on the cross at Calvary, the scriptures record, ‘And, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.’ (Matt. 4:11.) Sometimes that may happen to you in the midst of your trials.”18

 

You can face adversity more easily when you understand who you are, who your Father is, who your Savior is, and the relationship you have with Them. One of the purposes of trials is to help you come to know Christ, understand His teachings in your mind, feel them in your heart, and live them in your life. It is through our struggles that we come to know and appreciate Him.

Let Others Help You

My second suggestion is to let others help you. President Spencer W. Kimball taught,  “God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs.”19 Allow other people to be instruments in the Lord's hands to help you through the challenges in life.

 

President Ezra Taft Benson taught that heavenly hosts are also pulling for us. He called them “friends in heaven that we cannot now remember who yearn for our victory.”20 A survivor of the Martin handcart company recounted his experience, saying:  “I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it. . . . I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.”21

Let God Carry Your Burdens

Another suggestion is to remember to let God carry your burdens. When I face trials in life, I often find myself trying to carry the entire load on my shoulders. Then I remember the Savior’s invitation, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”22

 

In some cases, He removes our burdens; in other cases, He strengthens us to endure them. When Alma and his people were under the oppression of the Lamanites, they cried “mightily to God” for deliverance. The Lord did not remove their persecution, but promised to help them carry the burden.  “And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I . . . will . . . ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs. . . . And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.”23

           

God can ease your burdens and make them light. When you turn to God, you will not only find the comfort you seek, but in so doing you will gain an increased testimony of the reality of the Savior and His Atonement. This may be one of the higher purposes of adversity in our life—to build our faith and help us come unto Christ.

Trust That the Lord Is in Control

My fourth suggestion is to trust that the Lord is in control and allow His will to be done. He lets us have hard days, months, or lives because those are the experiences we need to grow. I believe that the specific challenges I have faced in my life were the specific ways I had to learn the lessons I needed to learn. I believe I am the man I am today because of the trials I’ve experienced, not in spite of them.

 

A year ago, a man in our ward was diagnosed with cancer. By the time the cancer was detected, the tumor had grown around the bone and nerves in a way that made it inoperable. Randy was given 10 months to live. He began chemotherapy treatments, and his family and the ward began fasting and praying for him and others in the ward with serious health problems. At nine months, on Randy’s last visit to his doctor, the doctor sat at the desk and shook his head. Nine months before, Randy was given no chance of survival; that day, the tests showed no signs of a tumor.

 

God answers prayers and performs miracles today. But why did God perform a miracle by sparing Randy’s life when another man in our ward died from cancer just a few weeks later? The other man’s family and the ward prayed and fasted for him as well. In both cases, there were lessons to be learned—for the individuals involved, for their families, and for the ward. Faith was tested, people became stronger, and a ward grew closer together.

 

As we pray for the Lord to remove our burdens, we should also pray that His will be done and that we be granted the strength we need to endure our trials with patience and faith. As we do, the Lord will grant us the peace and comfort we seek.

 

Elder Richard G. Scott explained:  “The Lord is intent on your personal growth and development. That progress is accelerated when you willingly allow Him to lead you through every growth experience you encounter, whether initially it be to your individual liking or not. When you trust in the Lord, when you are willing to let your heart and your mind be centered in His will, when you ask to be led by the Spirit to do His will, you are assured of the greatest happiness along the way and the most fulfilling attainment from this mortal experience. If you question everything you are asked to do, or dig in your heels at every unpleasant challenge, you make it harder for the Lord to bless you.”24

Remember That Everyone Has Challenges

My next suggestion is to recognize that everyone has challenges. When we consider the trials that other people have, ours may not seem so difficult. I once met a man who was just a few months old when he lost sight in both eyes. He could have let his disability ruin his life, but instead he empowered his hearing and became a concert pianist. He developed the ability to re-create on the piano the music he hears. Since he can’t read the scriptures, he could have become spiritually dormant. But instead, he developed a spiritual sensitivity by listening daily to recordings of the scriptures.

           

A colleague of mine has a disabled child who needs total care. Even now that she is an adult, they must lift her out of bed, feed her, and change her diapers. She requires physical therapy and daily medication. As my friend goes about his daily work, I seldom think about the extra emotional energy he gives at home to care for his daughter’s needs. He is sometimes fatigued by the late nights and the financial pressures but somehow finds the strength to go on. When I talk with parents of disabled children, they explain that their experiences increase their capacity to love, and they are blessed in many ways. They often seem to be the ones who develop strong character traits of sensitivity and endurance that perhaps they would not have been able to develop without these experiences.           

Let Adversity Make You Better

My sixth suggestion is to take advantage of adversity by letting it make you a better person. Trials effect people in different ways. Some people see them as challenges to overcome; others see them as excuses to fail. Although we cannot control all the forces that cause adversity, we can control what adversity does to us. We can let trials make us bitter and jealous, or we can use them to become sensitive and compassionate.

 

A woman in my stake fought a battle with cancer. Although she endured pains and heartache that few people understood, she remained cheerful and optimistic. She lost her hair and, after spinal surgery, wore a metal brace to immobilize her head. As embarrassed as she must have felt by her appearance, she came to church meetings and smiled and tried to cheer up everyone else.25 She wrote her own obituary, which, in part, reads: “Today at the young age of 33 I left this mortal existence to a holier sphere. I was born . . . to wonderful parents . . . who taught me to live life well. . . . We have three sweet children who I will miss greatly. At the young age of 29, I was introduced to something called cancer. Cancer was my great adversary but I have learned that in this life our enemies can become our choicest friends; the secret is in learning what to do with the conflict.”

 

To find strength in challenges, draw closer to God, even if conditions don’t appear to be resolved as you would want. Elder Dallin H. Oaks taught:  “Healing blessings come in many ways, each suited to our individual needs, as known to Him who loves us best. Sometimes a ‘healing’ cures our illness or lifts our burden. But sometimes we are ‘healed’ by being given strength or understanding or patience to bear the burdens placed upon us.”26

 

In the face of trials, take comfort in these words of the Lord: “My grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”27 What an amazing blessing! The very things we thought were weaknesses can become our strengths! Take the trials you have and use them to your advantage. Remember, we become great people because of our trials, not in spite of them.

Live with Integrity

Another important concept is to live with integrity in the midst of your trials. When faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges, you may be tempted to take the easy way out. For example, the world teaches that people who experience same-gender attractions are born that way and have no other option. The gospel teaches differently. However, in the face of such a difficult and often confusing challenge, people may find it easier to accept the world’s view. Satan whispers to people that they can’t control their behavior or that they shouldn’t have to deprive themselves of same-gender sexual relationships. If you have a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel and if you are converted to Christ, your only option is to live your life with integrity to the principles you know to be true.

 

Cody has felt same-gender attractions ever since he was a young boy. He knows he is a son of God. He knows that the commandments and the blessings of the gospel are as real and relevant to him as to anyone else. He has gained some understanding of his feelings. He has also talked with others who have grown past their same-gender attractions and hardly ever feel them anymore. But for whatever reason, Cody’s feelings are still intense. Nevertheless, he is committed to living a chaste life, even if he never gets to the point in this life that he can marry. He knows that if he lives faithfully, all the blessings of the gospel will be his, either in this life or in the next. I admire Cody for his integrity in the face of an immense inner struggle. Cody and others like him are great examples of standing up courageously to the trials in their lives.

 

Yielding to adversity makes us weaker. Keeping the commandments—no matter how trying—makes us stronger and helps us overcome every challenge in life. Through faith and obedience, we qualify for the divine spiritual guidance we need to guide us along unknown roads.

 

President Henry B. Eyring reminds us:  “We need strength beyond ourselves to keep the commandments in whatever circumstance life brings to us. . . . The combination of trials and their duration are as varied as are the children of our Heavenly Father. No two are alike. But what is being tested is the same, at all times in our lives and for every person: will we do whatsoever the Lord our God will command us?”28

Be Patient

Another helpful guideline is to be patient. We live in a world of instant gratification. We want fast food, quick loans, instant solutions to our problems, and constant emotional comfort. If we can’t solve a problem in minutes or days, we become frustrated.

 

Elder Robert D. Hales explained the lessons he learned about patience while recovering from three major surgeries.

 

“In the past two years,” he said, “I have waited upon the Lord for mortal lessons to be taught me through periods of physical pain, mental anguish, and pondering. I learned that constant, intense pain is a great consecrating purifier that humbles us and draws us closer to God’s Spirit. . . .

 

There were times when I have asked a few direct questions in my prayers, such as, ‘What lessons dost Thou want me to learn from these experiences?’

 

“On a few occasions, I told the Lord that I had surely learned the lessons to be taught and that it wouldn’t be necessary for me to endure any more suffering. Such entreaties seemed to be of no avail, for it was made clear to me that this purifying process of testing was to be endured in the Lord’s time and in the Lord’s own way. It is one thing to teach, ‘Thy will be done’ (Matt. 26:42). It is another to live it.”29

 

In the midst of your trials, consider that the Lord may ask you to show your faith by enduring patiently. Today, you may not be able to grasp all the reasons for your challenges or the opportunities they will give you to grow. You may have to learn line upon line. As you patiently endure in righteousness, He may reveal to you greater understanding about your trials and the purpose of them in your life.

Serve Others

Another important way we can meet our challenges successfully is to focus on serving others. We heal ourselves of pain when we reach out to help others. Service is the great healer. There is an old Chinese tale of a woman whose only son died. “In her grief, she went to the holy man and said, ‘What prayers, what magical incantations do you have to bring my son back to life?’ Instead of send­ing her away or reasoning with her, he said to her, ‘Fetch me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow. We will use it to drive the sorrow out of your life.’ The woman set off at once in search of that magical mustard seed. She came first to a splendid mansion, knocked at the door, and said, ‘I am looking for a home that has never known sorrow. Is this such a place? It is very important to me.’ They told her, ‘You’ve certainly come to the wrong place,’ and began to describe all the tragic things that had recently befallen them. The woman said to herself, ‘Who is better able to help these poor unfortunate people than I, who have had misfortune of my own?’ She stayed to comfort them, then went on in her search for a home that had never known sorrow. But wherever she turned, in hovels and in palaces, she found one tale after another of sadness and misfortune. Ultimately, she became so involved in ministering to other people’s grief that she forgot about her quest for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that it had in fact driven the sorrow out of her life.”30

Keep an Eternal Perspective

My final suggestion in facing life’s challenges is to keep an eternal perspective. Elder Richard G. Scott taught us to keep a long-term perspective when he said:  “The challenges you face, the growth experiences you encounter, are intended to be temporary scenes played out on the stage of a life of continuing peace and happiness. Sadness, heartache, and disappointment are events in life. It is not intended that they be the substance of life. I do not minimize how hard some of these events can be. When the lesson you are to learn is very important, trials can extend over a long period of time, but they should not be allowed to become the confining focus of everything you do. Your life can and should be wondrously rewarding. It is your understanding and application of the laws of God that will give your life glorious purpose as you ascend and conquer the difficulties of life. That perspective keeps challenges confined to their proper place—stepping-stones to further growth and attainment.”31

 

Some of the personal challenges we experience in this life are conditions of mortality that will not continue into the next life. To the person who was born with mental deficiencies, and to the person who has no reasonable expectation of marriage in this life, and to the person who has not yet been able to overcome same-gender attractions, I counsel you to keep an eternal perspective. Even though the present difficulties may at times seem more than you can bear, an understanding of eternal truths is a powerful motivation for righteous behavior. You are best served by concentrating on the things you can presently understand and control—not wasting energy or enlarging frustration by worrying about that which God has not yet fully revealed. Our present trials do not determine who we really are, but our response to them does influence who we will become.

           

President Brigham Young taught:  “We talk about our trials and troubles here in this life; but suppose that you could see yourselves thousands and millions of years after you have proved faithful to your religion during the few short years in this time, and have obtained eternal salvation and a crown of glory in the presence of God? Then look back upon your lives here, and see the losses, crosses, and disappointments, the sorrows . . . ; you would be constrained to exclaim, ‘but what of all that? Those things were but for a moment, and we are now here. We have been faithful during a few moments in our mortality, and now we enjoy eternal life and glory, with power to progress in all the boundless knowledge and through the countless stages of progression, enjoying the smiles and approbation of our Father and God, and of Jesus Christ our elder brother.’ ”32

Conclusion

If we turn to Christ for strength, we can find comfort in the face of adversity. We can have faith and hope to accept and face it when it comes. We can suffer trials with patience. We can forgive cruelty. We can love those who hate us. We can face death with dignity.

 

I am grateful for the doctrines of the restored gospel. They give us an eternal perspective that provides hope and courage to bear all of life’s trials. Trials can bless our lives if we learn from them and turn weakness into strength. I testify that each of us has the strength to bear each challenge in life because of who we are, who God is, and who we are together. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Copyright © 2007 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

 

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1 See “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Ensign, Nov. 1995, 102.

2 Job 38:7

3 Alma 42:8, 16

4 Alma 12:24

5 See 2 Nephi 2:11.

6 2 Nephi 2:25.

7 See M. Russell Ballard, in Conference Report, April 1995, 30; or Ensign, May 1995, 23.

8 See Ballard, in Conference Report, April 1995, 30.

9 See Bruce C. Hafen, “Beauty for Ashes: The Atonement of Jesus Christ,” Ensign, Apr. 1990, 10.

10 Alma 7:11–12; italics added.

11 See Hafen, Ensign, Apr. 1990, 7-13; see also Dallin H. Oaks, in Conference Report, Oct. 2006, 4–7; or Ensign, Nov 2006, 6–9.

12 In Conference Report, Apr. 2006, 7.

13 In Conference Report, Oct. 2000, 41; or Ensign, Nov 2000, 32.

14 Quoted by Spencer W. Kimball in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98. Also, Brigham Young taught, “Every trial and experience you have passed through is necessary for your salvation” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe, (1954), 345).

15 Quoted by David O. McKay, Relief Society Magazine, January 1948, 8.

16 In Conference Report, Apr. 2004, 15; or Ensign, May 2004, 17.

17 In Conference Report, Oct. 1995, 19; or Ensign, Nov. 1995, 17.

18 In  Conference Report, Munich Germany Area Conference 1973, 114.

19 “Small Acts of Service,” Ensign, Dec 1974, 5.

20 “Jesus Christ—Gifts and Expectations,” Christmas Devotional, Dec. 7, 1986.

21 Relief Society Magazine, Jan. 1948, 8.

22 Matthew 11:28.

23 Mosiah 24:13–15.

24 In Conference Report, Apr. 1996, 33; or Ensign, May 1996, 25.

25 See Joanne D. Smith, “Annette’s Halo,” Ensign, September 1991, 71–73.

26 In Conference Report, Oct. 2006, 5; or Ensign, Nov. 2006, 7–8.

27 Ether 12:27

28 In Conference Report, Apr. 2004, 15–16; or Ensign, May 2004, 17.

29 In Conference Report, Oct. 2000, 3–4; or Ensign, Nov. 2000, 6.

30 Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, (1981), 110–11.

31 In Conference Report, Oct. 2006, 44; or Ensign, Nov. 2006, 41.

32 Brigham Young, in Deseret News, Nov. 9, 1859, 1.