Trials

What can I say? Life is hard. We are given challenges that, if we let them, help us to grow and become more like the person that God intends for us to be. That said, it doesn't make life easier. It's the little things that help me keep going...good friends, family, and most importantly the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When I seek for His guidance and comfort in my life, I find it.

Elder Paul V. Johnson of the Seventy, said in his April General Conference talk, "The only way to see the views is to make the climb."

It's hard to make that climb and some days it's hard to get started, but by consciously making that effort and putting one foot in front of the other, having faith in Christ, we make it. And at the end of each trial we can like the person we are becoming.

In that same talk, he quoted Orson F. Whitney who said, "No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. ... 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. ... It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulations, that we gain the education that we came here to acquire."

I've been going through life without too many trials of my own the last couple of years (and I've been okay with that). It's times like now, though, that I realize as much as trials hurt, they are for my own good. I need to be reminded how much I need my Heavenly Father and through trials I grow closer to Him and feel His love for me. Instead of asking why?, I've been trying to ask what can I learn from this experience? There is always more we can learn and always more we can do.