Adversity

Talks

Quotes

Due to recent budget cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off. 

This too shall pass………..like a kidney stone.

Adversity is mandatory.  Misery is optional.

Just once I would love to receive a blessing that’s not in disguise.

“I’d be happy to deal with my problems one at a time, but they refuse to get in line!” 

Saying “Thy will by done” will not change the Lord’s decisions.  But it will change your attitude toward the results.

Moreover, emphasizing God’s mercy may lead some to believe they are entitled to divine protection against all of life’s natural adversities.  There is already enough theological difficulty for those who believe that their activity in the church should somehow protect them from tragedy and sorrow.  Our understanding of the Atonement is hardly a shield against sorrow; rather, it is a rich source of strength to deal productively with the disappointments and heartbreaks that form the deliberate fabric of mortal life.  The gospel was given us to heal our pain, not to prevent it. – Stephen Robinson

Life has a way of trading us wisdom for pain. – Steven C. Walker

When you fear you are drowning in life’s situations….don’t worry….your Life Guard walks on water.

But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. –     2 Nephi 2:24

In the gospel of Jesus Christ you have help from both sides of the veil, and you must never forget that. When disappointment and discouragement strike–and they will–you remember and never forget that if our eyes could be opened we would see horses and chariots of fire as far as the eye can see riding at reckless speed to come to our protection. (See 2 Kings 6:16-17) They will always be there, these armies of heaven, in defense of Abraham’s seed.  – Katie Hansen’s blog the day she passed away.

During adversity, don’t ask the following questions: Why Me? Why now? What did I do to deserve this?  Ask instead: How can I remember my blessings? What am I to learn from this? How can I effectively cope with this? – Richard G. Scott

You cannot pray away someone else’s free agency.

Too many of us seem to expect that life will flow ever smoothly, featuring an unbroken chain of green lights with empty parking spaces just in front of our destinations. – Neal A. Maxwell(November 1989 Ensign, p. 82)

Adversity, like the mortal life in which it occurs, is temporary.  The only permanent thing is the change of character that occurs as we deal with it effectively.

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, all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our character, 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, trial and tribulation, that we gain the education that we came here to acquire, and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in Heaven. (Orson Whitney as cited in “Faith precedes a Miracle” by Kimball)

How could we develop patience unless we were required to wait for something?  How could we develop faith if we had all the answers?  How could we develop humility if the Lord didn’t chastise us for our pride?  How can we learn endurance if we are not required to endure things?  Adversity leads to the development of Christ like qualities, which lead to Godhood.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh is a noted author and the wife of the famous pilot, Charles Lindbergh.  The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby which finally resulted in the child’s death, once captured the attention and sympathy of the American nation.  In looking back on her life, Mrs. Lindbergh wrote: “I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches.  If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers.  To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable.”  We will all suffer in one way or another, but we need a certain perspective if our suffering is to teach us.”

We were not put on this earth to be entertained.

You’ve probably heard life described as a three-act play, represented by the preexistence, mortal life, and the hereafter.  If you were to attend a play and see only the second act, it would make no sense at all.  You wouldn’t see the character development in the first act nor experience the final resolution in the third.  With the pre-mortal veil drawn and the next life yet to be seen, we face the same challenge here.

To put it another way, let’s suppose that someone asked you to put together a complicated puzzle, but only gave you 1/3 of the pieces.  No matter how much time you spent trying to make those pieces fit, you would never see the big picture. When I contemplate the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” I simply have to say, “I don’t know.  But I trust that when the Lord gives me the other 2/3 of the pieces, it will make sense.”  I also realize that if the Lord did give us all the pieces, the need for faith would be eliminated, negating the whole purpose of us being here. – Shannon Williams

 Be as patient with God as he has been with you.

If you are looking to experience a life without the flow of negative and positive emotion, visit a graveyard and rest in peace.” – John Gray

Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes for the present time the design of your God… or the glory which shall follow after tribulation. D&C 58:3

There are parts of a ship which, taken by themselves, would sink.  The engine would sink; the propeller would sink.  But when the parts of a ship are built together, they float.  So it is with the events of my life.  Some have been tragic.  Some have been happy.  But when they are built together they form a craft, which is going somewhere, and I am comforted. – Ralph Sockman

Where much is expected, much is given.

Worthwhile

It is easy enough to be pleasant

When life flows by like a song

But the man worthwhile is one who will smile

When everything goes dead wrong.

For the test of the heart is trouble

And it always comes with the years

And the smile that is worth the praises of earth

Is the smile that shines through the tears.

Poems of sentiment by Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
Chicago, IL : W. B. Conkey Company, c1906.

If you have an eternal perspective, the only thing that can go wrong is sin.

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.  – Lou Holtz

If you say you have problems as big as my own

I guess I’ll admit that it’s true.

But consider the fact that mine happen to me

While yours merely happen to you!

Greatness is measured by how well an individual responds to those happenings in life, which appear to be totally unfair, unreasonable and undeserved. – Marvin J. Ashton

The Lord’s quiet delays allow us to search within ourselves for answers.

It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. I say that to myself every morning. It all works out in the end. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers. – Gordon B. Hinckley

Imagine yourself a living house.  God comes in to rebuild that house.  At first, perhaps you can understand what He is doing.  He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.

But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense.

What on earth is He up to??

The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of; throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there; running up towers, making courtyards.

You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage; but He is building a palace. – C. S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity

Because of the atonement, there are very few things that are eternally irreversible. 

We may feel that life is bringing us more than our fair share of trials – that somehow other seem to be getting off more lightly.  But the tests of life are tailored for our own best interest, and all will face the burdens best suited to their own mortal experience.  In the end we will realize that God is merciful as well as just and that all the rules are fair.  We can be reassured that our challenges will be the ones we needed, and conquering them will bring blessings we could have received in no other way.  We must never allow our burdens to obscure our blessings.  There will always be more blessings than burdens – even if some days it doesn’t seem so. – Jeffrey Holland Ensign Oct 2006

The city of happiness is found in the state of mind. – Anonymous

Smile.  If you can’t raise the corners of your mouth, at least let the middle drop.

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’ or ‘real’ life.  The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s ‘real’ life, the life that God is sending one, day by day. – CS Lewis

“Remember this! The line ‘And they all lived happily ever after’ is never written into the second act of a play.” That line belongs in the third act, when the mysteries are solved and everything is put right.” – Boyd K. Packer

“Just because God is smiling on someone else doesn’t mean He is frowning on you.” – Becky Young Fawcett (Ensign September 2015 pg 24) Article includes a quote by Jeffrey Holland – “Brothers and sisters, there are going to be times in our lives when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special recognition.  May I plead with us not to be hurt – and certainly not to feel envious – when good fortune comes to another person?  We are not diminished when someone else is added upon.  We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed.  The race we are really in is the race again sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those.”  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  “The Laborers in the Vineyard,” Ensign, May 2012, 31.

“Life is difficult,” wrote Dr. M. Scott Peck in his best seller The Road Less Traveled published in 1978.  “This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.  It is a great truth, because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it.  Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult.  Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

Have courage for the great sorrows in your life and patience for the small ones.  And when you have finished your daily task, go to sleep in peace – God is awake. – Victor Hugo

When a trial begins, the time of preparation is over.  When adversity strikes, we will survive on what we have accumulated physically, emotionally and spiritually.

The worst football injuries come not so much from the biggest collisions, but from unexpected hits, from getting blindsided.  – Steven Walker. The same could be said for adversity. Accepting trials as a natural part of life can prevent us from getting “blindsided.”

Have you ever felt like you had reached the bottom of the pit of despair, only to have the Lord hand you a shovel and tell you to start digging? 

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf shared the following in the July 2015 Ensign. “As I think about our pioneer heritage, one of the most moving things that come to mind is the hymn “Come, Come, Ye Saints”. Those who made the long journey to the Salt Lake Valley often sang this hymn during their trek. I am very much aware that all was not well with these Saints. They were plagued by sickness, heat, fatigue, cold, fear, hunger, pain, doubt, and even death.  But despite having every reason to shout, “All is not well,” they cultivated an attitude we cannot help but admire today. They looked beyond their troubles to eternal blessings. They were grateful in their circumstances. Despite evidence to the contrary, they sang with all the conviction of their souls, “All is well!”

A quote by Capt. Alan Bean, USN, Apollo Astronaut.  He said, “Test pilots have a litmus test for evaluating problems.  When something goes wrong, they ask, “Is this thing still flying?  If the answer is yes, then there’s no immediate danger, no need to overreact.  When Apollo 12 took off, the spacecraft was hit by lightning.  The entire console began to glow with orange and red trouble lights.  There was a temptation to “Do something!”  But the pilots asked themselves, “Is this thing still flying in the right direction?”  The answer was yes – it was headed for the moon.  They let the lights glow as they addressed the individual problems, and watched orange and red lights blink out, one by one.  That’s something to think about in any pressure situation.  If your thing is still flying, think first, and then act.”

Thomas McDermitt, a long time cancer patient said, “Today I am going to try to live through this day only, and not dwell on or attempt to solve all my problems at once; just focus on the piece that is today.  I can do something for several hours that would be difficult to even think about continuing for several months.” 

Dan Allender said, “God is writing a story in our lives.  Our lives aren’t just random, unconnected collections of scenes without meaning.  They have purpose, and as we become more and more tuned in to who God is, we can actually participate with Him in the way our story turns out.  We can have peace in the plot’s strange twists and turns.  We can be free from fear of the bad guys.  We can shine with God’s love and draw other people to see God’s good story in their own lives.”

A pattern in the scriptures and in life shows that many times the darkest, most dangerous tests immediately precede remarkable events and tremendous growth. “After much tribulation come the blessings.”  The children of Israel were trapped against the Red Sea before it was parted.  Nephi faced danger, anger from his brothers, and multiple failures before he was able to procure the brass plates. Joseph Smith was overcome by an evil power so strong that it seemed he was doomed to utter destruction. When he was almost ready to sink into despair, he exerted himself to call upon God, and at that very moment he was visited by the Father and the Son. Often investigators face opposition and tribulation as they near baptism. Mothers know that the challenges of labor precede the miracle of birth. Time after time we see marvelous blessings on the heels of great trials. (Elder Paul V. Johnson, More than Conquerors through Him that Loved Us, May 2011)

You can have fear or you can have faith. – Stanley Williams

Spencer W. Kimball once said, “If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure, and a short life would be a calamity.  But if we look upon life as an eternal thing stretching far into the premortal past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective.”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks declared, “Seen with the perspective of eternity, a temporal setback can be an opportunity to develop soul power of eternal significance.  Strength is forged in adversity.  Faith is developed in a setting where we cannot see what lies ahead.”

Orson F. Whitney also stated, “Out of the tragedies of life issue our greatest blessings.  There is compensation for every calamity.  Not more surely does day follow night than does joy succeed sorrow, and blessing follow blighting.  The whole history of our race proves this to be true.  Events that man considers his greatest misfortunes turn to good and produce benefits in the Lord’s due time.”

I walked a mile with Pleasure,

She chattered all the way,

But left me none the wiser

For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow,

And ne’er a word said she,

But oh, the things I learned from her

When Sorrow walked with me.

Robert Browning Hamilton

Glen Pace shared in his book Spiritual Plateaus “If any man or woman expects to enter into the Celestial Kingdom of our God without making sacrifices and without being tested to the very utmost, they have not understood the Gospel.  If there is a weak spot in our nature, or it there is a fiber that can be made to quiver or to shrink, we may rest assured that it will be tested.”

Elder Paul Johnson in the April 2011 Conference said, “Many have wondered why we must face difficult challenges. We know that one reason is to provide a trial of our faith to see if we will do all the Lord has commanded. Fortunately this earth life is the perfect setting to face—and pass—these tests.

But these trials are not just to test us. They are vitally important to the process of putting on the divine nature.  If we handle these afflictions properly, they will be consecrated for our gain.”

“Some obedient Saints may ask, “Why me? I’m trying to be good! Why is the Lord allowing this to happen?” The furnace of affliction helps purify even the very best of Saints by burning away the dross in their lives and leaving behind pure gold. Even very rich ore needs refining to remove impurities. Being good is not enough. We want to become like the Savior, who learned as He suffered “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind.”   

“At times it may seem that our trials are focused on areas of our lives and parts of our souls with which we seem least able to cope. Since personal growth is an intended outcome of these challenges, it should come as no surprise that the trials can be very personal—almost laser guided to our particular needs or weaknesses.”

Neal A. Maxwell said, “How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, “Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain; not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken.  Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences, which made Thee what Thou art!  Then let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy.” That just isn’t realistic, is it?

In the October, 1995 General Conference, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland stated that “the Lord will never give us one ounce more of adversity than is absolutely necessary for our eternal good.” 

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can change and the wisdom to know the difference.” Creed of Alcoholics Anonymous

“The Lesson” by Carol Lynn Pearson

Yes, my fretting, frowning child,

I could cross the room to you more easily.

But I’ve already learned to walk,

So I make you come to me.

Let go now – there! You see?

Oh, remember this simple lesson, child.

And when in later years you cry out

With tight fists and tears

“Oh, help me, God – please.”

Just listen and you’ll hear a silent voice:

“I would, child, I would.

But it’s you, not I,

who needs to try Godhood.”