My Talk

So, I got the chance to speak in Stake Conference this weekend.  It was a great chance to study and learn.  I had so much more that I wish I could have said but I only had 10 minutes!  I had a couple people ask/suggest that I post my talk here, so here you are.  

I find it no small coincidence, if such a thing exists, that in what has been quite possibly the most emotionally and mentally trying year of my life, I have been asked to speak to you on overcoming life’s challenges.  The Lord is aware of our needs and sends us these opportunities to learn and grow and to reinforce our faith in Him and His plan for us.

Most of us are familiar with the story found in Mark 4 where the Savior calms the sea.  After preaching on the shores of Galilee, the set off across the Sea of Galilee to continue preaching on the other side.  Sometime during the night, the warm air off of the water combined with the cold air from the surrounding mountains and caused a violent storm.  Wet, tired and very likely scared, the disciples awoke the sleeping Savior asking “…Carest thou not that we perish?”  The Savior awoke and rebuked the storm with a simple declaration of “…Peace.  And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” (Mark 4: 38-39)

Brothers and sisters, part of our mortal experience is that we’re going to have situations like this in our lives.  That’s just how life works.  In October 2011 General Conference, Elder Robert D. Hales said that our trials and challenges “…allow us and our Heavenly Father to see whether we will exercise our agency to follow His Son. He already knows, and we have the opportunity to learn, that no matter how difficult our circumstances, “all these things shall [be for our] experience, and … [our] good.”  Call it what you will, our Abrahamic test, our personal Gethsemane, our own Galilean storms.  Each of us will face trials and challenges that will have us crying out, as did Joseph Smith in the dungeons of Liberty Jail “Oh God, where art thou?” (D&C 121:1), but I testify that we can receive the same peace and comfort that was felt on the sea of Galilee and in the dark of Liberty Jail.  The key is to make deliberate choices when we find ourselves in those situations.  There are so many different choices I could point to and so much more I wish I had the time to say, but for now, I want to discuss just two.

The first choice I want to discuss is the choice to learn from our challenges.  Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote “..It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation that we gain the education that we come here to acquire.” (quoted in SWK “Faith Precedes the Miracle”)  When we cut ourselves off from learning, we cut ourselves off from becoming the person the Lord needs us to be.  Imagine the precious truths that would be lost had Joseph Smith shut himself off from learning during those months he spent in Liberty Jail. 

As part of my preparation for this talk, I read a CES devotional given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland in September of 2008.  His talk was titled “Lessons from Liberty Jail”.  Among other things, he said the following:

When what has to be has been and when what lessons to be learned have been learned, it will be for us as it was for the Prophet Joseph…Into this dismal dungeon and this depressing time, the voice of God came, saying:

My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes. [D&C 121:7–8]

You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life—in the worst settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced.

There are as many different ways to learn from our challenges as there are people in this room.  Seek refuge in the temple, study the scriptures, study your patriarchal blessing, study the eternal truths taught by the prophets and contained in the great literature of mankind.  Once you’ve concluded your personal prayers, stay on your knees long enough to learn a little something. We grow through learning and by learning in our trials and through our trials, we will draw closer to the Lord.

The second choice I want to discuss is the choice to rely on the Lord.  I was walking home from RS the other night and I happened to look up at the clear sky.  A long time ago, I decided that the middle star on Orion’s belt is the star to get to Neverland and it’s been my favorite ever since.  There is something reassuring about the stars- having a favorite, knowing it is there.  Speaking of stars, President Gordon B Hinckley said:

Like the polar star in the heavens, regardless of what the future holds, there stands the Redeemer of the world, the Son of God, certain and sure as the anchor of our immortal lives. He is the rock of our salvation, our strength, our comfort, the very focus of our faith.  In sunshine and in shadow we look to Him, and He is there to assure and smile upon us.  (April 2002 General Conference)

I’d like to get a little bit personal here.  My life hasn’t turned out exactly how I planned when I was a little girl.  The dashing husband has yet to arrive on his white horse, the children whose names I picked out when I was 9 years old are hopefully patiently waiting in the spirit world and almost eight years ago, I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.  Needless to say, I’ve had to refocus some of my dreams.  But through it all, as President Hinckley said, the Savior has been there, as sure as the polar star.  For me, relying on Him and on the Lord’s timing isn’t a matter of convenience; it is a matter of necessity.  He has been there when panic attacks wake me during the middle of the night and the only way to calm my heart is to sing myself back to sleep with Primary songs.  He has been there in the quiet moments when I just can’t take it anymore.  I am not smart enough or brave enough to do it on my own, but with Him, I can do all things, even and especially the hard things. 

The Savior is my rock, my salvation.  It is upon him that you must and I must, “..build [our] foundation that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fail.” (Helaman 5:12)

I love the hymn “Where Can I Turn for Peace”, especially the third verse, which says:

            He answers quietly, reaches my reaching

            In my Gethsemane, Savior and friend

            Gentle the peace He finds, for my beseeching

            Constant He is and kind, love without end

He knows the beginning from the end, and all the scary parts in between.  He will carry us if we let Him.  When we reach out to Him, he will be there.  I love the thought from Harry Potter, “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light.”  The Savior is the light and the life of the world.  Even during our greatest challenges, we can be happy and find joy if we let His light into our lives and if we turn our cares over to Him.  That doesn’t mean our troubles will go away.  But we can “be still and know that [he is] God.” (D&C 101:16) 

I am grateful for examples, both ancient and modern of people who chose the Lord.  In the midst of his trials, Job testified “I know that my redeemer liveth.” (Job 19:25)  The woman with an issue of blood knew that she would be made whole just by touching the Savior’s robe. (Mark 5:28) Aching from the loss of his father, Nephi exclaimed “My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions…” (2 Nephi 4:20)  A dear faithful friend whose young son died unexpectedly last year said to me   “Everyone has circumstances in life where they have to choose faith, choose hope and choose joy. That is the overriding theme of our experience. In a situation we had zero control of, we have been able to choose our response. And - in doing so - we have chosen growth, healing and God”

We are meant to be happy, to choose the Lord and to overcome life’s challenges.  In closing, I want to share a thought from Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin.  In speaking of the death of the Savior on Friday and His resurrection on Sunday, Elder Wirthlin said:

“Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.” 

            

 I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who gives me chances daily to exercise my faith in him, rely on him and learn from my challenges.  I am grateful to know that God lives and that he loves me.  I know that I am a child of God and that he has sent me here.    I know that we are led and loved by a living prophet.  I know that our Heavenly Father is anxious to hear and answer our prayers, if we will turn to Him in good times and in bad.  I know that Jesus is the Christ and that he stands at the head of this church.