What if we stopped seeing our trials as burdens and started seeing them as blessings?
How often do we go through trials and ask, “Why me?” While this is natural, it is not the way Heavenly Father wants us to react. In a devotional given at BYU-Idaho, Brother Larry Richman stated, “We can let adversity break us down and make us bitter, or we can let it refine us and make us stronger.”
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I am currently learning this principle through a serious, personal trial. Initially, I was angry at God for my situation. This trial has hurt my heart more than anything else ever has. Brother Richman’s advice that we keep an eternal perspective in spite of intense hardships has helped me cope with my struggles. I have started praying for that eternal perspective, and as I have, the Lord has revealed to me blessings that are coming as a result of this trial. I now know that Heavenly Father is using this experience to protect me from even graver situations. Instead of feeling bitterness toward him, I now feel gratitude for the perspective and comfort he is giving me. While my trial is far from over, I feel peace knowing that Heavenly Father knows me perfectly and knows how to bless me, even through trials.
I know that keeping an eternal perspective in the midst of our trials will help us cope with our struggles and even find joy, as we “patiently trust in God’s plan and discover how to use adversity to grow stronger.”
Read more of Brother Richman’s address here to understand how we can learn through adversity.
Source: ChurchofJesusChrist.org
—Sarah Harris, Mormon Insights
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Take a look at this video to learn about how trials can shape us into the people Heavenly Father wants us to be.
It’s never occurred to me to feel bitter toward God, even in my most painful trials. My perspective is that He does not “give” us trials, but allows the nature of this fallen world, and agency; our own and others’ that “this too shall give [us] experience.” God has always provided comfort, provided blessings of insight, and assurance and helped me gain a more intimately trusting relationship with my Savior. It’s through my trials, I’ve come to have eyes to see and ears to hear beyond what I might have before. The tragic, sudden, and recent loss of my son has caused me, in my pain and yearning, to know comprehend something more of His parental love and devotion. It was because of our brokenness that He provided the redeeming Gift of His Only Begotten Son to make us whole, and bring us Home to His waiting arms. In my love/pain/loss, I’ve begun to comprehend the love of our Eternal Father, and His efforts to bring to pass the exaltation and eternal lives of His children. Jesus is the Savior of the living and the dead. Father has blessed me to be a mother, that I might know something of His love too. And I am grateful. I know my son is in His care; that he belonged to God before he was given to me. I give thanks for the covenants God has provided. We will be together again. I have His sweet assurance.
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