We Should Not Be Surprised When Hard Times Come Upon Us

 

Mortality Works!

By Elder Brook P. Hales

Of the Seventy

Nonetheless, if we are to be the beneficiaries of the Lord’s “work and … glory,” even “immortality and eternal life,” we must expect to be schooled and taught and to pass through the refiner’s fire—sometimes to our utter limits. To completely avoid the problems, challenges, and difficulties of this world would be to sidestep the process that is truly necessary for mortality to work.

And so we should not be surprised when hard times come upon us. We will encounter situations that try us and people who enable us to practice true charity and patience....

When we feel distraught or anxious about our problems or feel that we might be receiving more than our fair share of life’s difficulties, we can remember what the Lord said to the children of Israel:

“And thou shalt remember all the way[s] which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what [is] in thine heart, whether thou [would] keep his commandments, or no.”

As Lehi taught his son Jacob:

“Thou hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow. … Nevertheless, … [God] shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain. … Wherefore, I know that thou art redeemed, because of the righteousness of thy Redeemer.”...

Nevertheless, I bear personal witness that the Lord can strengthen us and bear us up in whatever difficulties we are called upon to experience during our sojourn in this vale of tears....

We don’t know what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was. He chose not to describe whether it was a physical ailment, a mental or emotional infirmity, or a temptation. But we don’t need to know that detail to know that he struggled and pleaded with the Lord for help and that, ultimately, the Lord’s strength and power are what helped him through it.

Like it was for Paul, it was through the Lord’s help that I was eventually strengthened emotionally and spiritually and finally recognized after many years that I have always been a person of worth and worthy of the blessings of the gospel. The Savior helped me to overcome my feelings of unworthiness and to extend sincere forgiveness to the offender. I finally understood that the Savior’s Atonement was a personal gift for me and that my Heavenly Father and His Son love me perfectly. Because of the Savior’s Atonement, mortality works.