It's funny how the Lord tutors... how I can be having patterns of thought and begin to dismiss them as my own but then open the scriptures or text from a sermon and have it be exactly what I have been pondering already. I say "it's funny" because it feels me with so much gratitude for how aware the Lord is of us that I can't help but laugh for joy.
I've been thinking a lot about adversity and pain and how they are the gateway to glory and beauty. You can't have one without the other. "There must be opposition in all things." Even last Friday night, I listened to a gentleman instruct a group of us on the compound nature of God, that even our Father in Heaven feels great love and great pain at the same moment. He sighted Moses 7:28-32 and noted that God wept because He loved so deeply, that it pained Him to see His children separate themselves from each other and from Him.
This last Sunday too, it seemed in every single sermon, someone said something that coincided exactly with my personal studies of these recent days.
Then this morning, I decided to open up the lessons in Young Women's for February. I glanced over the topics lower down on the list since I would be teaching later in the month. The heading "Why do we have adversity?" naturally stood out to me because it has been so present in my mind.
There, I opened to that topic, and low-and-behold, one of the talks was entitled, "Mountains to Climb". I couldn't help but smile because I had just written about that in my post from yesterday.
This kind of coinciding is not mere coincidence to me. It's this very synchronizing and harmonizing that becomes solid evidence my prayers are heard and that "God is in His heaven and all's right with the world." - Browning
With that in mind, let me go back to my focus on struggle and adversity, hope and healing:
When we think of adversity, it's easy to imagine the kind that happens outwardly, in our physical lives: persecution, physical limitations, tragedies, illness, disease, loss of property, or loss of loved ones. This is the kind that most likely comes to our mind first.
I believe, though, that the greatest adversity we will ever struggle with is deep within our hearts, unseen to almost all around us and possibly even hidden to those we live with. And what is this great struggle I speak of? It is in the submission of our own will to our Father in Heaven that brings the greatest heartache. It is in surrendering the thing that we are least willing to give up. Letting go fully and completely what we want and desire so desperately to the realization that it may not be what the Lord wants for us. The process of laying down "our will" may very well be more painful, more heart-wrenching, and more agonizing than the laying down to the grave our loved ones. This is bold for me to say but could it be possible? Yes, and upon such realization, it may surprise us. Christ gave the perfect example of full submission to the Father all throughout His life right up to the final test when the pain was so great that it caused him to be sore amazed . He called out "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." Then with perfect humility He prayed, "Not my will, but thine be done."
We must remember it is in learning this kind of submission, learning meekness, laying down our will (what we most desperately want) and taking up instead what the Lord wants, trusting wholly and completely that He knows best. This sweet surrender is where we come to find rest to our souls. This is the essence of faith at its fullest. Here we can be at peace knowing that God truly hears our heartfelt pleadings and will provide the very best outcome for us, whatever and whenever that may be.
In the grand design of things, there really is nothing to fear, for that which is of God is eternal and that which is bound eternally can never be broken. It is an irrevocable law of the universe. This temporal sphere is such a small sliver of what is to be seen. One day there will come the unveiling of a much greater and glorious picture. We do not see what God sees or know what He knows. Nevertheless, "He Knows" therefore, I pray with all of my heart and soul "Lead kindly Light... I do not ask to see the distant scene - one step enough for me."
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2000/10/lead-kindly-light?lang=eng
-Alicia
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