Each Thanksgiving season we express our gratitude to the Lord for our many blessings: our comfortable surroundings, a place to live, for food and clothing and transportation, all the necessities of life. The early pilgrims were thankful to have survived and to have a harvest. By contrast, how often are we thankful for the adversities and opposition that we face?
During our mortal existence, we have the opportunity to experience both good and bad, both health and sickness, both joy and sadness, both pain and pleasure. We can look at all of these as learning experiences. If we never had anything negative in our life, how could we enjoy the things that are good? If it is always sunshine, blue skies, and fireworks, how soon would we take them for granted?
If there were no refiner’s fire, how can we become refined? If every person a missionary talked to wanted to hear and accept the gospel and be baptized right away, then how would we learn patience and persistence and grow in our faith? If every blessing we ask for was immediately granted, how could we become strong?
Elder Neil A. Maxwell (1926-2004), former member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, taught that each adversity and challenge in our lives has been particularly and individually “customized” for our eternal growth. (“Endure It Well,” Ensign, May 1990, 34)
After open heart surgery, Elder Robert D. Hales (1932-2017) shared his ponderings during recovery, “I have come to understand how useless it is to dwell on the whys, what ifs, and if onlys for which there likely will be given no answers in mortality. To receive the Lord’s comfort, we must exercise faith. The questions Why me? Why our family? Why now? are usually unanswerable questions. These questions detract from our spirituality and can destroy our faith. We need to spend our time and energy building our faith by turning to the Lord and asking for strength to overcome the pains and trials of this world and to endure to the end for greater understanding.” (“Healing Soul and Body,” General Conference, October 1998.)
When Nephi and his brothers returned to Jerusalem to obtain the plates of brass, what would have happened if they received them only by asking? On the third try, it seems that Nephi learned the important lesson of how to follow the spirit when we know not beforehand the things which we should do. (1 Nephi 4:6) When Alma was rejected by the people of Ammonihah, the angel of the Lord asked him to go back. (Alma 8:16.) What did he learn from that experience? How did that bless Amulek and his family? When we think of the apostle Paul in prison, how did that give him a chance to write so many letters that have blessed our lives immensely from his teachings? What has happened in our life when we accepted a calling where we felt completely inadequate or faced a challenge that was beyond our capacity to respond or had a heartache that seemingly could not be healed?
It has been said that each of us will have our own Gethsemane. Obviously, it will be nothing as intense, or as deep, or as all-encompassing as what the Savior suffered, but we will each have challenges that help refine us. Hopefully, they help us become more patient, more understanding, more compassionate, more forgiving, more loving toward others … more like our Savior. That can help us develop the same kind of love that the Savior has for all of us. And, if that is what it takes to become like Him, then my heart is full of Thanksgiving for adversity, challenges, and opposition in all things!
