This Past Sunday I was asked to speak in church and I have felt that I should share my talk here...We were asked a few weeks back to speak but quite honestly I did not look at my talk until the week of...I am sure some of you can relate..lol...when I finally sat down and listened to the talk that was given to me I had a flood of thoughts poor into me from the Holy Spirit and He told me that I should share alot of what I know to be true and that I was prepared for this talk...
As I wrote, I knew that this talk was not just for me...although I feel I have learned much from and thru it...After I spoke I was blown away by the response from others in our Church about how it had been just what they needed to hear and an answer to a prayer for some...I am so thankful for the opportunity that Heavenly Father gave me in prepping this talk and for His Blessing to be used as His instrument for others:)
As I wrote, I knew that this talk was not just for me...although I feel I have learned much from and thru it...After I spoke I was blown away by the response from others in our Church about how it had been just what they needed to hear and an answer to a prayer for some...I am so thankful for the opportunity that Heavenly Father gave me in prepping this talk and for His Blessing to be used as His instrument for others:)
**On another Note we have recently moved into a new Ward (well in October) so I began with an intro about us and our background but I know that in this blog many of you know all of that stuff so I felt it was unnecessary to rewrite that here...
Trusting that Hard is Good and Why
I would like to ask you some questions and for you to answer them in your mind…
- Do You TRUST Heavenly Father?
- Why are you here….
- Do you TRUST in HIS Plan?
- Does His ways sometimes scare you
- Do you only Trust when its Easy…
- What about when its Hard and really Difficult to want to
- Do You Flee or Fight when it is HARD to TRUST
- Do You want to TRULY Be Like Him...
When we think of these Questions we may initially answer them blindly or like a robot…
We instinctually know some of the answers…We may even think "Why am I being asked these questions"…But most likely some of them struck a cord and even tugged on your heart….
When we think about Trust we often think of it being a two way street…
We usually earn trust thru consistent behaviors that show we are capable of keeping our promises with others for Good. Thus in turn developing relationships that help us grow as people.
When someone we Trust asks us to do things that we think are hard we question if we capable but often we just go do it since we have a high amount of Trust for them. Sometimes we even do it blindly since we know their intent for us is good…in turn we grow and become better than we were.
When we don’t want Trust we struggle more…we often resist and slow down our learning of valuable lessons. Or as I usually say we are choosing to "go around the mountain" and learn the hard way or repeating it till we do learn lol
Why do we choose not to Trust?
Especially if it is Heavenly Father?
Why do we choose not to Trust?
Especially if it is Heavenly Father?
Typically we think of these statement first:
- oh that is too Hard!
- I can’t do that! I don’t want to do that
- I don’t understand why I need to do that
- or we lack understanding completely
When things are Easy, we of course just go with the flow…but when its Hard we typically question and struggle and then we are forced to make decisions…Decisions that in This case can bring us Closer to our Eternal Destination... Stall us… or sometime we end up going backwards.
So How do we make it thru Hard…How do we Decide we even want to…
I have learned in my life that often Hard leads to NEW…When we go thru Hard experiences we often become completely different people…There have many times in my life that I have felt BROKEN…
Have you you ever felt Broken?
Have you Ever gone thru of felt...
- Heartbreak
- Rejection
- Aloneness
- Feeling like a total Failure
- Divorce
- Death of a family Member
- Business Failure and Rebuilding
- Custody Battles
- Failed Adoptions
- Infertility
- Spiritual Darkness
- Walking Alone in the Gospel
- Feeling of you just aren’t good enough.
- Challenges Believing
- Feelings of WHY ME
- Feelings of Having to be the First always (pioneer)
- Feelings of having to ALWAYS prove yourself to others
- Feeling like you are just going thru the motions
I have gone every single one of these hardships in my life…Some were way way Harder than others…Some I felt like I just wanted to crawl up in a corner and never come out…In those times I have had to CHOOSE (Yes it is a Choice) to Follow in Faith. Often time just one step at a time was all I could do at first…
President Thomas S. Monson stated: "May We ever choose the Harder right instead of the easier wrong.”
In my life there have been so many times that it would be much easier to just give up…to throw in the towel…to not follow…but when we make it thru Hard things by choosing Right (although often times Harder) and Following in Faith that Heavenly Father’s Plan is in fact much better than ours… then it makes the Blessing so much sweeter when we do get to the other side of Hard. We are able to understand His ways often times only in hindsight.
I know I could tell lots of stories about of how I have to Learned to lean on Heavenly Father.
I truly KNOW that He takes all the HARD or the UNFAIR things... that happen to us and makes it all GOOD…
He ALWAYS uses it for HIS GLORY…
He uses it to teach us to become more like Him…
He uses it to soften us and give us compassion for others...He uses it to teach us Forgiveness…
He uses Hard to Humble us to come to Him and Him ALONE, often times when we wouldn't otherwise…
Most times when these things happen it is NOT just for us…Really Hard experiences are ALWAYS for the benefit of others in our Heavenly Family.
WE are like a lil piece of coal…
Coal go thru LOTS AND LOTS of Pressure to become a Diamond...at first a diamond looks like a dirty rock…It’s not pretty right away……it takes more than initial pressure…it still takes lots of chipping...chipping...chipping away and buffing...buffing...buffing to make it into a beautiful stone.
Sometimes we see gorgeous Diamonds and forget the process it took for them to get there…
REMEMBER - People around you are watching you go thru your Hard times, they are watching you become that diamond and this is how HE Glorifies your Hard times for His good.
At this point I felt impressed to speak about THIS specific blog at the time of giving this talk....This Blog has been such a Blessing to me and has allowed me to write thru pain and at times I had no idea of how many people were truly reading and being touched by it...to this day I still have people come to me and feel like they are truly connected to me...He truly has used the Hard of some of my posts in this blog to Bless others...in turn Glorifying the Hard that has happened in my life...then I continued with my talk.
In Elder Stanley G. Ellis’ talk from Last Octobers General Conference Titled DO WE TRUST HIM? HARD IS GOOD he states:
- Members of the Godhead are no strangers to hard things. God the Father sacrificed His Only Begotten Son to the terrible suffering of the Atonement, including death by crucifixion.
- The scriptures say Jesus Christ learned “obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). He voluntarily suffered the agony of the Atonement.
- The Holy Ghost must be long-suffering to prompt, warn, and guide us, only to sometimes be ignored, misinterpreted, or forgotten.
We are like Silver that has to go thru Fire to get rid of all of its impurities, we too are being refined to be perfected in Him.
I have gotten to the the point where I accept and embrace Hard…because I learned the Lord works in Patterns. …Often time Satan Tells us otherwise, and wants us to not want to become Pure by saying "IT'S JUST TO HARD to be Like our Heavenly Father be like me instead which is Easy.”
In Closing…I would like to Bear my Testimony That I know That thru the Hard and Difficult times that we DO become like Heavenly Father and our Brother, our Savior Jesus Christ.
We can Be Like them When we choose (again it is a Choice) to TRUST and EMBRACE the teaching of the Gospel. I testify of the truthfulness found in the Scriptures that when we turn to them in times of need... that we do in fact GAIN Priceless UNDERSTANDING so that we may be able to bear what may be or may come...so that we can ALL return to be with our Father in Heaven.
And I leave this with you in the Name of Jesus Christ, AMEN.
