Adversity

 Today I was helping a young kindergartner who by afternoon was tired and overwhelmed.  He missed his mom and dad.  He struggled to grasp even the bulky starter crayons.  With tears rolling down his cheeks he turned to me and said,  "It's just too hard."

I let him cry on my shoulder for a couple of minutes and then we took a walk to find the principal's office because he really was wondering what that looked like.  (He was surprised to find out that she is so nice). Then we went back to his classroom and I helped him with his crayons and he finished his picture and returned to playing with his friends.  

My heart certainly went out to him in His moment of difficulty, but I also knew the growth and opportunities that school would provide for him.  I knew there was great good that would come from his suffering, as very real as it was to him at the moment.  I had the bigger picture.

Several of my close friends are going through some extreme adversities right now.  Job loss, divorce, death of a loved one, miscarriage, huge medical bills, loss of friends, unanswered faith questions, illness, exhaustion, disappointment and betrayal.  None of us are exempt.

Elder George Q Morris quoted Henry Ward Beecher who so eloquently penned, ""Affliction comes to us all not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but wise; not to make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us, as the night refreshes the day; not to impoverish, but to enrich us." 

Then he followed up with this challenge. "So, in adversity we may have that which will exalt us, or we may have that which will degrade us. We may have that which, "if we endure it well," will ennoble us, and we may have that which, if we indulge in self-pity and bitterness, may destroy us. In all our adversities there are these two elements, and the determining factor is how shall we endure them? Shall we endure them well? If not, they may destroy us."

Adversities allow us to become more than we were before.  They certainly aren't fun and there is no shame in needing respite from the sheer exhaustion that they bring.  There may well be moments for us all when with tears rolling down our cheeks we will plead, "It's just too hard."  But a wise Father is watching knowing how much good is to come with our schooling.