My thoughts from today's lesson at church:
Through faith all things are possible... Mountains can be moved... The dead will rise... The lame will walk...
This is what the scriptures teach us about the extraordinary power of faith, but when we misunderstand these scriptures they can lead us to despair in the face of persistent trials and infirmities. We can begin to doubt our faith and the pureness of our hearts and desires. Satan will whisper that we are not good enough, not strong enough, and therefore we cannot overcome our infirmities.
Many of you know that I have struggled in this life to bear children and that it has been a great heartache over the years. One day someone very close to me asked me, "Don't you think if you had enough faith you would have the righteous desires of your heart? Don’t you believe that through faith you can be healed?"
This question would have hurt me if I had not already spent years asking myself the same question. I replied by asking if Abraham had lacked faith to produce a son sooner or Joseph Smith lacked the faith to save his babies from death?
My father added his wisdom to this question by telling me that "Never has anyone at anytime interfered with the will of our Father in Heaven or frustrated the plan of God through faith. Christ faced the agony of the garden by asking, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” The real question is not why can’t your faith heal you or save you from heart ache, but rather why is it God's will that I suffer these things? What is this trial meant to teach me? And how will this suffering bring me closer to Him?"
These questions are no less difficult, but they tend to lead us closer to God and not further from him. When we approach the trials of this life in faith we are given power to trust God's will and do all things according to his will.
In addition, this song by Janice Kapp Perry has always been a great comfort in times of trial:
“Tell me friend, why are you blind?
Why doesn't He who worked the miracles
Send light into your eyes?
Tell me friend, if you understand,
Why doesn't He with power to raise the dead
Just make you whole again?
It would be so easy for Him.
I watch you and in sorrow question why . . .
Then you, my friend, in perfect faith reply:
Didn't say He sent us to be tested?
Didn't He say the way would not be sure?
But didn't He say we could live with Him
Forevermore, well and whole,
If we but patiently endure?
After the trial we will be blessed,
But this life is the test.
...
Tell me friend, why must you die?
Why must your loved ones stand with empty arms
And ask the question "why"?
Help me know, so I can go on.
How, when your love and faith sustained me,
Can the precious gift be gone?
From the depths of sorrow I cry,
Though pains of grief within my soul arise . . .
The whisperings of the spirit still my cries:
Didn't He say He sent us to be tested?
Didn't He say the way would not be sure?
But didn't He say we could live with Him forevermore,
Well and whole
If we but patiently endure?
After the trial we will be blessed,
But this life is the test."
