1 Corinthians 13:7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Enduring to the end. What a fun concept. We all have struggles and trials in our lives and what God requires of us is to endure it and keep plugging along. Happy, right? Well, yes, actually. God is never going to give us anything we can’t handle. We are all going to have to go through some very difficult things, but God wants us to endure our trials and struggles and He also wants us to be happy. He wants us to find the joy in our struggles and the beauty in our sorrows. We are to endure what we go through and we are to endure it well. But how do we endure things well? By being happy and relying on Him.
Sometimes, when I’m in the midst of a certain trial and am down or unhappy, I wonder how on earth other people can be so happy when they are struggling. It’s not that hard, but at the same time it is. To endure things well, we have to find the positive. We have to look for the good in all things and the good that can come from all things. That whole ‘we go through bad things so we can appreciate the good’ concept? Yeah, that is the key to enduring things well. Every struggle we go through puts perspective on our lives. The trials we go through are to test us and to help us develop Christlike attributes and we can’t do that unless we endure our trials well and appreciate the joys and beauties of our lives.
Part of enduring our trials well is to not be angry or hateful or sullen about what we have been given to go through. We need to be sure we are enduring with the correct attitude. Sure, it’s okay to have that initial unhappiness or despair about something, but we must work to get over those feelings and get back to the peace in our hearts that Christ would want us to have. That’s one thing I struggle with. I tend to have the attitude that bad situations are the end of the world and can’t be overcome. Like when I got divorced. For several months I held onto the idea that I would never be happy again or find love or be able to trust anyone again. I was enduring my trial by not acting out too much or being mean to or about my ex-husband, but I wasn’t enduring it well because I had the wrong attitude. It took a long time to get over those feelings and get to where I could feel happy again. Yes, I endured my trial, but I didn’t endure it as well as I could have. So, attitude is an important part of enduring things. And so is the Atonement. I could have been so much happier in those months had I just used the Atonement to give over my pain and unhappiness to Christ.
Once I decided that I was tired of being sad all the time and wanted to be happier, things started changing. And it wasn’t just my attitude. Once I made the choice to be happier, I started feeling better, people started enjoying being around me more, I wasn’t so tired all the time, I started noticing ways I could help other people and I started to realize that I’d missed so many opportunities to uplift others who were in the same situation I was. I had to pray a lot and ask Heavenly Father to help me through it, but once I started asking Him for help, I started feeling better.
There was one day where I was still struggling and I felt prompted to my institute teacher about how much of a hard time I was having. He listened and gave me a blessing. And then he talked with me for a bit and told me that something that would help me would be for me to help others. He said that when we act Christlike and serve others even when we are hurting, that it makes it easier for Christ to remove the hurt from us. So, I did that. I helped more people at work, I helped a disabled woman in my ward and I started making cookies for people randomly. Over time I realized that I wasn’t spending so much time dwelling on my struggles. Several months later my institute teacher asked me how I was doing and I felt so different from when I’d first come to him. I was amazed and it made me feel so grateful that Christ had put someone in my life to give me direction about how to get through my trial.
So, endure your trials. Endure them well. Situations may get hard and you may struggle, but you WILL get through it. If you go to Christ, you can get through anything. He is there for each of us and wants to help us. We just have to ask Him for it. Take part of the Atonement and He will help you and uplift you and bring you to a point where you can endure your trials with grace and happiness. Because that is what God wants for us. He wants us to be happy.
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