A Plea of Understanding

Mar. 18, 2017

Ok, I don’t usually get super fired up about things, but this week, something a bit upsetting happened:

In a group discussion earlier in the week, we were talking about how the “field was white, already to harvest,” as found in D&C 4. No longer being a missionary, and seeing as most of the other people in the discussion group had finished serving missions, the question was posed: Now what? There were a lot of great points to make it applicable to our lives today: we could look at it in the view that Heavenly Father has a ton of blessings in store for us, if we only look for it. I loved that viewpoint. However, after we started to come together, the discussion leader placed “two kinds of people” on the board – person A was sad and depressed, and person B was happy and optimistic. The only difference, as was stated, is that person B was choosing to be happy, and person A was not.

That might not seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but there are some very real things that happen to some people that don’t allow them mastery of their emotions, or that don’t allow them to feel the spirit: mental illness. And until my dying days I want to speak up and defend the people that struggle through it because sometimes, agency isn’t what is standing in the way of our happiness. In fact, most of the time what we do isn’t going to automatically make us happier. Trials happen even when we do everything right. I desperately want people to understand what happens with these people, how Heavenly Father views them, and how the viewpoint needs to change. And if I can help even one person understand, the world can be a happier place. This is something that I still have to cope with in understanding, and I guess further insight and learning and growing is why this will always be a recurring theme in my life:

There is something special about our life here on earth: we have a body and a spirit, and because we had faith in the Father’s plan before, we fought for the right to have a body. As we talked about the premises of the war chapters starting in Alma 43 this week in class, we learned that that war in heaven never came to a halt. Although we know the winning side, we still need to fight. And as time has gone on, satan has gotten clever. When you know the plan, you know who you fight for. But being in a fallen state makes it so difficult sometimes. And it has gotten to the point where that imperfect body, while it has promises of being perfect one day, can’t function fully in life as we know it. Satan has learned how to blow those things out of the water for a long time, and when your own body fights against you, you can succumb to it sometimes. Most of these are physical ailments, but some of these become coupled with spiritual ailments. For me, I have anxiety, and there’s a part of my brain that refuses comfort and leaves me feeling like I missed the last step on a staircase a majority of the time, no matter how much I beg it be taken away. Here’s the thing though – we can’t be miraculously healed all the time. It’s not that I don’t have a firm faith in Christ, it’s that I have the faith not to be healed. What matters is that I understand the gospel and treat my brain like I would any other trial or illness – I allow myself time out and work through how I can learn from it. Those are the struggles that I have to learn and grow from, and so many strong spirits nowadays need to figure it out too. What truly matters is that you don’t stop trying – Helaman 5:12 only states that we’ll be able to withstand the blows from the devil, not be able to knock him out of the water completely. It is just like any trial. And sometimes people aren’t going to understand that. That’s ok. We have a Savior that does understand. And while I have that firm hope and testimony in his understanding, enabling, and strengthening powers, I will lean on Him. I need to lean on Him often, and I have to learn how to succumb myself fully to his care. It’s what I have to learn in mortality. We all experience different things, and it is a trial. Things can’t get better all at once because we choose it, but things can be easier. The people of Alma prayed for the strength to bear the burdens on their backs in Mosiah, and that’s how all of our trials are going to work. Please be sensitive to others’ struggles, and stay firm in the faith of Christ.