Healing

       For those that have gone through difficult, even painful times, I found a comforting little quote. It's about a man that I greatly respect that went through a painful heart bypass surgery.

     "For several weeks my physical activity was severely restricted by intense pain, but I learned the joy of freeing my mind to ponder the meaning of life and the eternities. I discovered that if I dwelt only upon my pain, it inhibited the healing process. I found that pondering was a very important element in the healing process for both [spirit] and body. 

“I have come to understand how useless it is to dwell on the whys, what ifs, and if only’s for which there likely will be given no answers in mortality. . . . The questions Why me? Why our family? Why now? are usually unanswerable questions. These questions detract from our spirituality and can destroy our faith."                      
        -Elder Robert D. Hales

Often times, we go through difficult times, and begin to question things. Sure, not everyone is a religious type like me, but the questions often arise--why me? Why now? Sometimes we seem to be doing everything right, and yet bad things still happen to us. I've met many people that use this alone as evidence that there really is no God, because if there really was a loving caring God out there, he wouldn't allow such things. Or if God would allow such things, he certainly isn't the loving type that everyone is raving about.


I'm not a wise, all knowing person, and honestly I'm still pretty young and have a lot left to learn. But one thing that I know for sure, is that God really is there, and that he loves each and every one of us. The difficult thing to understand is why this loving God would ever allow humanity to just run rampant and cause all the strife, war and troubles that it does. And what it comes down to is Agency. God has a plan for us--a reason why he created this earth and placed us on it. We came down here so we could experience life and learn and grow. One of the parts that makes this plan work, is that we must be able to make our own choices--good or bad. If God stepped in every time that we went to make a bad decision or do something wrong, we wouldn't ever learn anything for ourselves.


Yeah, I know, this probably leaves more questions than answers, but basically what I'm getting at is that we all go through hard times. Everyone has a time in their life where they feel like they just can't keep their head above the water. It is simply part of life. But the neat thing that Elder Hales teaches us with his story is that if we dwell on our pain and our problems, it hinders our ability to grow, to flourish--to be truly happy. 

The French author Voltaire wrote “Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.” 
If in times of hardship (as strange as it may sound) we focus on helping those around us, true happiness can be found.  


Picture from http://attackofthecute.com/on/?i=1209