A Meal of Seed Potatoes

So often [women] comfort others when their own needs are greater than those being comforted.  That quality is like the generosity of Jesus on the cross.  Empathy during agony is a portion of divinity!  They do not withhold their blessings simply because some blessings are withheld from them.  

                                                                                                                Neal A. Maxwell

I read the Little House on the Prairie series with my two youngest daughters in nightly installments.  They were full of hard-earned wisdom.  One proverb I remember the mother sharing is that “There is never any great loss without some small gain.”  It was used to celebrate the delicious meal of seed potatoes they were sharing.  They were eating the seed potatoes because the homestead they had spent a year of back-breaking work building had been determined to be on Indian land and they were told by the government they must abandon it and move on.  Moving on would require the travel and starting from scratch to build a new home not allowing them time to plant a crop of potatoes that spring. 

I have remembered that premise many times while going through assorted traumas or difficulties.  Mortality is the boarding-school Heavenly Father created.  Earth is a great laboratory where we learn by experiencing the consequences of our own actions as well as the actions of others.  It is here  that we will experience not only the sublime joy of His loving gifts but also the bitter heartache of hate, persecution, and being despitefully used in addition to the natural conditions of this earth and our mortal bodies.  The conditions here allow us to sift through all that we experience to discover for ourselves that which is of Eternal significance; “that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”  (Matthew 5:45)

In other words, mortality is where we come to know the ends of both good and evil and develop Godly traits as we come to cherish righteousness and to lose all propensity for ungodliness.  It is easy to be charitable and kind when one has good health, a full belly and a good night’s sleep or to reach down to lift another out of my own abundance.  It is more difficult to give or to avoid envy, anger or despair when my temporal well is low or myself or my family are suffering from pain, illness or fatigue.  Mortal suffering gives us the opportunity to grow wiser, stronger and more capable of understanding and lifting others.  It clarifies what is essential and what is not.  If we bear it well, we find an Eternal perspective and faith (trust) in a loving Father who knows exactly what we need to become what he sent us here to become.  Everything will unfold as it should and we can be at peace “that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”  (1 Peter 1:7)

There are tools for enduring and overcoming which we learn along the way.  One is, as the Ingalls family in Little House on the Prairie learned, is the ability to focus on and enjoy what blessings have rather than see nothing but the loss.  Then remember that no matter what I am suffering, there are others around me that are in need of help and nurturing.  Abraham Lincoln observed that "To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own." Trials and difficulties tend to make us focus inward.  When we consciously look outward to focus our attention and efforts on sharing the burdens of others, it pulls our own troubles into perspective and gives us a break from our own suffering.  Another tool is the power of commitment to remain in the light of truth.  To make commitment to myself and to my Father in Heaven to remain true to his teachings no matter what brings a strength not only to endure but ultimately to triumph (through his grace) over all that stands between Him and I.  FAITH, which I equate with TRUST in a loving Heavenly Father and His beloved son, Jesus Christ, is the most valuable tool of all.  Not knowing all the whys and how things will work out in life can be frightening but recognizing that God knows; and that He can be trusted quiets my fears.  Along with the tool of faith is the tool of eternal perspective:  “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”  (John 10:28)  Mortality is a temporary blip in eternity.  Every mortal pain has an end.

Focus and Enjoy What I Have

Look Outward 

Commit to God
Trust Him

Eternal Perspective

These tools have softened suffering in my life and brought a wiser, stronger me closer to Heavenly Father. 

Shortly before he died of liver cancer, Bruce R. McConkie penned these lines in the form of a hymn: “I Believe in Christ, then come what may.”  Earlier in his life I heard him speak and he said words to the effect that it does not matter what happens but rather how we respond.  Three weeks before he died, he gave his last public speech in which he testified that, “Soon I shall kneel before my Savior and bathe his feet with my tears but I shall know no better then than I know now that Jesus is the Christ.”

Amen.