Wednesday, October 19, 2011

On Trial

Have I mentioned, and you know that I have, that I don't understand why my life is so good? I mean, aside from being old and fat and creaky, my life is really good. Sure, I'd like to be rich and semi-famous, thinner, more gorgeous and with a mind like a steel trap, as I was when this picture was taken. Oh, yes, and with the best selling novel in the bag.

Other than those superficial things, there is very little I would change about my life. Ronald darling and I are getting older, but then, so are you! But we had a head start, so we are getting closer, in 30 or 40 years, to the end. But, I look at other people's trials that are so difficult, and wonder why my life does not seem to be a trial. I have friends with grave health problems, without work for months, dealing with deaths in their families, with wayward children and sin.

And I don't have major issues. I'm not going to confess my sins; I have them, but I'm working on them. We could be healthier, but we are working on that as well. So why don't we have major trials? Not that I want them, mind you. I just keep asking, "Why not me?"

Maybe the Lord won't give me huge problems because he knows I couldn't handle them - or because I could so I don't need them. Maybe I'm so good that I deserve a care-free life. Yeah, right! Or maybe I have trials, but I'm coping with them so well that I don't realize that they are there. Possibly the Lord is helping me carry them, so that I don't feel the weight.

So what is the purpose of trials? To strengthen us, to teach us and to encourage us to lean on the Lord. I found this poem that gives some insight. It's written from the perspective of a man, in the 19th century, trying to decide why he had been born black, when his race was a trial. It is from a play called I Am Jane, written about early members of the LDS church.

"I feel, Sister Jane, that ours is:
Not a curse but a gift t'us,
The best path we could seek
A place where God can lift us
We kneel; our knees is weak

And when one of us is kneelin',
We understand his fears.
We know what all us is feelin'
We cry each other's tears.

That's just what Jesus done
For all us human folk.
He agreed to come get born
To feel ev'ry pain and poke.

So's he could understand us,
What it is to be a slave.
So's he could get beneath us
And push us outa the grave

Would you rather be the massa
or the Roman with his whip?
Would you rather nail the Savior-
Put vinegar to his lip?

Or learn the lessons of sufferin'-
How we nothin' without grace.
Jesus, he give us a callin'
He gifted us our race."

The Lord has gifted us all our trials, even the ones that we don't recognize as trials. And they are blessings, even though they may not feel like blessings.

1 comment:

Mike and Adrianne said...

I think it's probably because you are dealing with them well so they don't seem trials as well as the fact that the Lord is helping you deal with them. We miss you guys.

P.S. Mike and I have wondered about the lessons we learned in the premortal life--did we take classes to prepare us for this life? We joked that we must have missed the classes on dealing with loss and grief. Maybe you were better at choosing the classes you took...