By and by

I'm learning to trust that the blessings I long for most in my life will come, as Elder Holland declared, by and by.

Wasn't Conference wonderful?  I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing we could have had this benefit much sooner.  And yet I'm also incredibly grateful it has come all the same.

Of course, now mine is the difficult task of selecting one of these excellent addresses for the program today.  And a difficult task it is.  But at length I have come to feel I should explore Elder Holland's wonderful remarks.

I'm not exactly sure why.  Maybe it's because Elder Holland started out empathizing with the many singles who desire that great marriage that eludes them.  Maybe it's because he quoted Elder Maxwell, one known for his grand way with words, before producing his own wisely worded pronouncements.  Or maybe it's simply the power of his simple promises that in the end all will be well with those who hold faithful to the end.

Whatever the reason, I'm learning not to question promptings to do good but rather simply to follow them.  I'm learning to trust, without seeing the end, that the end will be better than I ever could have imagined it.  I'm learning to trust that the blessings I long for most in my life will come, as Elder Holland declared, by and by.

See beyond your pain

It's easy for all of us to get so absorbed in our own trials that we lose perspective.  And with that loss of perspective often comes also the loss of another sight — one that sees the way forward.

Many singles feel so burdened by the loneliness and heartache of singles life that all they see in their future is an eternity of loneliness and heartache.  Such an outcome should not surprise.  After all, your focus becomes your reality.

Singles who know the depth of that despair from seeming ever so out of reach of desired blessings intimately know loneliness and heartache.  So of course singles would feel comforted and appreciative of Elder Holland's early and earnest recognition of that familiarity.

But notice what immediately followed.  Elder Holland was just as eager and earnest in recognizing the depth of despair many trapped in a lonely marriage feel, seemingly ever so out of reach of escape from their familiarity with loneliness and heartache.

Without recognizing the pain others feel, it's easy to become so absorbed in our own pain that we can't see anything else.  Our pain becomes so enlarged we think it not only fills our world but that it is the world.

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Trust in Him always

That's one of the comforting aspects of Elder's Holland's remarks.  He reminds us that, regardless of our individual situations, we all feel pain.  We all ache under the burden of trial.  We all long for relief.

Yet we often pray for freedom and relief on our schedule rather than for faith to rely on God's.  As we plead with heaven to lighten our load, our pleadings will be answered, though sometimes not how or when we would wish.

As Elder Holland reminds us all,

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   The times and seasons of our mortal journey are His, and they are His alone to direct.  He administers that calendar to everyone individually.  For every infirm man healed instantly as he waits to enter the pool of Bethesda, someone else will spend 40 years in the desert waiting to enter the promised land.  For every Nephi and Lehi divinely protected by an encircling flame of fire for their faith, we have an Abinadi burned at a stake of flaming fire for his.
   And we remember that the same Elijah who in an instant called down fire from heaven to bear witness against the priests of Baal is the same Elijah who entered a period when there was no rain for years and who for a time was fed only by the skimpy sustenance that could be carried in a raven's cloth.  By my estimation, that can't have been anything we would call a Happy Meal!

But then Elder Holland cut straight to the truth at the crux of the matter.

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   The point is that faith means trusting God in good times and bad, even if that includes some suffering until we see His arm revealed on our behalf.  That can be difficult in our modern world when many come to believe that the highest good in life is to avoid all suffering, that no one should ever anguish over anything.  But that belief will never lead us to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

How did people come to believe that all suffering is necessarily bad?  Whatever its source, Elder Holland rightly suggests some suffering isn't bad.  In fact, I dare to declare some suffering is necessarily good.

Rise above your trouble

No doubt those steeped in their own pain will find it difficult to believe any suffering could be good, let alone necessarily good.  As already noted, it's easy to be so absorbed in one's own troubles that it's difficult to see how those troubles could ever be stepping stones to tranquility.

And yet that's precisely why some pain is necessarily good.  Henry Ward Beecher once said our troubles are "the tools by which God fashions us for better things."  It is through our trials that we become refined and more of our best selves.  It is through our trials that we develop the characteristics of godhood.  It is through our trials that we come to know God.

How else could He be known?  Elder Holland says as much when he declared,

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. . . one's life cannot be both faith filled and stress free.  It simply will not work to glide through life, saying as we sip another glass of lemonade, "Lord, give me all Thy choicest virtues, but be certain not to give us grief nor sorrow nor pain nor oppression.  Please do not let anyone dislike me or betray me.  And above all, do not ever let me feel forsaken by Thee or those I love.
   "In fact, Lord, be careful to keep me from all the experiences that made Thee divine.  And then, when the rough sliding by everyone else is over, please let me come and dwell with Thee, where I can boast about how similar our strengths and our characters are as I float around on my cloud of comfortable Christianity."
   My beloved brothers and sisters, Christianity is comforting, but it is often not comfortable.  The path to holiness and happiness here and hereafter is a long and sometimes rocky one.  It takes time and tenacity to walk it.
   But of course, the reward for doing so is monumental. . . .  When will these burdens be lifted?  Well, the answer is by and by.  And whether that be a short period or a long one, it is not always ours to say.  But by the grace of God, the blessings will come to those who hold fast to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  That issue was settled in a very private garden on a very public hill in Jerusalem long ago.

We all have pain in this life.  But when we look beyond our own pain to see the pain in others, we find it easier to see our own in perspective.  We find it easier to reach out to help others.  We find it easier to see meaning and purpose in our own suffering.  And we find it easier to trust God through bad seasons as well as good ones.  We find it easier to walk in faith and confidence that the promised blessings will come to us by and by.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

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