Come What May, and Love It

This last weekend we went to Houston to spend time with my family. Sunday came around and my Mom and Dad's stake was having their Stake Conference. Well, the thought of taking my 2 kids for 2 hours to someone else's Stake Conference made me want to well up in tears so..we decided to stay home and watch missed sessions of General Conference. {GASP} I know I missed sessions of General Conference, AND then the following week I skipped church too...

We decided to watch the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference. It was, in my opinion, the BEST session of conference. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin's talk spoke to me. (I love it when that happens.) Here is an excerpt from his talk:

"When I was young I loved playing sports, and I have many fond memories of those days. But not all of them are pleasant. I remember one day after my football team lost a tough game, I came home feeling discouraged. My mother was there. She listened to my sad story. She taught her children to trust in themselves and each other, not blame others for their misfortunes, and give their best effort in everything they attempted.

When we fell down, she expected us to pick ourselves up and get going again. So the advice my mother gave to me then wasn’t altogether unexpected. It has stayed with me all my life.

“Joseph,” she said, “come what may, and love it.”

I have often reflected on that counsel.

I think she may have meant that every life has peaks and shadows and times when it seems that the birds don’t sing and bells don’t ring. Yet in spite of discouragement and adversity, those who are happiest seem to have a way of learning from difficult times, becoming stronger, wiser, and happier as a result."....

I know why there must be opposition in all things. Adversity, if handled correctly, can be a blessing in our lives. We can learn to love it.

As we look for humor, seek for the eternal perspective, understand the principle of compensation, and draw near to our Heavenly Father, we can endure hardship and trial. We can say, as did my mother, “Come what may, and love it.”

A friend of mine recently asked me how I felt about everything that is going on in the world. The economy, this, in my opinion, joke of an election. ( could the REAL presidential candidate please stand up?), the war, the gas prices, etc. I told her that I was nervous about what it all meant but that I was okay, because I knew that in the end everything would be alright.

I know that everything will be okay because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

For a long time I spent time hoping and praying that everything would get better. That all of this would just go away as quickly as it appeared. I now spend a lot of time asking that we will be held in His hands, and buoyed up in our times of trial. That we will become stronger and better as we go through the trials ahead. Because the truth of it is that it will be this, or something else. We will all face trials in our lives, I just hope that I will be able to heed Elder Wirthlin's counsel and "Come what may and love it!"