A Theology of Suffering

Recently I discovered a discourse given over 20 years ago by a woman named Frances Bennion. Since the time I read it, I have pondered it daily. It has changed my outlook on suffering and the whole question of "why do bad things happen to good people?"

I started this blog, partly, with a mind to explore the topic of suffering, and how understanding the scriptures and the teachings of doctrine can help us through difficulty, as well as how we can have soft hearts for God to write His teachings upon them. (Hence, the Tables of the Heart moniker.)

Here is the link to the entire discourse. It is long. But it absolutely blew my mind, and I invite anyone who is suffering, has suffered, or anticipates future suffering to give it a look.

I'll include one quote (of many) that I found thought-provoking:

"One of my prayers to my Father is that my children will be healed of my ignorance and will not bear forever the difficulties caused by things I have mistakenly done or not done as a parent. As I think of the atonement of Christ, it seems to me that if our sins are to be forgiven, the results of them must be erased. If my mistakes are to be forgiven, other persons must be healed from any effects of them. In the same way, if other persons are to be released by the atonement, then we must be healed from their mistakes. I think that is an essential part of understanding God’s gift: He did not make a plan whereby we simply prove ourselves already right or wrong. Rather, we must make sense of the fact that who we are and who we become is not wholly dependent on where we are now, and on never having made a mistake. Christ’s atonement makes it possible for us to go through the meeting of reality, the falling, the hungering, the screaming, the crawling on the floor, the being disfigured and scarred for life psychologically or physically, and still survive and transcend it. If that were not true, then our whole universe would have no meaning."

Hard Times and Healing and Being Grateful For Trials

Sometimes we have a season of testing. I took a notable long break from adding to this blog while I went through the fires of testing during the balance of 2016. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only soul who found last year to be particularly trying.


However, throughout all the months of struggle, which initially left me feeling wounded and weak, I was able to turn to the One Source of healing: our Savior Jesus Christ. I have learned in my extremity about His immense power to heal and to make us whole.


Often, I have heard people tell me to be grateful for trials. This idea? Pretty tough. It's even tougher when we're reminded to be not only grateful *for* the trial, but also *in* the trial. Yeah, I'm not master of that at this time. (Which likely means I need quite a lot more testing, alas. Buckling up for the ride to continue.)


I have, for certain, however, become grateful for the growth that has come out of the harrowing up of my soul.


When I was a kid, I lived on a farm in Idaho. There were a lot of farm implements my dad pulled behind his John Deere tractor--balers, swathers, discs, and the scariest one: the harrow. Another name for it was "the ripper." It had a long line of curved blades on it, each tipped with an arrow shaped knife. The blades lowered into the soil, and then the tractor dragged it across the packed ground, making the area ready to plant.


When the scriptures say stuff with the term "harrow" it's often in terms of "harrowed up my soul." I'd always just thought of that in terms of pain. Ripped up my soul. Ouch, right? Just left me in a pile of tumbled dirt clods. Clumps. Messy. But I never really considered that as a situation that prepared the soul for planting of good seeds, a necessary step in the long process of the harvest of our souls, making us fruitful.


I love the Lord for His long-term plan for me and for each of us. I'm glad He lets me be a work in progress.

Spritual Cure-All (Part 1)

I've had a rip-roarer of a summer. Lots of ups and downs and busy times. Mostly quite a bit of stress based on The Unknown. Isn't the unknown the worst kind of stress sometimes? I once read a quote:

"There is no pain so exquisite as the agony of suspense." --- Joseph Smith

So, this past week, just as things seemed to really pile up (including, but not limited to, learning of the failure of a marriage of someone very close, a health crisis for one of my children, and having to be the one to choose to put down our cute little doggy due to the ravages of cancer) I was getting pretty overwhelmed by it all.


It wasn't exactly a "Why me?" It was more a "Woe is me," putting my head in my hands and slowly shaking it back and forth. Isn't life like that often? When it rains it pours? Or we have periods of time when all these hard things happen seemingly at once?


Well, I was trying like crazy to keep this all in perspective, and to not let myself wallow. But it was kind of hard. I thought maybe if I did one of those psychology things where you write down all your things and then tear them up and throw them in the trash I'd get over it. However, I instead found I liked looking at my list of challenges and thinking about how tough things were. I stuck that list in the back of my scriptures and glanced at it in the mornings and took comfort in the idea that I was being tested. Warped, right?


So, that approach? Not helpful.


As I was studying the scriptures, I realized I'd been taught many times over the years in lessons, talks, and by the hymns, that gratitude might help me. There's the old standby

When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed

When you are discouraged thinking all is lost

Count your many blessings

Sigh. I decided I'd try it. I'd done it before. Not lately... but it had actually worked in the past.


So I looked up "thank" in the topical guide of the scriptures, and I found this.

2 Nephi 9:52

52 Behold, my beloved brethren, remember the words of your God; pray unto him continually by day, and give thanks unto his holy name by night. Let your hearts rejoice.

Several things hit me. I had been praying continually by day, through all these trials, but I hadn't been doing step two and three. I hadn't been as thankful, especially for the trials, as I should be, each night as I prayed. And I definitely hadn't heeded the counsel to LET my heart rejoice.


So, I decided I'd pull out my Wallow List from the back of my scriptures. It was about fifteen items long, all the heavy things I'd been facing for the past few months. Several of them had already worked themselves out. Well, God had worked them out.


An illness? Healed. And a greater appreciation of my general good health was gained. Losing the dog? Hard to see a good side to that, but the kids did gain an appreciation for the sacredness of life of all God's creatures. That was a good thing. My child's terrifying health challenge? Tests came back positive, and treatment is simple and not merely inexpensive--free. Wondrous!

And like this, I went down my list, taking note of how the Lord had supported me in my trials, and starting to be more thankful, and actually LETTING my heart rejoice.

And in no time, I found I had much to rejoice about. God has really blessed me, protected me, comforted me, in all these difficult things.


I realize that I'd often just brushed off the blessings of a relief of one trial with the whiny answer, "But I still have this one."


Yes, I am still in the midst of some difficult things. The "agony of suspense" remains.


But despite the struggle, I can still find the cure to it by gratitude. I really believe it might be the great cure to most ills.


God is good. His teaching bring peace.

Why God Will ALWAYS Give Us More Than We Can Handle -- According to a 16 Year Old

I love my current assignment in church. I get to work with the young women, and they are a constant source of entertainment, information, and inspiration. Okay, and quite often stress, let's be honest. But I'm focusing on the awesomeness--because there's really a lot of that. Especially what happened on Sunday.


So. On Sunday we were having a lesson on patience during our class. And this new girl, who is a super attractive 16 year old who maybe if you saw her you'd think she didn't have a care in the world. (Which is what we do as humans. Especially female humans. We think attractive people have no problems.)


But she said, "I've had hard things in my life. But the thing I hate is when someone says, 'God will never give you more than you can handle. Because that is just untrue. Completely wrong.'"


And in my head I'm thinking of the scripture in Timothy that says we will never be tempted beyond what we can bear and thinking that in my mind maybe I often confuse those two concepts. Tempted beyond what we can handle isn't the same as tried beyond what we can handle.


So, Miss Gorgeous went on. "Of course God gives us more than we can handle. If we never got more than we could handle, we'd never grow. We'd just get stuff we could handle and move on. No biggie. The thing to remember is that He will never give us more than HE can handle. And then we depend on Him to carry us through it, and then, with His help, we can handle it."


I love that.
So true.


From the mouths of hot babes.

She's Hatin' It -- Dealing With a Bad Day

I've been remembering a bunch of lingo from days gone by lately. Cool beans, anyone?


I went to see a young woman I know, and her boyfriend was there. Both of them were having a bad day. He was describing some of the people he'd run into during his last job (sales) as "buttmunchers." It wasn't a word I really ever used, but it took me back.


Then I started thinking about the term "hating it"-- or as we pronounced it, "hatin' it." My friend's boyfriend was, as we said in the '80s and '90s, "hatin' it." Lost his job, was getting kicked out of his house, had not a dollar to his name, couldn't find another job, needed cash to get to a city 1000 miles away to his only kind family member. Hatin' it.


That term floated around a lot. Something bad would happen to someone and we'd be discussing it and almost inevitably the word would come up. "Oh, man. She was doing a triple flip off the diving board and belly flopped. Man, she was hatin' it." Or, "Dude dropped all his classes and then found out he wasn't going to be able to go on the trip after all. Now he's hatin' it."


Any bad situation could be described as hating it.


Sometimes I end up having a bad day. Like, for instance, today. Not that I've attempted any triple flips or enrolled in college or even planned a failed trip. However, things have just been tough to take today. (And I am not sure if that's because things were actually hard, or if it's attributable to that old problem of "that which we don't persist in doing becomes more difficult to do, not because the nature of the thing itself has changed, but because our ability to do has decreased." Okay, that was warped--but I think it might describe my state of being.)


Anyway, the old term came up. I was hatin' it.


Then a scripture from the New Testament came to mind:

John 12:25

25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.


I think most of the time, I'm living a very blessed life. I know that is so. And it's because I've been lifted up by the arms of giants -- my parents and grandparents and ancestors and other people of great faith. Teachers, relatives, kind friends, my dear husband. I know that the blessings I enjoy are not of my own making. Sure, I have tried to be appreciative of the blessings I've been given by not squandering them for the most part, but it's clearly not a case of being a self-made woman. Most of the time I'm loving my life. (See above.)


However, I do know people who are hating it. Trials given to good people. Lack of opportunities or support through which others must muddle.Those who don't have a spiritual grounding to give them stability and strength, which alone would make anyone so they were hating it.


But then, like Savior taught, the good news is this: hating it can be a good thing. It's something the Lord uses to our advantage. Those of us who live a good life most of the time may not have the opportunities to learn to lean on the Lord, may not grow in faith. The hating it portions of life are the times when the mettle is tested.


And we all end up hating it sooner or later. The Lord has customized trials for each of us.


Like I have said before, writing fiction has taught me a lot of things, and one of them is about how conflict (in fiction or in life) reveals character. Probably a day like today, where a few minor things weren't going my way, revealed that my inner character is a big, fat whiner in need of greater faith. What I need to remember is that the Lord is playing "the long game" with my soul, and I need to look farther down the line.


Another idea has hit me lately, and that is when we are in the thick of things and everything looks horrible and like it's "total wackness" (another '90s saying that I obviously didn't say much because I sound stupid even typing it), that what we need to do is remember that this moment is nothing but what I call "a snapshot in time."


We can't judge things based on the moment. What may seem like a tragedy right this minute could be a completely different situation in a few days, weeks, or even years. A couple of months ago, I was really down about a situation with some loved ones that had seemed impossibly bad for about five years. Then, within a few days, I heard news that showed that things had turned around drastically for all of these dear ones.


My despair had been based on a snapshot in time.


Things get better. Things won't always be bleak. If you're "hating it" right now, there is a good time coming. We have to hold on. And in the meantime, latch onto the idea of the long game. God is playing the long game with our lives. He lets us hate our lives so he can make us into something beautiful. And even though there are some lives that seem like unmitigated sorrow (we've all known situations like this), we must latch onto another idea--that those who hate their lives in this world will be blessed with eternal life. God will not let the downtrodden go unrewarded. He notices. He cares. He will bless those who suffer. He chastens those who He loves. (Us. All of us.)

Why Bad Things Happen To Good People -- A Bible Answer

Maybe it's only me, but it seems like life goes in waves sometimes. There are peaks and valleys, times of ease and times of trial. Right now in the lives of many people I love and care about, it seems like waves of trial. A loss of a job -- complicated by a dire illness in the family, a child stricken with disease, a wayward loved one making destructive choices, financial crises, marriages in trouble, health struggles, and so on. I have mourned with them, and wondered why these good people are going through so much difficulty.


But that is the age-old question: Why should good people have to suffer bad things?


We've heard it a hundred times. Shouldn't the righteous be blessed and the wicked punished? And yet it doesn't seem to work that way. Sometimes the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous struggle. How could a just God allow that to happen? Those who are following Him, doing their best, still end up with trials--some of them simply huge.


Some people say the scriptures don't address this, and yet, the words of Christ teach us this is going to happen-- and why. Granted, it's in the Gospel of John, and the words in that book are somewhat poetic, and maybe a little harder to grasp the meaning, at least for me, but here's the passage I'm thinking of.


John 15:1-8
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.


The first part means, since these are the words of Christ, He is the "true vine," the thing from which we all grow from and find nourishment in. The second part means the Father is the one in charge of the whole vineyard. He decides how to take care of all the grapevines and then is the one that keeps the fruit at the end. Christ always gives the glory to His Father.


2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.


We're the branches on the vine. When we don't bear fruit, the Husbandman takes them away. I think that means the Father doesn't let those people have His Spirit with them.


When, however, we do bear fruit, he "purges" us. The footnote for the word "purgeth" says it comes from a Greek word meaning "try, test, prove."


My husband is a backyard farmer and has been taking good care of our grapevines this year.  We've gone a few years with only tiny, sour grapes--too many bunches of them, all basically inedible. This year, though, he got rid of the fruitless branches so they wouldn't suck up all the soil's nutrients. And he went through and cut back the good branches so we'd get more grapes. We're having a good crop of sweet grapes this year because of his work.


The Lord has to cut us back. He has to purge us, prune us. This scripture says the Husbandman gives us trials, for His purpose, and that He wants the branches to bring forth fruit.


I guess there are ways we, too, can cut back in our lives. We can get rid of the things that are sucking the nutrients we need. Time wasters, friends who keep us from doing what we know we should. (Sometimes friends can be clutter.) Bad habits. That's a tangent, but I could benefit from a pruning I give myself and my time for sure.


There are more verses about this and then verse 8 says this:


8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.


That is the Father's glory. I know the greatest feelings I glory in are the successes and growth of my children. I sense that is a tiny taste of how our Father feels about us and our growth.


And it is what makes us Christ's disciples.


As I pray for my friends and family members in their times of need, I think of the times of trial I've faced as well. I know there are waves of trial coming my way too, and I hope I can follow the examples of faith of these dear ones. These good people are clinging to the True Vine, the Savior, and He is nourishing them as they go. I'm struck by my friends' faith. It is giving them strength to endure, and I'm inspired by their love for God, and God's love for them.


It's interesting that the verses that follow this passage I've just noted are all about love. God's love is evident in the way he purges us. He wants to make us disciples of Christ, and to glory in us, His children.


And so maybe the bad things happening to good people are actually just "proof" (since the word purge means to prove) that we belong to the True Vine and that we allow the Husbandman to work in our lives. Because He loves us and wants to make us His.