You can stand under my umbrella

I Spoke in Sacrament meeting Sunday.

I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO SPEAK ABOUT A GROUP OF IMPORTANT
BLESSINGS THAT OFTEN ARE NOT APPRECIATED OR EVEN PARTICULARLY WELCOMED-THESE ARE OUR TRIALS AND ADVERSITIES. IN PARTICULAR REMAINING FAITHFUL IN TIMES OF ADVERSITY.
In addressing the topic of remaining faithful in times of adversity I want to try to address a couple of different aspects of this topic.
First, the WHY question – why do we have trials and adversities. The second is if we understand the WHY, will it make any difference.
And finally, the HOW. When faced with adversity HOW do we remain faithful.

First – the WHY. Why do we have adversity? Why do we have trials and why are they so painfully and discouragingly hard? Elder Faust in a Conference talk just before his death posed following questions:

Why was I born with physical or mental limitations?
What did I do to deserve this heartache?
Why hasn't the Lord answered our prayers the way we wished?
[Why do] people who have done some very bad things, . . . seem to have everything they want or need?

After posing these questions Elder Faust then answered these questions by quoting Dr. Arthur Wentworth Hewitt, who said,
“First: I don't know.
Second: We may not be as innocent as we think.
Third: . . . I believe it is because [The Lord] . . . loves us so much more than He loves our happiness” (“Where Do I Stand,” 174 General Conference).

The first observation if that while the reasons for our adversities may not be immediately known or discoverable, this life is nonetheless full of them both great and small.
None of us are exempt, and none of us will be blessed with too few.
For example, consider the chilling but prophetic words found inscribed on the crypt of the infamous Black Knight entombed in Westminster Abby in London. It speaks of the certainty of pain and loss in this life.
It reads “As you are, I once was, As I am, you will be.”
If you were my seminary students I would ask, 'Is this true?
Of course not, we are destined to be Sons and Daughters of our Heavenly Father. We know that our Heavenly Father as offered to us all that he has.
This is our perspective when considering our trials and afflictions.

Let me state the obvious. In our lives......
*Everyone at some time will be separated from their loved ones, i.e., separated from mother, father, husband, wife, children or friends, by death – either ours or theirs;
*Everyone of us and all of our loved ones will suffer life ending injuries or disease;
*Everyone will suffer disappointment because of poor choices of our own making or the choices of loved ones;
*And finally, at some point in our lives, all of us will be faced with the deep loneliness that comes because of separation from loved ones.

Through these observations, I am not trying to be unduly negative. It's just that an essential element of this life is that regardless of how good we are or how hard we try to do the right things there will be trials, and they will be very, very difficult.
The other obvious observation that I can make is that the effect that these trials have on us is exactly, exactly what our Heavenly Father wants.
For example, we know from the Book of Mormon that through adversities our Father in Heaven wants us to know opposition in all things. In 2 Nephi 2:15 we read: “it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.” When you have a minute go back and reflect on this scripture and notice as between the “forbidden fruit” and the “tree of life” which is sweet and which is bitter. While the fruit of the tree of life is described by Adam and Eve as “most precious and desirable” (1 Nephi 15:36) it is not described as “sweet.”

The scriptures also teach us that the Lord wants a people “tried in all things” (Doctrine and Covenants 136:31), how specifically will we be tried? He tells us, “Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith” (Mosiah 23:21). Some of us, Elder Neal A. Maxwell, has said will have “trials to pass through, while still others have allotments they are to live with. Paul, the great apostle, for example, lived with his ‘thorn in the flesh’
(2 Corinthians 12:7)”
8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am cweak, then am I strong.
Ether 12:
27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I bgive unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my cgrace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

Elder Maxwell goes on to explain that mortality presents us with numerous opportunities to cope with those of life's challenges which are ‘common to man[kind]’ (1 Corinthians 10:13). In addition, there are also our customized trials such as experiencing illness, . . ., persecution, betrayal, irony, poverty, false witness, [and] unreciprocated love, . . . . If endured well, ‘all these things’ can be for our good and can ‘greatly enlarge the soul,’ by excavating the soul we are promised an enlarged capacity for joy (Doctrine and Covenants 122:7; 121:42).
Important in all of this is that our Heavenly Father knows what he want for us and from us ….
and the trials we are given are intended to create the kind of person that the Lord expects us to be.
It is the fact that he knows us and sees us that makes our trials – while not any more understandable – maybe more acceptable.
We know from modern revelation that our Heavenly Father knows the beginning from the end (3 Nephi 9:18, Doctrine and Covenants 35:1) –he knows how everything turns out, how we turn out.
Since he already knows how all of this turns out why do we have to go through this?
Adversities and trials tend to reveal who we are and they reveal the import of what the Lord wants of us and for us.
Peter said“the trial of [our] faith . . . [is] much more precious than gold . . ” (1 Peter 1:7)
In coming to know ourselves: our trials are the best teachers, since such learning is very, very personal.
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes for us the challenging nature of personal growth. He begins in verse 11 by saying:
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Then in the all important and often quoted verse 12 he explains:
For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
To better understand this important scripture, lets go through it line by line and reflect on it a little more carefully.
We know that we are here to grow and to experience all of the joys and pains of growth.
This applies to both our physical and spiritual growth. As verse 11 indicates we move from being a child to an adult and in doing so we put off certain childish things –
Sometimes this is not easy maybe even painful,
But we know that it is absolutely necessary.
Verse 12 is often quoted but IS NOT well understood. Again it begins: “For now we see through a glass darkly.”
Strangely this is usually all of this verse that is quoted and the rest is left out. This part of the scripture is usually interpreted as an observation concerning the great difficulty we have seeing or understanding the world around us thus leaving us to blunder and grope through the darkness.
While this may certainly be true, I don’t think that this is what this scripture is talking about.
In this scripture it is important to understand what the “we” are looking at. The scripture says that “For now we see through a glass darkly.” What is a glass? Since the King James version of the Bible draws from 16th Century English, think of how the word glass is used in English stories such as “Alice through the looking Glass.”
A glass in this instance is not a window with the implication that we are looking out on the world – but it is a mirror. WE ARE LOOKING AT OURSELVES AND IT IS US WE ARE TRYING TO 'KNOW'
With that understanding let’s look at the rest of verse 12. Paul goes on to describe more about coming to know ourselves when he says“but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as I am known.”
We are known by our Heavenly Father. Our challenge IS to see us as our Heavenly Father knows us. I think that's what Paul is talking about. To recognize who we really are. Paul tells us this takes time and experience.
But we can be assured that Heavenly Father has his eye on us. He knows us and he knows us perfectly. And we are promised that we will come to know ourselves, see ourselves, as our Heavenly Father knows and sees us.
To know that we are known and known perfectly is so important when we are faced with difficult trials.

To help understand a little better the importance of having a creator who clearly sees and knows our trials let me give you an example that I find helpful.
Michelangelo was once asked how he sculptured his amazing statuary. He responded provocatively by saying......
“I see the angel in the marble and carve until I have set it free”
I think that is a very interesting statement regarding his creative process.
To free the angel from the marble the sculptor must clearly see what the material contains.
Vision therefore is the starting point of the creative process.

I am sure that you can follow THIS ANALOGY. We are beautiful even exquisite material from which the Lord has a plan to make us into something.
In our case we even know what we are to be – beautiful sons and daughters full of perfection.
SOMETIMES OUR PATRIARCHAL BLESSINGS CAN GIVE US A HINT.
BUT IT CAN BE DIFFICULT TO have a clear view of what the end result is to look like and …....
we do not always appreciate how difficult and painful the process of freeing the angel really is.

Joseph Smith described his refining process a little differently, he said:
I am like a huge, rough stone . . . and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force. . . . Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 304).

'Striking with accelerated force' I think beautifully describes this process.

Elder Hugh B. Brown reports the following personal story that illustrates the point I am trying to make. He states:
I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a berry bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no berries.
I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before I went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that berry bush. So I got some pruning shears and clipped it back until there was nothing left but stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the berry bush was crying. I looked at it and smiled and said,
“What are you crying about?”
You know, I thought I heard that berry bush say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me because I am not as big as they. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”
That’s what he thought he heard the berry bush say, and he thought it so much that he answered.
He said, “Look, berry bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a berry bush, and someday, little berry bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.”
JUST LAST WEEK WE CONSIDERED THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. REMEMBER, HE FIRST APPEARED TO MARY AND MARY THOUGHT HE WAS WHAT? SHE THOUGHT HE WAS THE GARDENER.
MORE IRONY IN THE LIFE OF THE SAVIOR. EVEN AFTER HIS RESURRECTION.
For Jesus, REMEMBER, irony began at His birth. Truly, He suffered the will of the Father “in all things from the beginning.” (3 Ne. 11:11.) This whole earth became Jesus’ footstool (see Acts 7:49), but at Bethlehem there was “no room … in the inn” (Luke 2:7) and “no crib for his bed”
As the Creator, Christ constructed the universe, yet in little Galilee He was known merely as “the carpenter’s son.”
Christ was keenly aware of this constant irony: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”
YET THIS WAS A DIFFERENT KIND OF IRONY. ALMOST A REVERSE IRONY. FOR ISN'T JESUS 'THE GARDENER.' IN NO LESS THAN 9 OF HIS PARABLES HE PORTRAYED HIMSELF AS THE 'GARDENER.'

THE SOWER AND THE SOILS
THE SEED GROWING BY ITSELF
THE WHEAT AND THE TARES
THE BARREN FIG TREE
THE LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD
THE WICKED HUSBANDMAN
THE FIG TREE
ALSO IN ISAIAH'S SONG OF THE VINEYARD

AND IN THE BOOK OF MORMON. JACOB QUOTES ZENOS' ALLEGORY OF THE OLIVE TREE
Jacob 5:4 And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive-tree began to decay; and he said: I will prune it, and dig about it, and NOURISH it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, and it perish not.

As to the pain inherent in this cutting, sculpturing, and polishing process Elder Maxwell has given us a great perspective. He said:
In those moments when we feel the pain which is a necessary part of the plan of happiness, we can remember that there was an ancient time when that plan was first unveiled. Then the perceptive among us voted not secretly, but audibly – by shouting for joy! Let us not go back on those feelings now – for we saw more clearly then what we are experiencing now!

IT WAS WAS EXPLAINED TO US FROM THE BEGINNING:
The Lord makes no secret that He will test our faith and our obedience. “We will prove them herewith,” He said, “to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.”

O.K., so adversity and pain are part of a very important and personal plan. Does knowing and understanding that really help? I THINK it does.
This is what life is about – and we don’t get out of life without living it.

Now to the final question, HOW do we remain faithful when faced with adversity. If we understand that our Heaven Father has a plan for us and we know and believe that he “will support us in our trials . . . troubles . . . and afflictions. . .” (Alma 36:3) – what does he give to help us?

FIRST I WANT TO SHARE ANOTHER OBSERVATION.
In her book called Adversity, Elaine Cannon shares this valuable example:
“An old cowboy said he had learned life’s most important lessons from Hereford cows. All his life he had worked cattle ranches where winter storms took a heavy toll among the herds. Freezing rains whipped across the prairies. Howling, bitter winds piled snow into enormous drifts. Temperatures might drop quickly to below zero degrees. Flying ice cut into the flesh. In this maelstrom of nature’s violence most cattle would turn their backs to the ice blasts and slowly drift downwind, mile upon mile. Finally, intercepted by a boundary fence, they would pile up against the barrier and die by the scores.
“But the Herefords acted differently. Cattle of this breed would instinctively head into the windward end of the range. There they would stand shoulder-to-shoulder facing the storm’s blast, heads down against its onslaught.
“ ‘You always found the Herefords alive and well,’ said the cowboy. ‘I guess it’s the greatest lesson I ever learned on the prairies—just face life’s storms’ ” (Adversity [1987], 133–34).
Similarly, if we face up to our individual adversities or hardships, they can become a source of blessing. God will not give us adversities we cannot handle, and he will bless us richly for patiently doing the best we can in the circumstances.'

REGARDLESS OF THE REASON FOR OUR TRIALS AND ADVERSITY THE LORD IS ABSOLUTELY CLEAR WITH WHAT HE WANTS US TO DO.
Matt. 11: 28 ¶ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
WHEN TRIALS AND ADVERSITY COME THE LORD HAS ASKED US TO BRING THEM TO HIM.
We tend to think the atonement is only for sinners.
2NEPHI 9: 21 And he cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the bpains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam.
Again Elder Maxwell:
SINCE NOT ALL HUMAN AND PAIN IS CONNECTED TO SIN, THE FULL INTENSIVENESS OF THE ATONEMENT INCLUDED BEARING OUR PAINS, INFIRMITIES AND SICKENESSES, AS WELL AS OUR SINS.
THIS MAKES ME RECALL ELDER MAXWELL'S PHRASE ABOUT ' THE AWFUL ARITHMETIC OF THE ATONEMENT'

GORDON B. HINCKLEY
Yet while there may be … heartache, even heartbreak, there can be peace and comfort and strength from the Lord for those who follow Him. …
The Lord [has promised]: “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up” (D&C 84:88). …
May we go forward with our righteous convictions. May we walk in truth and in faith and in love. For if we do so, we will be upheld and strengthened by the Lord.'

JEFFREY HOLLAND IN AN ARTICLE IN THE NEW ERA ENTITLED “FOR TIMES OF TROUBLE”
“In the gospel of Jesus Christ you have help from both sides of the veil and you must never forget that. When disappointment and discouragement strike—and they will—you remember and never forget that if our eyes could be opened we would see horses and chariots of fire as far as the eye can see riding at reckless speed to come to our protection. They will always be there, these armies of heaven, in defense of Abraham’s seed.

JAMES E. FAUST
I would like to say a word about the ministering of angels. In ancient and modern times angels have appeared and given instruction, warnings, and direction, which benefited the people they visited. We do not consciously realize the extent to which ministering angels affect our lives. President Joseph F. Smith said, “In like manner our fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and friends who have passed away from this earth, having been faithful, and worthy to enjoy these rights and privileges, may have a mission given them to visit their relatives and friends upon the earth again, bringing from the divine Presence messages of love, of warning, or reproof and instruction, to those whom they had learned to love in the flesh.” Many of us feel that we have had this experience.

D&C 58: 3
3 Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.

IN THESE VERSES THE LORD OFFERS US PATIENCE.
D&C 78
17 Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you;
18 And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours.
19 And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.

SOME OF OUR TRIALS WILL BE OF OUR OWN MAKING. SOME WILL BE JUST PART OF LIFE. OTHERS MIGHT BE PART OF HEAVENLY FATHER'S PLAN FOR US. MAYBE SOMETHINGS WE KNEW AND AGREED TO BEFORE WE CAME TO THIS LIFE. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. THE LORD HAS INSTRUCTED US TO COME UNTO HIM. AND THEN TO FOLLOW HIM.

CONSIDER THE SACARAMENT HYMN.
COME FOLLOW ME
“Come, follow me,” the Savior said. 

Then let us in his footsteps tread,

For thus alone can we be one 

With God’s own loved, begotten Son. …

For thrones, dominions, kingdoms, pow’rs, 

And glory great and bliss are ours,

If we, throughout eternity,

Obey his words, “Come, follow me.”