Elder M. Joseph Brough, Second Counselor it the Young Men’s General Presidency said: “In 1981, my father, two close friends, and I went on an adventure in Alaska. We were to land on a remote lake and climb to some beautiful high country. In order to reduce the load we would have to personally carry, we wrapped our supplies in boxes, covered them with foam, attached large colored streamers, and threw them out the window of our bush plane at our intended destination.
After arriving, we searched and searched, but to our dismay, we could not find any of the boxes. Eventually we found one. It contained a small gas stove, a tarp, some candy, and a couple packages of Hamburger Helper—but no hamburger. We had no way to communicate with the outside world, and our scheduled pickup was a week later.
I learned two valuable lessons from this experience: One, do not throw your food out the window. Two, sometimes we have to face hard things.
Frequently, our first reaction to hard things is “Why me?” Asking why, however, never takes away the hard thing. The Lord requires that we overcome challenges, and He has indicated “that all these things shall give [us] experience, and shall be for [our] good.”1
Sometimes the Lord asks us to do a hard thing, and sometimes our challenges are created by our own or others’ use of agency. Nephi experienced both of these situations. When Lehi invited his sons to return to get the plates from Laban, he said, “Behold thy brothers murmur, saying it is a hard thing which I have required of them; but behold I have not required it of them, but it is a commandment of the Lord.”2 On another occasion, Nephi’s brothers used their agency to limit his: “They did lay their hands upon me, for behold, they were exceedingly wroth, and they did bind me with cords, for they sought to take away my life.”3
Joseph Smith confronted a hard thing in Liberty Jail. With no relief in sight and in despair, Joseph cried out, “O God, where art thou?”4 No doubt some of us have felt as Joseph did.
Everyone faces hard things: the death of a loved one, divorce, a wayward child, illness, trials of faith, a lost job, or any other difficulty.
I was forever changed upon hearing these words from Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve, spoken in the midst of his struggle with leukemia. He said, “I was doing some pensive pondering and these 13 instructive and reassuring words came into my mind: ‘I have given you leukemia that you might teach my people with authenticity.’” He then went on to express how this experience had blessed him with “perspective about the great realities of eternity. … Such glimpses of eternity can help us to travel the next 100 yards, which may be very difficult.”5 see below
To help us travel and triumph over our hard times with such glimpses of eternity, may I suggest two things. We must face hard things, first, by forgiving others and, second, by giving ourselves to Heavenly Father.
Forgiving those who may have caused our hard thing and reconciling “[our]selves to the will of God”6 can be very difficult. It can hurt most when our hard thing is caused by a family member, a close friend, or even ourselves.
~ For Elder Brough’s complete talk click: ‘Lift Up Your Head and Rejoice’
5. Neal A. Maxwell, “Revelation,” First Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting,Jan. 11, 2003, 6.
