Tragedy, loss, and hurt often arrive unanticipated. How we react when we are surprised will tell our families whether what we have taught and testified lies deep in our hearts.
Interpretation
Our reactions to unexpected hardships reveal our true values and teachings.
This quote emphasizes that during times of tragedy and loss, our immediate reactions are crucial indicators of the principles and values we genuinely hold. It suggests that the way we respond to unexpected challenges showcases the depth of the wisdom and teachings we've internalized, influencing not only ourselves but also setting an example for our families.
In practice
In a memorial speech, discussing how we cope with loss can draw on this quote.
My point is to urge you to find ways to recognize and remember Godβs kindness. It will build our testimonies. You may not keep a journal. You may not share whatever record you keep with those you love and serve. But you and they will be blessed as you remember what the Lord has done.
Increased spiritual strength is a gift from God which He can give when we push in His service to our limits. Through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, our natures can be changed. Then our power to carry burdens can be increased more than enough to compensate for the increased service we will be asked to give.
Whether or not you choose to keep your covenant to always remember Him, He always remembers you.
What all of us long for in our hearts, at Christmastime and always, is to feel bound together in love with the sweet assurance that it can last forever.
We cannot control what others choose to do, and so we cannot force our children to heaven, but we can determine what we will do. And we can decide that we will do all we can to bring down the powers of heaven into that family we want so much to have forever.
It is serving God and others persistently with full heart and soul that turns testimony of truth into unbreakable spiritual strength.
Stories are medicine. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything - we need only listen.
From a very young age, my parents taught me the most important lesson of my whole life: They taught me how to listen. They taught me how to listen to everybody before I made up my own mind. When you listen, you learn. You absorb like a sponge - and your life becomes so much better than when you are just trying to be listened to all the time.
Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.
It's hard to practice compassion when we're struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance.
Paul Edgecomb: What do you want me to do John? I'll do it. You want me to let you walk out of here and see how far you get? John Coffey: Now why would you want to do a foolish thing like that? Paul Edgecomb: When I die and I stand before God awaiting judgment and he asks me why I let one of HIS miracles die, what am I gonna say, that it was my job?
Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.
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