Crawling through Pages

So, this is my single adult fireside talk I gave tonight, essentially. It is actually a Reader's Digest version. (It might be helpful to read my previous post for more background on this first.) My introduction did include a few words on my background and my MS.
-------------
Let me begin by apologizing for my voice. A few months ago Bev Roberts (former Stake President's wife) asked me how I was feeling. I told her, “A lot better than I sound.” She answered, “Good!” Truth is that my voice makes it sound like I’m WAY worse than I am. My voice trouble is without question my biggest MS challenge at present.
So when I was a teenager I heard the following poem called “Don’t quit”

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When funds are low and debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest! if you must; but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit;
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

I thought it was awesome so memorized it. I figured it would be handy to recall during the periods of trial and hardship that were surely ahead. Everything was great at the time: health, family, friends, finances. I envisioned difficulty learning a foreign language on my mission, perhaps some homesickness, some discouragement, I figured I would go to college and it would be hard. Long story short, in my mind I kind of envisioned the adversity I would face and I was ready for it. I had a poem!
I have to tell you, some things were not as bad as I thought, like homesickness on my mission. It wasn’t too bad. Other things were a lot worse than I had envisioned, like mission discouragement. But most things pretty well went as I planned. Work and career, hard but rewarding, church callings, same, raising children? A joy beyond description but also extremely taxing.
And then three years ago I started having issues with my central nervous system and was diagnosed with MS. I expected the trial of serious health problems in my 70s or 80s but this wasn’t right. I was only 41! The poem didn’t say anything about neurodegenerative diseases. I tried to get out of it. I mean, I understand the principle of adversity: makes you stronger, necessary part of life, etc. but I didn’t want to actually have to go through it. At least not at 41. Couldn’t we just put this on hold for 40 years? I had things to do, I am still raising my kids and providing for my family. This was a bad time for adversity.
I saw a lot of doctors and specialists, gave myself over 200 shots, have taken over 1,000 pills yet and three years later I am worse, not better. What about help from the Divine? Maybe I just needed to show a little faith. I got priesthood blessings, I prayed earnestly, I know that my family prayed too, and fasted. I will say that the blessing provided inestimable comfort, and I have felt blessed through the fasts, but for some reason, the Lord’s hand has been stayed from granting me a full remission, so far.
But enough about me. What about you? I am certain that everyone here has their share of adversity. How are you dealing with yours? I want you to think about your biggest problem or two. Will they go away? Probably not. Will they get smaller? Maybe, I don’t know, but I will remind you that without them life would be meaningless. But maybe you REALLY don’t like your challenges. I get that. I hate mine but that’s kind of the nature of adversity.
Why doesn’t the Lord just help us out? Does he have the power? Sure, but will he? Is that how he works? The scriptures are filled with stories of people with problems, good and faithful people. For example, the people of Alma suffered under the hand of their enemies. The Lord didn’t just kill off their oppressors, but he did not forget his faithful people either. Listen to what he did:

5 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

It has been said that we will each have our personal Gethsemane. I don’t know about that – I don’t know if it is fair to compare our trials to the great and infinite atonement- and that makes it sound like there is just one. I do believe that everyone will have adversity in many forms. Maybe it is health, maybe financial, maybe a crisis of faith or testimony, maybe romance adversity, maybe the loss of a loved one. I do not believe that life is supposed to be limited to one major chunk of adversity; one defining day but rather a lifetime of challenges, both great and small.
Our challenges are real, but I think it helps to put them in their proper perspective. Imagine sitting at a ward social in the Celestial Kingdom, sharing a big round table with a handcart pioneer and Abinadi. The first person explains how they had to bury their child in a shallow grave along the trail and then Abinadi tells the story of how he had to preach in disguise and was later put to death by fire. Then they look at me and ask,

“So, what is your story? What did you have to overcome?”

What will I say?

“My voice was real weak. Crazy weak. AND then I had to give this fireside! Hey Abinadi, can you pass the water?”

I don’t mean to trivialize our adversities, my adversity. It is hard. But only compared to my life before MS, not compared to the history of mankind. If you ever start feeling that your trials are too much, the scriptures are filled with stories of men and women who had it way worse than you and me.
I have kept a pretty good journal for 30 years. The other day I was reading one from 1999. It's funny what I worried about back then. Sometimes I wish I could crawl through the pages and say, “Dave, don’t fret so much about work, it’ll be fine.”
I recently read The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. She was a Dutch woman, a devout Christian, in her 40s during World War 2, working in “the underground” to protect (and hide) Jews from the Germans. In early 1944 she was arrested and imprisoned in Holland and later transferred to a horrible German concentration camp. Her father, sister, and nephew all died in prison. As I read the book, I couldn’t help but feel the same desire to crawl through the pages and through time and tell her, “Don’t worry Corrie, the allies are coming. The war is almost over!”
Although she provides graphic detail, I cannot really understand the horror because I know how it ends. I have hindsight now, perspective. I know that the good guys will win the war, fascism will be stamped out, and Corrie Ten Boom will live into her 90s tirelessly preaching of Jesus Christ and the Bible. Hang in there Corrie, the allies are coming! But when she was suffering this adversity, I’m convinced that part of the trial is not knowing. We can’t know.
Think of the prophet Joseph in Liberty jail. I’m sure that he did not anticipate the adversity he suffered there, and with hindsight I don’t think we can fully comprehend his suffering. This was bad: the Saints were being chased from their homes in Far West, some had been killed, friends were turning on him, the physical privations were severe. He felt forsaken. He cried out, “Oh God. Where art Thou?”
If he had known it was just going to be five months, a pretty rough five months, but then he’d be freed, this experience will make for some great sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, he’d move the saints to Illinois, build Nauvoo, and the Church would flourish. If he could have known that, I think it would have been more tolerable. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. That’s the nature of adversity:

• you don’t always see it coming,
• it can be worse than you expected, and
• you can’t know how long it is going to last.

Are you struggling through some adversity that meets those criteria? You didn’t expect it, it is harder than you thought anything would be, and there is no definite end in sight? Who from the future is trying to crawl through your pages and tell you, “It’s OK, just hang on, just a little while longer, the allies are coming, relief is almost there, everything will be fine.”
Listen to what the Lord told Joseph while he was incarcerated in Liberty:

7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
9 Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands.

So although we don’t get to know the specifics of the future of the resolution of our issues, we are not left without comfort. In the last General Conference, Elder Holland spoke on the atonement, and how the Savior had to suffer alone, and how being without comfort or support from anyone, either on Earth or in heaven, was somehow part of that infinite atoning process. However, he counseled that we do not have to wade through adversity alone. I know that I have not been alone for a moment of my little health challenge. I’m actually kind of embarrassed by the amount of love and support I have received from family and friends.
It is my hope that we can each “endure it well” and learn to appreciate the adversity in our lives and trust that it will be for our good someday.