No one wants an easy life more than me — sort of. That said, I hate to break the news but when every Disney movie winds down and we sentimentally sigh over the always implied promise, “and they lived happily ever after,” well, … it just ain’t true.
Truth be told, even young children deal with hard things. It may be anything from “My sister ate my Tootsie Roll” or “I scraped my knee,” to “My mommy just died of cancer,” but life includes challenges. Indeed, many wise senior folks will testify of grand, wonderful times and a goodly amount of hard stuff too.
Which brings us to miracles in disguise. To me, there are different varieties of miracles. There’s the miracle when we experience flat out, amazing instances of the Lord intervening: We unexpectedly get the job of our dreams. We’re driving and feel like we need to slow down and do, and a truck swerves across our path and misses us. We pray to remember everything we studied, we do, and we ace the test — myriad such miracles happen every second around the globe.
Then there are miracles in disguise.
Sports, specifically basketball, was my life until I tore up my knee in college. After surgery, I sat on the sidelines watching others play and knew my life was over. A few years and several surgeries later, my doctor said, “If you want to be walking around Europe in 20 years, stop running. Walk.”
I had already made changes. I hadn’t given up all sports yet, so I cut back even more. The result? I put more effort into school and came to love the “life of the mind.” I spent more time studying and reading.
Forty years on, I look back with profound gratitude on the drastically altered trajectory of my life, grateful beyond words for that blessing in disguise and a loving Heavenly Father who had other plans for me besides sports.
After our marriage, my husband and I solemnly “pinky swore” — West Coast snobs that we were — we would move to California after graduation and never, ever, return and live in Utah. After 20 glorious years in California, we knew we were to move to Utah — leaving behind cherished friends, memories and a locale I treasured above all others — and go to a place without an ocean and where it snows. When I and my mournful five children drove to our new home in Utah, I cried all the way across California, Nevada and Utah. My life was over.
Hard as that move was — and life has been far from easy in Utah — it allowed me to return to university, secure advanced degrees, teach at universities and teach abroad. I was able to attend the temple weekly. I became a temple worker. My husband, children and I made many wonderful, new friends. Experiences in Utah helped solidify my testimony of the Savior. These combined experiences I would not have had if I stayed in California. Snow and winter be gone, but I now love and call Utah home. Moving to Utah was a monumental blessing in disguise.
We will all experience a mix of happy, joyous times interwoven with tough times. Yet tough times will often prove to be blessings in disguise.
And there will be a “happy ever after” for each of us as we trust in and strive to become disciples of Jesus Christ. The Savior promised as much, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Because Jesus overcame, he can and will help us, “For I know the plans I have for you … plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV)
When we are spiritually wrecked, confused, wondering and thinking, “The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me,” we need to remember — to know — in challenging times, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, (she) may forget, yet will I (the Lord), not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:15-16).
After a litany of injustices, and months in hideous conditions in Richmond and Liberty Jail, the Savior told the Prophet Joseph Smith, “If the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good” (Doctrine and Covenants 122:7). The prophet Nephi so testified of “having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God” (1 Nephi 1:1).
Difficulties proved to be blessings in disguise. Good came out of tribulation, and as we turn to, deepen our relationship with God, “hold on (our) way … (and) fear not what man can do … God shall be with you forever and ever” (Doctrine and Covenants 122:9).
Kristine Frederickson writes on topics that affect members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worldwide. She teaches part time at BYU. Her views are her own.
Email: kfrederickson.desnews@gmail.com