"Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many" (D&C 24:8)

I have several plants that I water and neglect, uh, I mean nourish on a regular basis. I sometimes look at them as if they were a pain, more than a pleasure because I so often forget to water them. One plant in particular though, has really grown over the past several months due to the addition of fertilizer that I have added to its regular watering. As I have added the fertilizer and watered it, it has grown so tall that it really needs a new pot. It is now strong and healthy and it gets blooms on a regular basis. It is beautiful...as long as I remember to water and nourish it. The Lord taught similar principles in the allegory of the olive tree. (It can be read here). The "master of the vineyard" cared for his vineyard by nourishing, digging, pruning, and dunging the trees. Sometimes we all need a little "dung", "nourishing", "digging", and "pruning". I liken these necessary  items to trials, burdens, suffering, and afflictions, which sometimes are heavy, stink, or hurt, but they are for our good and benefit, even though we can't see the benefits immediately. I put fertilizer on my plant and it grew and got blooms. It grew stronger and much bigger than I imagined it would. We suffer, are cut down by trials or pain, digging deep within to find solace and peace as we are "refined...in the furnace of affliction" (Isaiah 48:10).

My plant that I have added fertilizer-
note the bloom and size of the pot. 

The Lord has counselled us: "Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many; but endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days" (D&C 24:8; see also D&C 66:9; Alma 17:11). As I have endured and suffered I have wondered what is the purpose of this...why? Some days it is so difficult; and then it hit me. I was growing, and I just couldn't see it. It was like trying to watch a plant grow. The plant is growing, and if I sit and watch it, it is a terribly slow and painful process to observe. But if I water it, dung it, and let the sunlight, nutrients and plant do their individual assignments together...growth happens.

This is the same in our own lives. If we expect to see growth in a day with few struggles or challenges and no discipline, yet hope we are becoming something more or stronger than we were, then we are only exercising impatience and will experience no growth. What the Lord wants for us is more; He wants for us to grow to our full potential. In essence He is saying: "What manner of men [and women] ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am" (3 Nephi 27:27). This is His call to us to keep trying, to keep enduring in those most challenging and difficult times when it seems like there is little or no growth, but just fertilizer, mud, and painful cutting. When in reality, He is nourishing us, and shaping us because "now are we the sons [and daughters] of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2 italics mine).

When we remember that the Lord "searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts" and if we "seek Him" (1 Chronicles 28:9) then we have eyes to "see afar off" (2 Peter 1:9) because we know His vision is greater than ours and so is His timetable (D&C 64:32). It is when we keep pulling up the roots to see how our plants are growing that we begin to lose hope, for there is no growth to be made without water, nourishing, dunging, digging, and pruning. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell said: "Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing" (Patience). Therefore, we can't just sit there and wait for our plants to grow, we must keep "pressing forward" that we may partake of the fruit that is most assuredly there waiting for us (1 Nephi 8:21,24,30) and is "most sweet, above all that [we] ever before tasted" (1 Nephi 8:11).

I will be honest, I wish I could be done with some of my trials and afflictions, they aren't what I really enjoy- they are difficult and challenging (I guess that's why they are called challenges). But, through them, I do, we do, become something more: more holy, more grateful, more strengthened "to o'ercome", more filled with faith, "more Savior like Thee" (see More Holiness Give Me). When we are "patient in afflictions" we can choose to become more... more Christlike. What a blessing to be "patient in afflictions, for [we shall] have many" (D&C 24:8)  as we are digged, pruned, nourished and fertilized by One who truly loves us and knows our potential growth, "that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as He is pure" (Moroni 7:48).

This is a group of plants that I have neglected to water.  It looks so sad and droopy...I just forget to water these poor things. 

This is after it has been watered. Truly there is power and strength in water...imagine the growth if I added a little fertilizer!

Click here to view the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing a beautiful rendition of "More Holiness Give Me".

"The Lord is good to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works" (Psalms 145:9)

I am so grateful I find peace when I am so angry I could rip someone's head off...okay, not literally, by reading the scriptures. We have a child that has a mild form of autism. We just recently learned this and it has been a blessing to receive this knowledge. The scriptures helped me to have the strength and understanding that we will be able to help our son regardless of how blind others choose to remain. I know that anger isn't a way to solve a problem. It isn't the way to relieve frustration, even though it may seem to be a quick fix. Anger usually just causes more pain (and I was pretty angry at how close minded/blind people can be). I am so grateful for the example of prophets and apostles, living and from the scriptures, because they testify of Christ and teach me how to handle challenges and affliction, or perhaps just deal with my anger and therefore "...the grace of God" may be and [and is able to] abide in [me]" (see Ether 12:41).

I had never really noticed all these years that I have read The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ that Nephi, a prophet, starts by not only saying he was raised by "goodly parents", but that he had "seen many afflictions in the course of his days" (1 Nephi 1:1). Even prophets are not exempt from trials and afflictions. The last verse of that same chapter explains how Nephi sees and learns from his afflictions. He says, "I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance" (1 Nephi 1:20). Nephi doesn't say that the problems went away, but that he  focuses on the "tender mercies of the Lord". Tender mercies come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes making us "mighty even unto the power of deliverance"; other times, giving us the power to endure and to make our burdens lighter, so much so  that the Lord will "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease, and [we will] submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord" (Mosiah 24:15).

Sometimes the tender mercies lead us to deliverance by giving us the strength to endure, not necessarily taking the problem away. Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, "The Atonement ...gives us the strength to endure 'pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind,' because our Savior also took upon Him 'the pains and the sicknesses of his people' (Alma 7:11). Brothers and sisters, if your faith and prayers and the power of the priesthood do not heal you from an affliction, the power of the Atonement will surely give you the strength to bear the burden" (He Heals the Heavy Laden). Over the years I have prayed for understanding, wisdom, knowledge, guidance, help, and much more as a parent. Being able to help a child who needs some extra attention, but not knowing what we were dealing with has led to a lot of frustration and anger. As times, I thought I would have to just give up, but that isn't a good solution, nor is it an option. In the end, I have always been given the strength to endure. As parents, we need strength to endure all things because, truly, "we believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things" (Article of Faith 13). The only way to be able to endure parenting with joy, or any trial for that matter, is to rely upon the Savior.

As a mother with a child who has autism, unbeknownst to me, but I knew that something wasn't "right" with my child, I have struggled and struggled for years to "help" him. It hasn't been easy. People expect him, and I expected him, to act like my other children in various situations, and he didn't behave/respond the same, no matter how many times we asked, threatened, helped, encouraged, taught, loved, him to do differently. The tender mercies of the Lord have been with us the whole time as we have tried to guide our son. He is an incredible child of God. He is loving and kind, brilliant, and filled with joy and enthusiasm for life. The wonderful mercy that has been given us wasn't having our son changed to "normal" (whatever normal is), but having us change, and continue to be changed. We are more patient (and get to learn more patience as we help others learn to help our son), more understanding of other people and the challenges they are faced with, more forgiving. I'm not a perfect parent/person, and I continue to learn every day and pray as the Psalmst, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions" (Psalms 51:1), because boy do I make a lot of mistakes trying to help my children. And God does hear and answers my prayers. He loves His children- "The Lord is good to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works" (Psalms 145:9). I am so grateful for the grace of Jesus Christ. Without it, I don't know where I would be. I realized one day that I do my best as a parent and then I have to leave the rest up to Him (see 2 Nephi 25:23). That is grace in full action! What a tender mercy to give to all His children- grace.

There are times in our lives when we are like Nephi and are asked to "return to Jerusalem" (1 Nephi 3:2) even when we already left everything behind (see 1 Nephi 2:4), or so we thought. Sometimes, we have to "return" because we have more to learn, things so precious that it effects our future and the future of our children (see 1 Nephi 3:19-20). Life is guaranteed to have affliction. We are told, "Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many; but endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days" (D&C 24:8). We can be as Nephi who responded with "I will go and do" because, just as he had faith to go, we too will "know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them" (1 Nephi 3:7). The way is prepared...Jesus showed us the way, because He is "the way" (John 14:6). We can do it, even on the days that are really hard, and those days we are really angry. "His tender mercies are over all His works" (Psalms 145:9) ~this includes you and me. This I testify.