The summer of 1994 was a great blessing for our family. We had spent a wonderful few months of just being with various family members and many special events.

All seemed well in Zion for the Burgeson family. Shortly after our return from a trip to Utah, I was driving to work when I felt a melancholy feeling come over me. I remember feeling that my life was not completely in order, that there were things that needed to be changed for me to realize my full potential.As I pulled my car over to the side of the road, tears filled my eyes, I bowed my head, and I heard myself say, "Heavenly Father, I need to change some things in my life. I am willing to undergo anything it would take, even if I were to lose my job and be released from my calling. Please show me a better way."

He did. But I learned you should be careful about what you pray for.

As usual, it didn't take long to have my prayer answered. Less than two months later, I was released as bishop after serving almost six years. One week later, I didn't have a job. I had objected to a religious slur made by a superior. I documented my feelings in a letter. As a result, after 10 years on the job, I was required to give my resignation.

My feelings of righteous indignation were soon replaced by bitterness and self-doubt. Despite mailing many resumes, I found that nobody seemed to want a high-salaried, 50-year-old purchasing executive. I couldn't even get an interview. I began to be moody and withdrawn - depressed. I wrestled with my feelings and blamed myself for everything.

Upon releasing me, the stake president had issued a call for me to serve on the high council. In setting me apart, he gave me a particularly beautiful blessing. Among many wonderful things, he blessed me that all of our temporal needs would be met.

I knew if I remained faithful to gospel principles that the Lord would bless me, and He has, many times over.

My responsibilities on the high council include acting as a temple liaison on behalf of our stake. Being unemployed allowed me to spend many days working at the Chicago Illinois Temple with a wonderful temple presidency whom I love dearly.

Being unemployed allowed me to re-tool and strengthen my relationship with my children, to spend the time with them. Despite the strain, my wife and I, already deeply in love, became almost like teenagers again. My personal prayers began to take on more meaning, and I searched the scriptures more diligently for answers in my life. The gospel and my family were seemingly all I had left.

But being unemployed was depressing. I have developed a love and compassion for our brothers and sisters who suffer this affliction in varying degrees from time to time. What a great blessing.

When Christmas 1995 came, we convened a family council. The little we had to spend on ourselves was designated to buy gifts for two "secret families" who seemed to have less. I can't properly tell you how much fun we had planning, shopping and delivering these gifts, anonymously. It was and will always be our favorite Christmas.

I am grateful the refiner's fire has not been extinguished in my life, but I now have a new and better job, a stronger, more spiritual family, and a much more humble outlook on things.

One evening, I read these words in Mosiah 24:14, "And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions." Through tears of gratitude, I thanked Him who had comforted me.