BYU devotional: 'Grow toward Christ'
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How individuals choose to react to difficult circumstances makes all the difference, Barbara Heise said during the campus devotional held in BYU's Marriott Center on Tuesday, March 2. Individuals are the masters of their own choices, she said.
"My intent is not to minimize the tribulations that we go through," said Sister Heise, BYU faculty member for the College of Nursing. "Our trials are exquisitely powerful, and painful in so many ways, and very genuine. But the right to choose how we will respond to that adversity is totally ours."
A nurse by profession, Sister Heise spoke of the opportunities she has had to see many individuals and families ask "Why?" during difficult times. Rather than asking why, Sister Heise said to ask 'Why not [me]?'
"The Lord loves you and you have the potential to be stronger and more useful in His service," she said. "Or, you can choose to let this trial drive a wedge between you and the Savior, exactly what Satan hopes for."
Sharing personal experiences, Sister Heise spoke of the hurt she experienced from losing a child and spouse. But, regardless of what trial comes, one can choose to use it as a learning experience, rather than a destroyer of faith.
"When challenges come, and come they must because that is why we are here, we choose how we will react," she said. "Will we grow toward Christ and our eternal home or not?"
Sister Heise spoke of hard situations — being hurt, offended, angry, or when confronted with others' abuse, unfaithfulness, illness, addictions, suicide and death — and the reactions individuals involved have had to those difficult situations. Some choose to be discouraged and fall away, while others, when faced with the same trials, choose to allow the trial to stretch them as they allow the Savior to carry them through the trial.
"Through all of these times I have noticed that as individuals struggled with whatever was facing them, that if they turned to Jesus Christ and trusted in Him, they were successful in finding the Savior, finding peace and finding their way," she said. "The outcome may not have been always what they wanted, but one thing was certain; they grew stronger, more loving, more trusting, more obedient and filled with faith; they moved closer to the Savior."
But not everyone who has trials seeks for the positive aspects of that learning, Sister Heise said.
"Sometimes we don't make such great choices," she said. "The Lord loves us so much that we can, through applying the power of the Atonement, repent. Accessing the Atonement on a daily basis even a minute-to-minute basis is sometimes necessary. We don't have to be perfect; after all we can do, the Savior does the rest."
As individuals choose to repent they choose to be changed, to be spiritually stronger and to come closer to the Savior, Sister Heise said. Although repentance doesn't change the consequences of a choice, it does point individuals in the direction of the Savior again.
"Yes these are difficult times we live in. Yes, we will have struggles to wade through," she said. "But … we are not alone if we choose not to be. The Savior will always be reaching out to us to lift us up."
