Alma 56

(October 20, 2015)

                There are certain lessons that I have come to know intellectually, but there are other lessons that I have only been able to learn through experience (often painful).  But those lessons have tended to be the most profound and meaningful ones.

                One lesson that I learned from hard experience is one that I already knew intellectually from this chapter – that God strengthens us when we do what He requires of us, so that we do not suffer more because of what happens to us.  It is an easy thing to say, and an easy thing to get your mind around, but it has taken an awful lot of suffering for me to get to the point where I truly have a testimony of this principle.

                I have seen those who have actively worked to destroy me – something that I could never have imagined happening.  I have been hurt by lies and callous actions of others in a way that I could never have imagined.  What I have learned through all of this, though, is that so long as I trust in the Lord and leave everything with Him then He always makes up the difference.  I find myself in a position objectively worse in every meaningful way from where I was, and yet far happier than I have ever been.  I know that this is only because of the Lord strengthening me such that I do not suffer more because of what others may have done.  It is such a wonderful blessing and source of comfort.