On Trials, Neal A. Maxwell

Neal A. Maxwell taught us the importance of empathy and care when we look upon the trials and struggles of another. He said,

Just as no two snowflakes are precisely alike in design, so the configuration of life’s challenges differs also. Some of our experiences are not fully shareable with others. Thus, others, try as they may, cannot fully appreciate them. They must trust us, our generalizations and testimonies concerning these experiences. A few of our experiences should not even be shared. But it is useful to ponder the past examples of our partners on the pathway.

In the midst of some of these individualized challenges, however, we may cry out on our small scale as the Savior did on the cross, or as the Prophet did in Liberty Jail. Being in agony, we will pray more earnestly, for cries of agony are not the same as cries of despair.

Our individual experiences may not always be unique, but they are always authentic. God will even take into account our perceptions of, as well as our responses to, our trials. For those of us who do not, for instance, find claustrophobia a challenge, it is difficult to measure the terror that comes to those for whom it is such a challenge. Thus, a friend may seem to struggle unnecessarily long before finally prevailing with regard to a particular principle of the gospel. But for that individual, the struggle was real enough! We need, particularly, to understand with kindness those who are asked o go out to do battle again on a familiar field—on the very battleground where they have already suffered defeat several times. Yet some of our most difficult victories will occur on new terrain—like Joseph’s in Egypt—when we do not have the equivalent of a “home court” advantage.

We must remember that, while the Lord reminded the Prophet Joseph Smith that he had not yet suffered as Job, only the Lord can compare crosses!

Neal A. Maxwell, “Taking Up the Cross”, 4 January 1976

On Maintaining Perspective, Neal A. Maxwell

This quote speaks to me regarding the Plan of Salvation and the opportunities of this life. It speaks to our opportunity to use our agency to control our own destiny. Neal A. Maxwell, while serving as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, taught:

Correct conduct under stress is more likely when one has correct expectations about life.

To err by having naive expectations concerning the purposes of life is to err everlastingly. Life is neither a pleasure palace through whose narrow portals we pass briefly, laughingly, and heedlessly before extinction, nor is life a cruel predicament in an immense and sad wasteland. It is the middle (but briefest) estate of the three estates in man’s carefully constructed continuum of experience.

One day we will understand fully how complete our commitment was in our first estate in accepting the very conditions of challenge in our second estate about which we sometimes complain in this school of stress. Our collective and personal premortal promises will then be laid clearly before us.

Further, when we are finally judged in terms of our performance in this second estate, we will see that God, indeed, is perfect in his justice and mercy. We will also see that when we fail here it will not have been because we were truly tempted above that which we were able to bear. There was always an escape hatch had we looked for it! We will also see that our lives have been fully and fairly measured. In retrospect, we will even see that our most trying years here will often have been our best years, producing large tree rings on our soul, Gethsemanes of growth! Mortality is moistened by much opportunity if our roots of resolve can but take it in.

Neal A. Maxwell, “Taking Up the Cross” 4 January 1976

Role of Women in the Church Never More Important

In preparation for Lorenzo Snow, Chapter 13 on the Relief Society, I came across this quote by Neal A. Maxwell, given while he was serving as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, 4 January 1976:

I wish to observe that the role of women in the Church has never been more important than it is now, because never has the Church been so directly important and influential to so many as it is now. While the Church will always be priesthood-led and priesthood-centered, we must not make the mistake of drawing wrong conclusions from that reality. I hope the young women of the Church will do all they can to develop their God-given talents and to stretch themselves intellectually and spiritually during their youth and young adult years, for the learning process is scaffolding for the soul….

I remember a BYU movie a few years ago in which there was a line something like this: “Some men never recover from the ignorance of their mothers.” Conversely, one cannot fully appreciate the Prophet Joseph Smith without noting the remarkable qualities of his outstanding mother, Lucy Mack Smith. We give to our children what we are. The more a mother brings to a nest, the more nutritive the nest.

It is very important that we genuinely encourage the full development of women in the Church, so that they can carry out their unique roles effectively and articulately—in the nursery and neighborhood, and in the classroom as well as in cookery….

I hope that our young sisters will not only acquire the vital skills of homemaking, therefore, but also that they will not neglect their natural talents in literature or language and in science, just as I hope our young men will study the facts of fatherhood, as well as physics or fine arts, and put their hands to that plow without looking back. Education involves the preparing of the person, and that is usually what matters—more than the particular calisthenics that are used.

Remember, we take our knowledge, skills, and attributes with us not only into marriage—but also into eternity. Knowledge rises with us in the resurrection, and the limitations on our luggage then will not be limitations of volume but of kind.

Neal A. Maxwell, “Taking Up the Cross” 4 January 1976.

“Sex is a River of Fire”, Will and Ariel Durant

While President of Brigham Young University, Jeffrey R. Holland shared with quote from the great historians, Will and Ariel Durant:

No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history. A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group.

Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), pp. 35–36

Video

Snake River Valley Sunset [Video]

Got the opportunity to head back up to Idaho this weekend for the Lovell Family Reunion. Not only was the company great, but the drive back to our hotel in Idaho Falls gave us this glimpse of heaven.

It reminded me of the many reasons why I love Idaho. We do hope to be able to return one day to Rexburg, the city we love so much.

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