Perspective

Bruegel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Ah, life. What a strange, strange thing it is. In the last 10 years I have learned two things. (Well, hopefully I've learned more than two...but these are the ones I've been thinking about lately.):

1. Life (circumstance, opposition, etc.) can hit me in the face, usually unexpectedly, and sometimes it hits me so hard I fall flat on my back. I wonder, "What just happened?" and "Why me?" and feel sorry for myself.

and then

2. Someone or something comes along and gives me a magical thing: perspective. It, too, feels like a slap in the face, but somehow it transports me back to my feet and I feel very foolish for ever letting life knock me down.

Recently, Forrest had some health issues that required hospital time and will require more care. And everything happened so randomly and unexpectedly and seemed so serious that I felt the way I just described in #1. Then, I spoke to a friend who had heard about the circumstance and she talked about some similar (and much worse) experiences her mother has endured her entire life. She wasn't trying to trivialize my experience. In fact, she, better than anyone, could empathize because of her experiences with her mother. And I appreciated it. But what talking to her really did for me was give me a dose of #2: perspective. And I was back on my feet again.

A few years ago, I became seriously disturbed by the fact that I knew so many who had very difficult circumstances in their lives--and not just one-time slaps in the face like the experience I had and described above--but lifelong burdens and difficulties that never seemed to go away. Or that had hurt them so deep that recovery seemed far away. I reflected on this for a long time, always believing that Heavenly Father loved His children and that the Atonement could heal all wounds and make up for any injustices, but not being able to reconcile that belief with the cold, hard facts: Some people's lives or trials seem so much worse and harder to overcome than mine. My issue wasn't that Heavenly Father allows His children to feel hurt and experience trials. I understand that these moments are what stretch us and can make us stronger and more like Him. My issue was why He let some people's lives or difficulties be so much harder or heavier than others. That didn't sit well with me. My life, compared to most of my friends, was so much happier and easier.

I studied and pondered for a long time about this. And then an answer came when I read the following words:

"But the test a loving God has set before us is not to see if we can endure difficulty. It is to see if we can endure it well. We pass the test by showing that we remembered Him and the commandments He gave us. And to endure well is to keep those commandments whatever the opposition, whatever the temptation, and whatever the tumult around us. We have that clear understanding because the restored gospel makes the plan of happiness so plain.

That clarity lets us see what help we need. We need strength beyond ourselves to keep the commandments in whatever circumstance life brings to us. For some it may be poverty, but for others it may be prosperity. It may be the ravages of age or the exuberance of youth. The combination of trials and their duration are as varied as are the children of our Heavenly Father. No two are alike. But what is being tested is the same, at all times in our lives and for every person: will we do whatsoever the Lord our God will command us?"

President Henry B. Eyring, "In the Strength of the Lord," April 2004 General Conference
(You can read or listen or watch the entire talk here.)

Almost instantly I felt an overwhelming peace. I had been looking at everything upside down. It is not our circumstances that are "the test." Circumstances are never equal. Circumstances "are as varied as are the children of our Heavenly Father. No two are alike. But what is being tested is the same, at all times in our lives and for every person: will we do whatsoever the Lord our God will command us?"

So though it may not outwardly appear so, my comparatively easy, happy circumstance is just as much a test as my neighbors' difficult, pained circumstance. If my easy circumstances keep me from turning to God, from relying on Him, then I am the one to be pitied, not someone whose world is crumbling around them but whose faith in God is unwavering. We get dealt different hands in this life. But we are expected to play by the same rules. What is being tested is always the same. And the Divine help to succeed and conquer all is available to every one of us.