Apocryphal Scripture of the Week: (see Doctrine and Covenants 91)
“Therefore from the beginning I have become assured,
And have reached this conclusion and left it in writing:
The works of the Lord are all good,
And will supply every need when it arises,
And no one can say, ‘This is worse than that,’
For they will all prove good in their season.”
(The Wisdom of Sirach 39:32-34)
***
Whenever I catch myself thinking, “Why me?” “I don’t deserve this,” or “I wish I didn’t have to live through this,” I’ve trained my mind to go to one of my favorite passages in the Book of Mormon: Helaman 7:6-9 and then 10:3-5.
I won’t quote it all here, but basically this prophet, Nephi the son of Helaman, feels like he lives in really crappy times and openly admits in canonized scripture that he wishes he’d lived in another time when things didn’t suck so much.
However, in chapter 10, the Lord responds that because he’s endured his trials with “unwearyingness,” he will be made “mighty in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word.”
Also consider this: Nephi resented the time in which he lived, but he didn’t realize that his “crappy” time period would be one in which his family would experience the literal coming of Christ to the Americas. Quite a pot of gold at the end of a rather barf-colored rainbow.
Whatever you’re going through, whether you’re religious or not, it’s worth considering that although bad things can come crashing into our lives like unexpected concrete curveballs, you also never know what rewarding experience might be just on the horizon. Truly, as Sirach penned, “All will prove good in their season.”
The Commonplace Notebook 