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Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence,
Part 2
By Sasha N. Takis
Read Part 1
Does the question “Why
does it seem like the harder I try to do
things right, the more things seem to go
wrong” sound familiar? It hardly seems fair
that our valiant efforts be so rewarded.
But every cloud has a silver lining. Ever
the optimist, I have discovered that there
is a bright side to opposition! After all,
if someone isn’t on the right track, no
roadblocks or u-turns are necessary to get
them on the wrong track. I find that when
the winds of adversity are blowing hardest,
I can usually pat myself on the back. I can
pat myself on the back, and then shove
forward with more determination because it
usually means I’m going in the right
direction.
Elder Jeffrey R.
Holland said, “There is a lesson in the
Prophet Joseph Smith’s account of the First
Vision which virtually every Latter-day
Saint has had occasion to experience, or one
day soon will. It is the plain and very
sobering truth that before great moments,
certainly before great spiritual moments,
there can come adversity, opposition, and
darkness. Life has some of those moments for
us, and occasionally they come just as we
are approaching an important decision or a
significant step in our lives…”
You may have
experienced something similar before you
joined the Church, or before you went to the
temple, or some other equally big event.
The opposition may have been huge as you
debated the decision to homeschool. But
what does this have to do with the everyday
routine of math and grammar, social studies
and science?
Elder Holland
continues: “This opposition turns up almost
any place something good has happened. It
can happen when you are trying to get an
education. It can hit you after your first
month in your new mission field. It
certainly happens in matters of love and
marriage. It can occur in situations
related to your family, Church callings, or
career.”
So is every wave of
adversity or bit of opposition prelude to an
immediate vision or obvious miracle? It may
not look like it on the surface. But step
by step, little by little, good things
happen that get us from where we are to
where we’re trying to go. If the adversary
can thwart enough little things, the big
thing(s) won’t happen.
Does your homeschool
have great moments? Do you doubt that our
ultimate enemy is really upsetting anything
significant when you’re so fed up that you
give up, even just for a day? Remember that
it is through small and simple things that
great things are brought to pass. A family
that is plugging along, prayerful and
perseverant will surely see great moments.
I appreciate Elder Holland’s
encouragement: “I believe that in our own
individual ways, God takes us to the grove
or the mountain or the temple and there
shows us the wonder of what His plan is for
us. We may not see it as fully as Moses or
Nephi or the brother of Jared did, but we
see as much as we need to see in order to
know the Lord’s will for us and to know that
He loves us beyond mortal comprehension. I
also believe that the adversary and his
pinched, calculating little minions try to
oppose such experiences and then try to
darken them after they happen. But that is
not the way of the gospel. That is not the
way of a Latter-day Saint who claims as the
fundamental fact of the Restoration the
spirit of revelation. Fighting through
darkness and despair and pleading for the
light is what opened this dispensation. It
is what keeps it going, and it is what will
keep you going.
“I acknowledge the reality of opposition
and adversity, but I bear witness of the God
of glory, of the redeeming Son of God, of
light and hope and a bright future. I
promise you that God lives and loves you,
each one of you, and that He has set bounds
and limits to the opposing powers of
darkness.”
And those opposing powers of darkness
wouldn’t be heading your way if you weren’t
shining at least a little light! We are
doing a great and glorious thing, devoting
our most and best to our children. We are
forming and arming the Lord’s front line.
If we weren’t doing something good, Satan
would leave us alone. So get your parka and
your mega hold hairspray and stand tall in
the wind.
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