My talk at the YSA ward

So, they transferred in my records after I specifically asked them not to, and then they called on me to give a talk even though I'd only been to the ward twice in the past two months. I wasn't super excited. And then they told me I'd only have four days to prepare and that my talk needed to be twenty minutes long because they only assigned two people to speak! Anyway, here's how it went:

Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians, he told his converts about his sacred role as an apostle, a special witness to the Lord. Then he mentioned an affliction that he calls “a thorn in the flesh”. Some scholars have found evidence that Paul was going blind, but others think his infirmity might have been a moral temptation. Whatever the problem was, Paul rejoiced that his adversity allowed him to rely on the power of the Atonement:

And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
(2 Corinthians 12:7–10)

Good afternoon, sisters and brothers. My name is Bethylene, I live in the Pacific Northwest, and last month I returned from the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission, where I invited people to come unto Christ in both English and Spanish. On Wednesday, I was asked to speak for twenty minutes on Elder Rafael E. Pino’s ten-minute talk “Faith in Adversity”, so just writing this talk in time was a test of my faith in adversity!

Elder Pino begins his talk with the story of Omar Álvarez, whose three-year-old daughter drowned while playing with her brothers and sisters on a family vacation. The grieving father describes the aftermath thus:

The moments that followed were extremely difficult, filled with anguish and pain for the loss of our youngest daughter. That feeling soon turned into an almost unbearable torment. However, in the midst of the confusion and uncertainty, the thought that our children had been born under the covenant came to our minds, and through that covenant, our daughter belongs to us for eternity.
What a blessing it is to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ and to have received the ordinances of His holy temple! We now feel that we are much more committed to be faithful to the Lord and endure to the end because we want to be worthy of the blessings that the temple provides in order to see our daughter again. At times we mourn, but “we do not mourn as those without hope.”[1]

Elder Pino tells us, “This faithful family came to understand that when adversity arrives in our lives, the only true source of comfort is God.”[2] However, it is not always easy to remember our faith when we are faced with adversity. I think this is because we sometimes don’t understand what it means to have faith in adversity. When I was talking to my mom about this talk assignment, I brought up something that had always bugged me: it needs a little introduction first. My brother, who is less than two years younger than me, is autistic. After lots and lots of speech therapy that we couldn’t afford, he started talking when he was five and a half, but he’ll never speak normally. Even though he’s twenty, he doesn’t have the legal rights of an adult. He may never have a real job. He may never drive. He may never live on his own. He definitely will never marry nor have children in this life. He’s a great guy with a beautiful, simple faith, but he is also demands a lot of attention from everyone in the family, but especially from our mother.

Sometimes I thought it was weird when people told me, “I admire your mom so much—she is a hero for taking care of your brother every day. I wouldn’t be able to do that!” This sounds strange to me because they act as if my mother had a choice in the matter—as if she could have sent him back when we learned that he was autistic. To me, my mom was just doing what she had to do: feeding us, teaching us, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, getting us to bed on time, giving up her home-based law practice, driving my brother to therapy, holding war councils with the parents of other autistic children, persecuting school administrators until they gave my brother what he needed, writing state lawmakers about programs for people with disabilities, and so forth. But when I was talking to my mom about this talk, she said she thought that she hadn’t exhibited much faith when my brother was diagnosed. She was really sad at first, and both of my parents grieved the loss of the son they’d imagined. To my mother, being sad and frustrated showed a lack of faith, even though she kept praying, reading the scriptures, working hard, and trusting that Christ would help my family. She has done everything in her power for my brother, yet she always speaks of his progression as a miracle. So does the fact that she wasn’t jumping for joy—“Yes! My son’s disabled!”—mean that she didn’t have faith in adversity?

Often I, too, fear that if I am sad or frustrated about a trial, then I am not exhibiting faith. However, the scriptures record many faithful people who faced trials, and they weren’t exactly reveling in it. They showed their faith in adversity in simple, humble ways. Reading about these people made me realize that, when adversity comes, I have more faith than I thought. A few examples of how the people in the scriptures faced adversity with faith illustrate my point.

When Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, the Bible records him taking his changes in fortune—from slave to high steward to prisoner to jailer to Pharaoh’s right hand man—with little complaint. However, when his brothers come to Egypt with Benjamin, Joseph runs away from the feast he prepared, and “he entered into his chamber, and wept there” (Genesis 43:30). Long years of servitude and imprisonment have made their mark on Joseph, yet he is still a faithful man. Joseph later tells his brothers that God was really the one who sent him to Egypt so that he could save his brothers from the famine (see Genesis 45:4–8). He still trusts that the Lord is in control.

Another classic example of someone who faced adversity with faith is Job. When he loses all his children and all his possessions in a string of accidents and is then struck with “sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown” (Job 2:7), Job “rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground” (Job 1:20); he mourns for “seven days and seven nights” (Job 2:13). Job’s friends see “that his grief was very great” (Job 2:13). Still, even though Job mourns his children, his livelihood, and his health—even though he wishes that he had died the moment he was born (see Job 3)—the Bible says, “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly” (Job 1:22). Job continues to trust in the Lord, and he declares to his friends, “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25–26).

The example of Brother Álvarez in Elder Pino’s talk also confirms that grief doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of faith. Brother Álvarez says that his family’s “confusion and uncertainty” amounted to “an almost unbearable torment,”[3] yet they still had faith. Perhaps this is what Christ means when he tells His Apostles, “My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you” (John 14:27): the world’s peace means being problem-free, but we can experience Christ’s peace when things are at their worst. In fact, Christ’s power is manifest when we come to him with our trials and weaknesses, as He tells Moroni, “I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them” (Ether 12:27).

“Faith is a principle of action and of power.”[4] Our faith in adversity is manifest by what we do when the adversity comes. Let’s consider the example of Nephi, who wrote in the very first verse of the first chapter of the first book in the Book of Mormon that he had “seen many afflictions in the course of [his] days, nevertheless, [he had] been highly favored of the Lord in all [his] days.” Lehi’s family had left their home, their friends, and their comfort zone to wander aimlessly around the Arabian Peninsula for eight years, seeming to never reach the ocean. They ate raw meat because they risked attack by bandits if they lit a fire, and their wives often were traveling while pregnant (see 1 Nephi 17:1–2). On top of all of this, Lehi’s sons’ bows broke, so they had no food. Nephi writes that his family, “being much fatigued, because of their journeying, . . . did suffer much for the want of food” (1 Nephi 16:19). Nephi continues, telling us that not only did Laman, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael “begin to murmur exceedingly, because of their sufferings and afflictions in the wilderness,” but also the prophet Lehi himself “began to murmur against the Lord his God” (1 Nephi 16:20). Nephi is distressed that his family was both starving and murmuring (see 1 Nephi 16:21), but he doesn’t just sit and wallow with them. He takes action: “And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did make out of wood a bow, and out of a straight stick, an arrow; wherefore, I did arm myself with a bow and an arrow, with a sling and with stones. And I said unto my father: Whither shall I go to obtain food?” (1 Nephi 16:23). Nephi—who promised “I will go and do” (1 Nephi 3:7)—trusted in the Lord, so he went and did.

As I wrote this talk, I realized that my mother could have done a lot of different things when my brother was diagnosed with a neurological disorder which, at the time, no one knew much about. She could have gone back to working as an attorney full-time and paid someone else to take care of my brother. She could have shut herself in her room and cried for weeks while my brother and I starved to death because my dad forgets to feed us. She could have abandoned our family. She could have chosen to stick my brother in a corner and never taken him to speech therapy and special ed. preschool or tried different behavior-modification techniques. But instead, she showed her faith in adversity by doing all that she could do and relying on the Lord. My brother progressed in leaps and bounds because my mother and father’s faith willed it to happen. He’s still autistic, but he’s definitely surpassed his original prognoses.

Adversity happens to all of us. Lehi tells us that there must be “an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11). My patriarchal blessing commands me that, when trials and challenges come, I must remember that they are part of the plan which I agreed to during my premortal existence. In speaking of the wise man who built his house “upon the rock of our Redeemer” (Helaman 5:12) and the foolish man who built his built his house upon the sand (see Matthew 7:24–27), Elder Pino says the following: “It is interesting to notice that the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew against both houses! Living the gospel does not mean that we will everlastingly escape adversity. Rather, it means that we will be prepared to face and endure adversity more confidently.”[5]

I’d like to end my talk with something Joseph Smith said to the Saints in Nauvoo. He says that, when we persevere with faith, our adversity ushers in the blessings from heaven that have been promised to the faithful since the beginning of time:

Having confidence in the power, wisdom, and love of God, the Saints have been enabled to go forward through the most adverse circumstances, and frequently, when to all human appearances, nothing but death presented itself, and destruction [seemed] inevitable, has the power of God been manifest, His glory revealed, and deliverance effected; and the Saints, like the children of Israel, who came out of the land of Egypt, and through the Red Sea, have sung an anthem of praise to his holy name.[6]

I know that I have a Father in Heaven who is cheering me on and waiting for me to return to Him. I know this because I asked Him if I was His daughter, and He answered my prayer. I know that Jesus Christ is my Redeemer, that He lives, and that through Him I will inherit a place in my Father’s kingdom because I have seen and felt His hand in my life and in the lives of so many other people. I know the Holy Ghost is with me because I can see, hear, and feel His presence. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God because I have heard the prophets who wrote it “crying from the dust” (2 Nephi 33:13). The Bible, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price are a direct conduit to the mind of God. The gospel has not changed a bit since the Lord taught it to Adam and Eve (see Moses 6). Jesus Christ reestablished His church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, through the Prophet Joseph Smith. Thomas S. Monson speaks for God in our day. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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[1] Qtd. in Rafael E. Pino, “Faith in Adversity,” Ensign, May 2009, 41. Quote from Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 177.

[2] Rafael E. Pino, “Faith in Adversity,” Ensign, May 2009, 41.

[3] Qtd. in Rafael E. Pino, “Faith in Adversity,” Ensign, May 2009, 41.

[4] Bible Dictionary, “faith”.

[5] Rafael E. Pino, “Faith in Adversity,” Ensign, May 2009, 42.

[6] Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 234; brackets original.