This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Young Womens Session of the April 2010 Conference.
I liked Elder Uchtdorf's talk, "Your Happily Ever After," when I first heard it. "That's so cute for the young women," I thought. "That's a topic they will listen and relate to." But, oddly enough, I think I relate to it even more now than I did then. I loved this:
His love for you is so great that He has granted you this earthly life as a precious gift of “once upon a time,” complete with your own true story of adventure, trial, and opportunities for greatness, nobility, courage, and love. And, most glorious of all, He offers you a gift beyond price and comprehension. Heavenly Father offers to you the greatest gift of all—eternal life—and the opportunity and infinite blessing of your own “happily ever after.”
It reminds me of the Elder Christofferson quote I read earlier this week, where he talked about how Heavenly Father may or may not grant us blessings in the ways we expect, and then said, “In the end, it is the blessing of a close and abiding relationship with the Father and the Son that we seek.” I've been thinking about that all week. Our whole life—God's whole plan—is designed to allow us this "close and abiding relationship." Everything we experience gives us the chance for it. And, if we do exercise our agency to seek that relationship, all the hard things we encounter along the way will be worth it.
"But," Elder Uchtdorf says,
such a blessing does not come without a price. It is not given simply because you desire it. It comes only through understanding who you are and what you must become in order to be worthy of such a gift.
And (as I feel I'm learning more every year), that understanding only comes when we are tested and pushed to our limits.
This part touched me so much:
My dear young sisters, you need to know that you will experience your own adversity. None is exempt. You will suffer, be tempted, and make mistakes. You will learn for yourself what every heroine has learned: through overcoming challenges come growth and strength.
Something about that "what every heroine has learned" makes me feel such a longing to be one of those heroines. One of those women who is serene and peaceful and joyful through her trust in God. Someone like Marjorie Hinckley or Julie Beck or any number of women who have mentored me over the years, whose faith shows in her countenance and whose strength radiates outward to bolster the people around her. But it's so counterintuitive to think that challenges and trials made those women who they are! I feel like my challenges are just beating me down and making me haggard and fragile and cynical and distressed, not making me serene and beautiful and heroic! But I guess I just have to keep pushing through. This mortal life is the complicated and messy part of the plot. I have to trust that the loose ends will tie up beautifully and lead to that "Happily Ever After" Elder Uchtdorf is promising:
…The day will come when you turn the final pages of your own glorious story; there you will read and experience the fulfillment of those blessed and wonderful words: “And they lived happily ever after.” Of this I testify in the holy name of Jesus Christ.
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