I had to do it. So I did.

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Morning Session of the April 2012 Conference.

This week, I've been thinking about something from Elder Eyring's talk. The talk is called "Mountains to Climb" and it's actually one I have a few different questions about…but one of them comes from this story of a woman Elder Eyring admired:

I was stunned to learn that [she] had forgiven a person who had wronged her for years. I was surprised and asked her why she had chosen to forgive and forget so many years of spiteful abuse.

She said quietly, “It was the hardest thing I have ever done, but I just knew I had to do it. So I did.”

My first thought on hearing this is to be impressed with, as Elder Eyring was, the faith of that woman. My second thought is to consider all the myriad of things that, like that woman, I "just know I have to do" but that I still haven't done. I tell myself (somewhat correctly, I think), "It's okay. These things take time. Improvement takes time. Give yourself time." But I wonder…does saying that show faith? Or a lack of faith? What if I "give myself" so much time that I run out of time? Should I be patiently saying "I'll trust God to help give me the gift of forgiveness in His own time" or should I be urgently praying and working and trying not to be satisfied with my current state? I know the answer is probably "both" but that makes it tricky to know how to improve. 

Elder Eyring does say—somewhat confusingly, I think, after saying "That is why I was unwise to pray so soon in my life for higher mountains to climb and greater tests"—as if just not praying for those things means you won't have them—but anyway, he says, 

I cannot promise an end to your adversity in this life. I cannot assure you that your trials will seem to you to be only for a moment. One of the characteristics of trials in life is that they seem to make clocks slow down and then appear almost to stop.

There are reasons for that. Knowing those reasons may not give much comfort, but it can give you a feeling of patience.…

My mother fought cancer for nearly 10 years. Treatments and surgeries and finally confinement to her bed were some of her trials. …I remember at the time thinking, “If a woman that good needed that much polishing, what is ahead for me?”

If "falling short of what I should be doing" counts as a trial…then this implies that state may last much longer than we wish! And it implies that all of us, no matter how good our intentions, need "polishing" to the very end, and therefore have to be patient with the process!

Maybe the connecting thread between the first woman who forgave because she "just knew she had to," and President Eyring's mother who was so good but also needed "polishing" to the very end—is just that both of them patiently kept turning back to God. They were, I don't know, let's call it "patiently persistent." The first woman actually didn't say how long it took her to "just forgive." Maybe it DID take a long time. But she knew she had to do it so she KEPT trying to do it until she succeeded. And President Eyring's mother, who he says "suffered so long and so much," had to KEEP learning new heights of faith and patience all through the ten years before she died. Being patient with our shortcomings is good. Being persistent at overcoming our faults is good too. Doing both allows us to move (which we couldn't if we didn't persist) joyfully (which we couldn't if we ONLY focused on our shortcomings) along the covenant path. And that's why Elder Eyring can say with confidence:

If we have faith in Jesus Christ, the hardest as well as the easiest times in life can be a blessing. In all conditions, we can choose the right with the guidance of the Spirit.…We never need to feel that we are alone or unloved in the Lord’s service because we never are. We can feel the love of God. The Savior has promised angels on our left and our right to bear us up. And He always keeps His word.

(And for a much more eloquent treatment of this balance, which was helping influence my thoughts as I wrote this post, read Elder Matthew Holland's talk from the most recent conference! It's so good!)