Everyone I've ever met have had or will have experienced some great difficulties in life, as you are having now.

As hard as it seems, sometimes, there is purpose and value in our trials and in our pain. Even though the Lord wants us to have joy, it is a natural law that there is no joy without sorrow, health without sickness, pleasure without pain. There is no resurrection, immortality and eternal life without death. One of the great passages in the Book of Mormon explains, "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so... righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad...". (2 Nephi 2:11)

The older I get, the more I can see the truth of this. It's almost like building a muscle. Our bodies get stronger only when they are exercised and the greater the resistance, the greater the development of the muscles. If there is no exercise, the muscles atrophy and waste away.

We develop knowledge by study and the harder we study, the more we learn. I believe character is developed in a similar way. When we face and overcome difficulties of any kind, we grow and become stronger. When we suffer and are humble, we often turn to God in sincere and urgent prayer. This is an opportunity to become more spiritual.

This, I believe is the purpose of this life, to gain a body and then to be tested. As we endure the trials of this life and if we will turn to God, he will help us prepare for an eternity of happiness. "But, behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever." (Book of Mormon | 2 Nephi 9:18)

Please feel free to email me again and share with me how you're doing.

Sincerely,

Donny Osmond


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