Tuesday’s Trench Lesson

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Thanks for joining us for Tuesday’s Trench lesson from Lea! Grab your favorite beverage, a journal and come on in for a very thought-provoking question…

Why Are We Here Part 2

Happy Tuesday, my friends. Thank you for joining me again here in the trenches. Last week, I shared with you my bad day, and my small victories of leaning on the Lord. This week, I want to tell you about my conversation with my 15-year-old son, and what I learned from it.

Our family was reading some scriptures together when “the purpose of life” was brought up. My son asked me why we had to have trials and live this life if God already knows what will happen in the end. I explained that we are here to gain the experiences. We grow and learn as we live this life. Yes, God knows how we choose and He sees everything, but He sent us here for our benefit. We know darkness because we know light. We know pleasure because we know pain. We know joy because we know sorrow. We have to have the yucky experiences to truly know and enjoy the great experiences.

Also, God did not send us down here to have struggles. He is not sitting up on top of some cloud laughing every time we fall and thinking, “Score!” He does not wish for another person to cause us pain, but that can happen because we all have free will. If He made it so that person couldn't harm us, then He would have been taking away their will. He loves all of us (even the “bad guys”) too much to restrict us. He does send the Spirit to be with us though. The Spirit will guide us and help us from receiving more trials than we can handle.

We just need to put our listening ears on, and be aware. Even in the midst of a particularly difficult trial, we can still see happiness if we are open to it. I explained to my son that yes, my husband's car is now broken, but it waited to break until my car was back. That is a miraculous thing. So, yes, we are in the trial of only having one car and extra bills right now, but we are blessed to still have a car that works and the ability to slowly pay our bills. No, we don't get to go to Disneyland yet. Yes, that totally sucks. But, we have a home; we have food, and we are generally taken care of. I also point out that we still do fun things.

The kids play our video games, and get to go online, and can watch Netflix. All of those are privileges that many people don't have. There are such a great number of people in this world that don't even have electricity! So yes, we are blessed. We play board games, and get to see movies every once in a while, and we have been known to go miniature golfing, and even just spend time with friends. We do have fun.

This brought me to the idea of why we are here, and what God wants for us. He wants us to have joy, and to bring joy to others. We can find joy in every single day. In the worst day of your life, if you honestly look for it, you can find joy. When my Grandma passed away, and we were at her viewing, it was a horrible day. My heart was hurting more than I realized that it could. There was a sweet moment that day with my Grandpa that touched my heart, and gave me joy. In that pain, I could still feel joy. That speaks to the love of our Heavenly Father. He sends us things to pull us up to joy when we need it the most. We have to try to be open to that. It is not easy.

Just the other day, I wanted to verbally vomit on someone because I had just reached my limit, but instead of complaining to a friend, I turned to God and just gave it to Him. I was not mad at Him; I was just mad at circumstances. Boy, I just let Him have it, though. I told Him I was so frustrated, and asked why this was happening. It was not accusatory, just asking why, like I would to a friend. As I was ranting, I began to have other thoughts. When I was thinking about how hard I was having it, my thoughts began to turn outward to others. I thought of a friend and her situation, and of other people struggling. Suddenly as my thoughts shifted, so did my heart. As my frustration for my own situation fizzled out, I began to think of little things I could do to make my friends’ lives better, and I began to feel relief.

As I thought how touched people would be when I reach out to them, I found myself smiling, and starting to feel that joy again. I came out of myself, and was caring about others. In my life, I am experiencing knowing why I was sent here: I was sent here to have joy, and to bring joy to others. If I cannot find my joy, I will work on bringing joy to others, and then my joy will find me. Let us all work on being joy-bringers this week, and see what finds us.

Until next week, I love you.

~Lea