Today I'm grateful for my challenges

You know what?  I have to take a moment to express how grateful I am for my trials and challenges.  You never know what the purpose is for hard things happening in your life until you have overcome them.  For me, my trials have made me better, stronger, and more resolved to have a brightness of faith and to continue pressing forward towards the future.  

I bring this up because last night I was in a position where I had to help a woman who needed to know that things would be better.  After I sat and talked to this lady, I realized that in the last month I have had 3 dynamic situations where I had to deal with people going through very hard things.  I will briefly tell you about these situations without going into to much detail:

1 - A middle aged woman that I have worked with for the past couple of years trying to find peace about the recent development of cancer in our boss

2 - A friend who told me about her fathers horrible drug addiction

3 - A mother who told me that the man she has been married to for the last 35 years has just recently cheated on her.  He was in the bishopric.  

All of these conversations were full of tears from the person I was talking to, as well as a few of my own.  But despite the tragedy of these situations, I feel that if I had not had hard things happen to me in my life, I would have no level of empathy towards the hard things that these people are going through.  Because of my trials, I am able to testify to these women that things will be better and that we can have joy again. 

Although I am young, I feel very blessed to know who I put my strength in.  For all of these conversations, I was able to point the person who was confiding in me back to Heavenly Father.  I know that the only source of strength and solace in my life is a loving Father in Heaven who provides me with the same peace and happiness that these beautiful women seek in their darkest hours.  Despite the misery of these situations, I know that if we have faith, Heavenly Father will provide a way for us to be happy and have joy even when our lives appear to be full of disappointment and sorrow.