Trials and Blessings

I have to admit that lately I have been having a pity party. I have chosen to look at the things in my life that have not gone the way I would have wanted them to and the hard things that have been happening. This past year has been a rough one but has also been filled with many blessings. I have been feeling guilty for my negative and ornery feelings lately but for some reason have not been able to change them. I especially feel guilty because I know there are those out there who are struggling with a lot worse trials than what I have been and never utter a word of complaint. I have been feeling impressed to read my Patriarchal Blessing for the past week but just haven't taken the time to do it. Today after an amazing Sacrament meeting and finally pulling out and reading my Blessing I have realized why I have been feeling the way I have and haven't been able to change it, I have been focusing on the wrong things!! I have been making excuses that I don't have time, etc. It's not that I don't have time, it's that I choose to waste my time with TV, computer (stupid FaceBook), etc. Not that any of these things are really bad, but when I fill all my idle time with these things I am not being the wife, mother, friend, or daughter of God I want to be. Yes, it's easy for me to blame these hard things I am going through on my Heavenly Father and sit and wonder why me? What else can happen? But, I know that I need to look at all the wonderful things I have in my life and look at the trials and think, 'what can I learn from this and what can I learn while going through this?' While blog stalking the other night I found this quote which also helped put things in perspective...

One of the most difficult aspects of mortality is that we experience trials. We know that the purpose of these trials is to help us become more like God. More refined. More pure. If God is patient, then I need to learn patience; and the primary way to learn patience is to not have something that is wanted. If God is forgiving (thank heavens!), then I need to learn how to be forgiving; that usually comes through being wrongfully hurt. And so on and so on. As Elder Orson F. Whitney so beautifully said:

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven” (quoted in Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, 98).

I just hope that as I go through trials throughout my life, I will remember what is important, I will learn the things I need to learn and use the trials to develop and strengthen the qualities that will make me more Christlike and a daughter that my Heavenly Father will be proud of.