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By Elder Mathias Held
Of the Seventy

Even though we usually cannot choose [situations] because they just happen, we are still free to choose how to react to them. We can do so with a positive or with a pessimistic attitude. We can seek to learn from the experience and ask for our Lord’s help and support, or we can think that we are on our own in this trial and that we must suffer it alone. We can “adjust our sails” to the new reality, or we can decide not to change anything. In the darkness of night, we can turn on our lights. In the cold of winter, we should choose to wear warm clothes. In seasons of sickness, we can seek medical and spiritual help. We choose how to react to these circumstances.

Adjust, learn, seek, choose are all action verbs. Remember that we are agents and not objects. Let us never forget that Jesus promised to “take upon him the pains and sicknesses of his people … that he may … succor,” or help, us as we turn to Him. We can choose to build our foundation on the rock that is Jesus Christ so that when the whirlwind comes, “it shall have no power over [us].” He has promised that “whosoever will come [to Him], him will [He] receive; and blessed are those who come unto [Him].”

Now, there is one additional principle that is especially important. Lehi said that there “must needs be … an opposition in all things.” This means that opposites don’t exist apart from each other. They can even complement each other. We would not be able to identify joy unless we had also experienced sorrow at some point. Feeling hungry at times helps us to be especially grateful when we do have enough to eat again. We would not be able to identify truth unless we had also seen lies here and there.

These opposites are all like the two sides of one same coin. Both sides are always present. Charles Dickens provided an example of this idea when he wrote that “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2024/04/54held?lang=eng