Even daily life’s repetitiveness actually occurs for a reason. President Brigham Young reflectively observed:
“Sometimes I think it quite strange that the children of men are so constituted as to need to be taught one lesson all the time, and again it is not so marvellous to me, when I reflect upon … the designed effect … of this state of probation. Men are organized to be independent in their sphere, … yet they have, as soldiers term it, to run the gauntlet all the time. They are organized to be just as independent as any being in eternity, but that independency … must be proved and tried while in this state of existence, must be operated upon by the good and the evil” (in Journal of Discourses, 3:316).
So often in life a deserved blessing is quickly followed by a needed stretching. Spiritual exhilaration may be quickly followed by a vexation or temptation. Were it otherwise, extended spiritual reveries or immunities from adversity might induce in us a regrettable forgetfulness of others in deep need. The sharp, side-by-side contrast of the sweet and the bitter is essential until the very end of this brief, mortal experience. Meanwhile, even routine, daily life provides sufficient sandpaper to smooth our crustiness and polish our rough edges, if we are meek.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh wisely cautioned: “I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable” (“Lindbergh Nightmare,” Time, 5 Feb. 1973, 35).
Certain forms of suffering, endured well, can actually be ennobling. Annie Swetchine said, “Those who have suffered much are like those who know many languages; they have learned to understand and be understood by all” (quoted in Neal A. Maxwell, We Will Prove Them Herewith [1982], 123).
Rather than simply passing through these things, they must pass through us and do so in ways which sanctify these experiences for our good. Thereby, our empathy, too, is enriched and everlasting.
Thus life is carefully designed to produce for us, if we are willing, a harvest of relevant and portable experience. But there is such a short growing season! The fields must be worked intensively amid droughts, late springs, and early frosts. For the disobedient and despairing who refuse to plant, plow, or harvest, theirs is not simply a “winter of discontent” but a despair for all seasons. The indifferent and lackluster who work only on the surface of life will harvest little. Only for the perspiring and “anxiously engaged” faithful will the harvest be manyfold."
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