Mormon Musings

The challenges you face, the growth experiences you encounter, are intended to be temporary scenes played out on the stage of a life of continuing peace and happiness. Sadness, heartache, and disappointment are events in life. It is not intended that they be the substance of life. I do not minimize how hard some of these events can be. When the lesson you are to learn is very important, trials can extend over a long period of time, but they should not be allowed to become the confining focus of everything you do. Your life can and should be wondrously rewarding. It is your understanding and application of the laws of God that will give your life glorious purpose as you ascend and conquer the difficulties of life. That perspective keeps challenges confined to their proper place—stepping-stones to further growth and attainment. Elder Richard G. Scott, October 2006 General Conference https://www.lds.org/liahona/2006/11/the-atonement-can-secure-your-peace-and-happiness?lang=eng

Our Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children do what is right; it is to have His children choose to do what is right and ultimately become like Him. If He simply wanted us to be obedient, He would use immediate rewards and punishments to influence our behaviors. But God is not interested in His children just becoming trained and obedient “pets” who will not chew on His slippers in the celestial living room. No, God wants His children to grow up spiritually and join Him in the family business.... Lucifer is this accuser. He spoke against us in the premortal existence, and he continues to denounce us in this life. He seeks to drag us down. He wants us to experience endless woe. He is the one who tells us we are not adequate, the one who tells us we are not good enough, the one who tells us there is no recovery from a mistake. He is the ultimate bully, the one who kicks us when we are down. If Lucifer were teaching a child to walk and the child stumbled, he w...

“The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to adapt himself to others; and they, in turn, reverence his spiritual strength, and feel that they can learn from him and rely upon him. The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good.”

“There are no times in life when opportunity, the chance to be and to do, gathers so richly about a soul as when it has to suffer.  Then everything depends on whether the man turns to the lower or the higher helps.  If he resorts to mere expedients and tricks, the opportunity is lost.  He comes out no richer nor greater; nay, he comes out harder, poorer, smaller for his pain.  But, if he turns to God, the hour of suffering is the turning hour of his life.” -Phillip Brooks

Last General Conference talk by Elder Maxwell: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/04/remember-how-merciful-the-lord-hath-been?lang=eng

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”  ―  C.S. Lewis ,  The Great Divorce

“The devil flatters us that we are very righteous, while we are feeding on the faults of others…if you would have God have mercy on you,  have mercy on one another. ”  – Joseph Smith