Mortality Works

[laronius]

“I want you to know that mortality works, and I want you to know that I now understand why everything happened [in my life] the way it did —and it is all OK.”

Elder Hales' story about the woman's difficult life and then her letting her son know after she had died that she understood why her life went as it did caught my attention. In my patriarchal blessing it seems to indicate that at some point in my life I will be able to understand the why of things in my life and what it was preparing me for. I can't say that I've reached that point yet.

But it got me thinking. How much of life is divinely planned vs God just being really, really good at taking everything that happens and using it for His purposes? We talk about God having a specific plan for us but how specific is it? I think the things contained in our patriarchal blessings would fall into the divinely planned category but, like the scriptures, much of what they say can be interpreted to mean different things. 

[LDSGator]

5 minutes ago, laronius said:

But it got me thinking. How much of life is divinely planned vs God just being really, really good at taking everything that happens and using it for His purposes?

I’m watching something like this happen in real time with a friend. 

We had people lose everything in a storm who prayed all day that they’d be fine. Then, we had people who didn’t pray at all-but had no storm damage. 
 

We also had people (us) who got lucky. A tree fell in our backyard, barely missing our roof and our bedroom. It was sheer luck. 
 

I think it all depends on perspective.
 

[JohnsonJones]

We had a tree fall recently in our yard as well...unfortunately it did not miss the house. 

We were blessed though.  The roof withstood the tree and no damage (that we could see) was caused.  The biggest problem was that the tree was too heavy for me and my wife to lift off. 

We were blessed again with a grandson that came and was able to cut the tree apart and then take it off (not sure what he did with the wood) for us. 

[LDSGator]

4 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

We had a tree fall recently in our yard as well...unfortunately it did not miss the house. 

We were blessed though.  The roof withstood the tree and no damage (that we could see) was caused.  The biggest problem was that the tree was too heavy for me and my wife to lift off. 

We were blessed again with a grandson that came and was able to cut the tree apart and then take it off (not sure what he did with the wood) for us. 

I’m glad things worked out for you. My neighbor and I took care of the tree.  

Edited October 23, 2024 by LDSGator