Experiences overcoming trials

I recently had an experience where I was preparing for a wrestling tournament and I was at practice and my knee popped. I don't, I didn't know what happened. I was a little scared because I really was looking forward to this tournament. It would be my first time competing in five years and I was really scared that I had torn something in my knee and the next day I was walking around really, really limp. It just hurt really bad and that night I was praying and the scripture Proverbs 3.5 came to my mind where it says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. And I thought it was ironic that after I had been limping and leaning on my leg all day that I was told to lean not unto my own understanding but trust in the Lord. So I know that if we trust in God that we can receive strength to overcome our trials.

Video 2 Transcript

For me, addiction has always been there to fill a hole that I felt in my heart. I couldn't tell you what that hole was, but I do know that addiction is a symptom of that hole that's there, and you're trying to fill it. You're trying to not feel that you're missing something. And then the way to get past addiction is to figure out how to fill the hole. Fill your life with meaning. Fill your life with people. The opposite of addiction is not soberness, it's human connection. And when you're ready, take your time. But having more meaningful things in your life, just what you can manage, is going to be a big part of recovery.

Video 3 Transcript

So the thing with trials is that our perspective and our attitude changes everything. It may not change the situation, but it changes how we are. Because if we are angry and resentful and just really, really negative towards it, our situation is still going to be the same. So it's a huge benefit to us if we just look for the good and if we focus on the Savior. And so if we're in a difficult situation, just know that the thing that we can control is our attitude and our relationship with our Savior and with Heavenly Father.

Video 4 Transcript

I just recently had to deal with overcoming an extremely hard trial in my life. I waited an extremely long time to open up a safe house for abandoned and abused children. I believe that that was my purpose and I believe that that is why God created me. And the person I was married to ended up raping my foster child. And in the process, I kind of lost everything. I lost my marriage and I lost my place to stay and I lost all my children. Through the last two years, I've had to learn to forgive. And if I didn't learn to forgive, I don't think I would have been able to get through the things that I got through. But it's only by God's grace that I am standing today.

Video 5 Transcript

When I was about 15, maybe 14, there was a point in my life where my best friend at the time, like when I say best friend, I mean we were hanging out every day, talking to each other every day. He was the closest person I was, like closer than I was with any family, friends, anyone else. He was the closest person I had to me at the time and he died. He killed himself. And for a while, a very long time, I was, I was really sad. I kind of just hated everything. I hated everything about life and it just sucked. And long story short, the first thing that ever put me in a good mood, that ever, not even a good mood, the first thing that ever just made me calm and peaceful was when I read my scriptures. And that's how I knew that following Christ and trying to be like Him is what's best for us.

Video 6 Transcript

Oftentimes whenever we experience trials, I feel like we think that there's never an end and it feels like the pain that we're feeling or the sorrow we're going through is just never going to stop. And I think that in the trials that I have experienced in my life, I have known that there is always an end. And one of the ways that I have been able to get through those trials is cleaving on to Christ and going to Him, turning to Him, and really focusing on Him and His teachings. I remember a specific trial that I had earlier last year to where I had a feeling that I really needed to watch a BYU devotional that was coming on. And I watched it and it felt like I was being directly spoken to through Elder Holland, who gave the devotional, but directly from Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. And so I think that if we cleave unto them during those times that we will be able to go through everything that they have or Heavenly Father has in store for us and that we will be able to come out strong in the end.

Video 7 Transcript

So I was involved in a car accident with my mom and it was in Arizona. I had my first broken bone and had to overcome that as well as get physical therapy for my left shoulder. Well my mom went through a lot worse. We could have died in that accident. I knew that Heavenly Father was looking out for us. The policemen told me we could have been killed in that accident and with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Video 8 Transcript

When I was 14, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, which has significantly affected my life up till now. It's caused me a lot of emotional and physical pain. But the way that I've overcome that is by turning to Christ and trusting in the fact and knowing the fact that he has felt all that I'm going through. Having someone who knows how I feel has given me the strength to keep going, even when I feel like my efforts aren't bearing fruit and that I'm not making any progress. I'm still feeling all this pain that I know that through him I can overcome and that has helped me significantly over the last few years and it has been a source of joy for me.

Video 9 Transcript

What I've learned is when I'm experiencing a trial, God doesn't necessarily take it away. He usually, in my life, when I turn to Him and rely on Him is when He makes that burden lighter and that's the way I'm able to endure through trials rather than have them go away completely. And through those trials, I feel like Heavenly Father has allowed me to grow into a person that relies on Him and relies on the Atonement and relies on the Savior rather than relying on myself and my own knowledge. And in that way, I've grown closer to Christ.

Video 10 Transcript

I think everyone has moments in their life that are hard, and for me, the thing that has helped me the most through those hard times is reflecting back on what's most important to me. Just recently I went through a time of not knowing really what I wanted to do with life and had a lot of different decisions I needed to make, and I just remembered the things that are most important to me, and I was making sure that those are still a part of my life. And even though that didn't give me answers to everything, it gave me comfort, at least enough comfort to keep moving forward and to do what I needed to do and get through, I guess, the hard time of my life. So I guess, all in all, just remember what's most important to you, and if you don't know that, then maybe take time to reflect on what you care about and what makes you happy.

Video 11 Transcript

Sometimes trials can be so hard, you don't know if they'll ever end, you don't know how to overcome them. But experiences I've had in overcoming trials are when I rely on God, when I put my will after His will, when I seek to do what He wants and I kind of have to give myself to Him, when I give all my struggles and my worries, when I give them to Christ, then He is able to help me overcome them. He strengthens my burdens, makes me strong. And as Nephi said in the Book of Mormon, he prayed, not that his bounds would be loosed, but he, one experience he did, but he prayed that he would have the strength to loosen his own bands. So when we pray to God, we should, we ask Him for help to bear these burdens and to overcome these trials, not for Him to take them away, because then we can't grow from them.

Video 12 Transcript

One of the biggest trials that I've ever had to go through in my life was during my senior year of high school, my two good friends passed away unexpectedly. It was in a hiking accident, and that was really hard, and I kind of questioned the existence of God. But through my family and through going to church, I was able to kind of feel God's love and feel that He is very mindful of me. And through continuing doing the things that I know I needed to do, like praying, and through reading my scriptures, and through pondering, and through writing in my journal, and meditating, that I was able to overcome trials. And it didn't happen immediately, and it didn't happen all at once, and the healing process was long, but through Christ, I was able to overcome that.

Video 13 Transcript

A lot of people were surprised to hear that. Through middle school and a lot of high school, I struggled with social anxiety and low self-esteem. I've always loved talking to people, but for some reason, in this window of time, it became my least favorite thing and I dreaded it more than anything in this whole world. But one day, as I was just sitting by myself in my room, miserable, I just decided I didn't want that to be me anymore. And so I prayed to know what I do to overcome this trial in my life. And the answer I got was service. So instead of thinking about how I looked that day or how other people saw me or how I would interact with someone for my benefit, I would look outside of myself and see how other people might be struggling and how I could help them better. And once I started doing that and taking the focus off of myself and onto other people, those problems just weren't an issue anymore because I found my confidence in God.

Video 14 Transcript

Like most people that served a mission, I experienced a lot of trials on my mission. I don't want to go into a lot of details about specific ones, but there was a talk I read by, I think it was David A. Bednar, called The Faith to Not Be Healed, if I remember correctly. Anyway, he shares an experience about how he, when going to give a blessing to someone who was in the emergency room, asked if they had the faith to not be healed. And pretty much the principle behind that question is to help people understand that faith isn't contingent upon what we want to happen, but having faith is contingent upon what God's plans are and if we believe that they're the best for us. So if we can have the faith to not be healed and have the faith to experience or go through the things God wants us to, then it's going to be easier for us and he's going to bless us and enable us.