Elder Wihongi, Elder Gardner, Elder Mayberry & Elder Abplanalp

I have a friend who lives with the effects of MS (Multiple Sclerosis). She is not well, but when I’m around her she is cheerful and upbeat and positive. She is hopeful and helpful and kind. She is one of the most selfless people I know. She is in pain much of the time. Despite her suffering… she has a deep faith that God has something good and wonderful in store for her and she shares her faith with me. Thank you, Vikki. I am a better person because of you.

I have sweet new friends who have come to me, telling me their story of how they almost gave up on life. I know they came to me wanting to help and I appreciate that more than they will ever know. I needed to hear their story. I have other new friends who are suffering from the suicide of one of their children. We now have a common bond we wish we didn’t have. These new friends have and are suffering…. I now have many more friends because of that suffering.

I have a nephew who has suffered most of his young life with mental illness. He is a gentle soul… as his mother calls him… kind and good, like Ashton. He recently wrote his story and let me read it. It was heart wrenching for me to know what he experienced and suffered through, quietly, as a child. He has been working amazingly hard to be well and he is succeeding at it. He is now working to help those like him…and Ashton…to be well and whole again. Thank you for not giving up, Tyrell. You are doing wonderfully well and I am so proud of you. You are making a difference in the lives of those in your sphere.  Tyrell has suffered… but not anymore. He is using that suffering from his past to help and strengthen.

My newest friend, Ashley Sargeant, founder of the Don’t Stop Sargeant campaign, lives with Bipolar II disorder. After her mission, she was in a very dark place. Her journey has been hard, but she has turned her suffering into a world of light and hope for herself and for many, many others…. including me.  She is using that very illness to change lives. She is perpetuating Ashton’s Legacy. She is bringing hope and light to the world of those with mental illness, especially for early returning missionaries, like Ashton.

I have a new appreciation for suffering. If I let it…. if I choose it…. I can be like Vikki, helpful and hopeful and kind when I have my turn. I can be like my new friends and share my story to help and strengthen those who need to hear it. I can be like Tyrell and Ashley, and use my experience with suffering to make a difference in the world. I can… I can choose. I have a choice.

Jesus Christ had a choice… and he chose to suffer for me, for Ashton and Vikki, for Tyrell and Ashley, for all of us.

I have struggled lately with the suffering and strugglings of so many of my family members and friends. I want to be able help them all and I can’t. But the Savior can. Once again I have needed to give that struggle to Him and let His Atonement take the pain and fear away. Once again I have needed to let that Atonement bring the peace I need. And once again… that peace has come.

“We are the cause for which Christ suffered.”  Carol F. McConkie

Yes… I have a new appreciation for the suffering that happens on this earth. I watch and I listen, and I have discovered the blessings and the good that can come from it. I have become aware of those who have turned more to God because of its storm. And I…  I have been greatly blessed by its aftermath.

“Perhaps the road we may have to tread through suffering leads ultimately to important discoveries of the soul.” Ensign – December 1972

Written by Faye