Overcoming Opposition

The title of this post was also the title of our lesson in Young Women today.  It was a great, eye-opening lesson, beginning with some painful stories of real people with real problems and ending with them learning to accept their life and to be grateful for where their challenges had led them.  My thoughts were led to this:  what if you had never had any trials?  What if you had coasted through life, constantly healthy, beautiful, good, happy, content, with the perfect family, the perfect friends, no losses, no hard choices, with money and comforts, without grief...  If this were your life's story, would you be the person you are now?  Would you go back and change your life to that if you could?  Would you want to be the kind of person that would come out of that lack of experience?

The first scripture that I ever read on my own and had a little "awakening" over was 2 Nephi 3:13:

And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin.  If there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness.  And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness.  And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery.  And if these things are not there is no God.  And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.

This is opposites in a nutshell.  How could you know that your life was blissful if you had never experienced anything else?  How could you make something wonderful out of your life if there was no risk of making something terrible?

From the same chapter of scripture come these, verses 23 - 27, about Adam and Eve, had they not fallen:

Wherefore, they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.

{this may seem OK for a day, but would get very boring...}

But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.

Adam fell that men might be; and men are that they might have joy.

{we are not intended for boredom}

And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall.  And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.

{when we make mistakes, Christ can help us

work through and over come them}

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient to man.  And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, though the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

This last verse is the blessing and the curse of agency, freedom to choose.  Choose Wisely!