Hard Times and Holy Places

ur stake had a special speaker come and speak to us this past Thursday night and she was wonderful. Truly someone that is a modern day Job. Her name is Kristen Warner Belcher and she recently wrote a book called "Hard Time and Holy Places" and it is wonderful.

When she was 7 months old she was diagnosed with tumors on her retinas that were cancerous, a disease called Rentinoblastoma. She had to undergo radiation at the age of 7 months old. It did kill all of the cancer cells at the time. When she was 8 years old she lost the sight in her left eye and had limited vision in her right eye. When she was a teenager she decided to undergo surgery to fix some of the malformation on her head that was caused by the radiation when she was a baby. At this time they removed her left eye completely and inserted a prosthetic eye. Later when she was in college she got really sick and had really bad pain in her head. After many tests and months of being in pain they found out that the radiation had weakened her skull and had caused it to crack as a result there was also a tear in the sac around her brain the size of a quarter and she was losing fluid through that hole. Her headaches were caused when air would get up through that crack and the hole and come in contact with her brain. This is just the beginning of this ladies trials that she has had to overcome.

Later she was diagnosed with having a malignant tumor on her optic nerve right behind the retina in her eye this tumor also affected her sinus area. As a result she had to have her right eye removed and became completely blind along with have a severely disfigured right eye socket. She underwent 5 skull surgeries in 5 months. This book talks about how she made it through her experiences and what helps her. She is AMAZING.

A few things really struck me and I want to share them. She talks about how we all have choices when we are given trials in our lives. We can choose to be bitter and angry and full of hatred and sadness which is what Satan wants or we can choose Christ. Even though we have these trials, and they are hard, with Christ and through Christ we can make it through them. Ultimately Christ knows everything and gives us trials so that we can become who he knows what we can become. (that may not make sense to anyone but it does to me.) She makes the comment how she would have people come and say to her that she must be strong and able to handle a lot of things because "God wouldn't give you more than you can handle." She said that was just horrible for her to hear but as she thought about it she realized that it is only through Christ that she was able to handle it. So when someone tells her that she responds that "God wouldn't give you more than you can handle.....with Christ's help."

We need to replace our Why questions with "What" questions.

What can I learn from this difficulty?
What role can this trial play in bringing me close to Christ?
What can I do to show my faithfulness to my Saviour during this struggle?
What can I do to help others who are also suffering?

"Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more (see Prov. 3:11-12). He therefore give you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain." Elder Richard G. Scott from his October 1995 general conference talk.

She also gives reference to a wonderful talk given by Elder Boyd K. Packer. You can find it here.

She talks about how expectations that we have and  what reality is are very different. Our expectations often leave us disappointed when we realize that things aren't what we though they were. We can then choose how we react to that disappointment. We have the agency to decide how we want to live and nobody else can make that choice. But we need to be able to accept that choice and live with the consequences of it. If we choose to be unhappy then we also need to accept the consequences that there may be people who do not want to be around us because of the choice of being unhappy.

She says that no one schedules adversity. "We don't look at our daily planners and say, "Today I'll drop off the kids at school, go grocery shopping, get a fatal disease, pick up the dry cleaning, have marital problems, and take dinner to Sister So and so. If I have time, maybe I can lose my job, and my house could burn down. Or should I push that  off until tomorrow?" In this mortal world, we have no need to schedule trials; they just come."

She is now blind and cannot see her husbands face, she cannot see her sons faces as they grow, but she has learned to rely on Christ and knows that He knows the bigger plan and that she NEEDS to rely on him to make it through this journey. By reading her story and meeting her in person she truly is an inspiration of someone who easily could have turned very bitter and hateful, but she truly has a personality that is very funny and can laugh about her situation and can also see that she has a lot to learn and it is through Christ that she can make it through things.

I have never wanted pity from anybody as I have gone through my trials. People have commented to me that they look up to me with everything that I have been through and don't know how I have done it. I can honestly say that I have CHOSEN not to be bitter. I have CHOSEN to take things as they come and deal with them and move on. There are things in my life that I wish that I could have reacted to differently but overall I feel like I have tried to do my best to make sure that I do not turn bitter or angry or spiteful in any situation that may occur.

Please read this book it is wonderful. I will forever look at things differently because of Sister Belcher.