Lesson 28: O God, Where Art Thou

I still need to write about Lesson 26, and I didn't teach Lesson 27 because I was out of town last week, but I wanted to write about this one because it wound up being a really interesting discussion.  I know I'm not going to be able to capture what everyone said, but I want to write about it while it's fresh in my mind.

This was a hard lesson to prepare, not because I thought the church history or the Doctrine and Covenants sections used were uncomfortable, but because it was basically about suffering, and why we suffer.  I read a bunch of blog posts, articles and talks, and watched a couple of TED talks with suffering as a theme. Of course they all had strong lessons of rising above, but immersing myself in other people's pain is hard.  I spent some time crying this week.

I started out, as I always do, with some history, courtesy of Mormon Stories Sunday School.  Basically I read the first page from the Mormon Stories Sunday School reading notes, which itself quotes from Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants: A Guided Tour Through Modern Revelations.  The excerpt talks about 1838, which sounds like a rough year for the early Saints.  While Joseph Smith and 5 other leaders languished in terrible conditions at Liberty Jail all winter, the rest of the Saint were driven from Missouri.  It was a lot of text to read aloud, but I wanted to lay the foundation and really paint the picture of how dire things were for the early saints and Joseph Smith.

Then we read D&C 121:1-6, the pleading prayer of Joseph Smith: "O God, where art thou?"

Next, the initial part of the answer, D&C 121:7-10

The goal is to keep the perspective of the eternities.  It's hard to hear "thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment" when we're right in the middle of them.

Our entire Sacrament Meeting had been about the Plan of Salvation, so I referenced that a couple of times and gave this quote from Neal A. Maxwell:

"Trying to comprehend the trials and meaning of this life without understanding Heavenly Father's marvelously encompassing plan of salvation is like trying to understand a 3-act plan while seeing only the second act."

I discussed how that's where we are, in the second act.  The 1st act is the set-up, the 3rd act is the resolution, but the 2nd act is where all the drama happens.

Next we read D&C 122:7-9

The next step in my lesson was going to be talking some about the Savior and how to approach adversity.  But here's where it got interesting.  One woman, who has had a tough year fighting cancer, talked about how the most important thing is not to doubt and to hold onto the iron rod.  To which a man in the back raised his hand and essentially said, "Yeah, I don't agree.  I doubt.  I have a lot of doubts."

Thus ensued an extremely lively discussion about doubt, about whether it's ok to doubt, what does it mean to doubt, etc.  It was fantastic!  I told them all, I have doubts too.  But here I am.

(Later on, I told my husband, "Maybe we should have him and his wife over for dinner and talk about doubting...?")

I said two things that might have ticked off a couple of people, but oh well.

One man (who's now in the Stake YM presidency) talked about how important it is to always remember a couple of things when we have doubts - the church is true and Joseph Smith was a prophet.  As long as you remember that, you can go forward from there.

Ha!  Given the angst I've been having lately about Joseph Smith, I just couldn't let that lie.  So I basically said, I think for some people, you might even need to be more basic than that.  For instance, something as basic as "I believe in a God who loves me," and go from there.

At one point, our former EQ President said something about not thinking that doubt and faith could co-exist.  That we can be inquisitive, but that's different from doubting.

I said flat out that I disagreed with him.  I told him that I liked the nuance of calling it being inquisitive, but I definitely think doubt and faith can coexist.  (He clenched his jaw and didn't seem thrilled about that, and soon left the room, though that may have been completely unrelated.  Hard to say.)

There were so many good comments about how to approach your own personal searching.  I did my best to corral everything generally in the notions of, we're all on our own paths, if we are open to the Spirit we will find our course.

At that point I had 10 minutes left and was way off my lesson plan, but I was so glad we had that discussion.  Discussions like that make it clear that everyone really is at their own spot in belief and faith and, yes, doubt, and we can all learn so much from each other.

So I turned to the end of my lesson and asked, "What's the point?  Why do we have these struggles and doubts?  Why do we suffer?  To use a trite phrase, why do bad things happen to good people?"

I fully admitted that I do not have the answer, at least not a satisfying one.  But I have a couple of ideas.  I think part of it is so that we can be like the Savior.  He suffered and died for us, and he understands like no one else the pain that we go through.  The experiences that we have in our lives give us the ability to look to other people who are suffering and to give them empathy, and to reach out to them.

I read a quote from Anne Morrow Lindbergh, as quoted in Neal A. Maxwell's talk "Enduring Well".  First, I explained who Anne Morrow Lindbergh was, and how her 20-month son was kidnapped and killed.  She said:

"I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches.  If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers.  To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable."

This is such a powerful lesson. You can suffer, but the goal is to learn through that suffering.  To come through the other side and see your fellow human beings suffering and reach out to them because you understand.

We read Doctrine and Covenant 90:24 and I focused on the phrase "All things shall work together for your good."  All things, both the good and bad, ultimately work for our good. They make us the people who we are.

I closed by quoting a gospel song from the 1950s:

Well, I started out travelin' for the Lord many years ago
I've had a lot of heartache, I've met a lot of grief and woe
But where I would stumble, then I would humble down.
And there I would say, I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.

I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.  ITNOJC, Amen.