Tragedy or Destiny

Today my heart goes out to a loving family who lost father & husband unexpectedly on Friday at the age of 32. He left behind his wife & 6 beautiful daughters, ages 9-1. I barely know this family, their older girls dance at Jive with Julia. Yet, I admire & love them in so many ways. I once witnesses Naki giving advice to one of his daughters & was impressed with the love he had for her. I knew his family was blessed to have him in their lives. Trying to make sence of it all, I remembered a lesson I gave in Relief Society about 3 years ago. It was a hard & emotion lesson for me to give, but I was greatful for the opportunity to study these words.

From the Life of Spencer W. Kimball

When we face the apparent tragedies of
sorrow, suffering, & death, we must put our trust in God.

When Spencer W. Kimball was 8 years old, his baby sister, Mary, died. On his 9th birthday his 5 year old sister, Fannie, died.
At 11 years old his heart seemed to burst when his mother died.
He found comfort in prayer & in the principles of the gospel.

In His wisdom, God does not always prevent tragedy.

The Lord did not consider death always as a curse or tragedy, He said, “... blessed are the dead that die in the Lord...” Life goes on & free agency continues, & death, which seems such a calamity, could be a blessing in disguise.
If we say that all death is a calamity, disaster or tragedy, would it not be saying that mortality is preferable to earlier entrance into the spirit world & to eventual salvation & exaltation? If mortality be the perfect state, then death would be a frustration, but the Gospel teaches us there is no tragedy in death, but only in sin.
Can the Lord prevent tragedies? The answer is, Yes. The Lord is omnipotent, with all power to control our lives, save us pain, prevent all accidents, feed us, protect us, save us from labor, effort, sickness, even from death, if he will. But he will not.
Every act of God is purposeful. He sees the end from the beginning. He knows what builds us, or tears us down, what will thwart the program & what will give us eventual triumph. The Lord does not always heal the sick, nor save those in hazardous zones. He does not always relieve suffering & distress, for even these seemingly undesirable conditions may be part of a purposeful plan. God controls our lives, guides & blesses us, but gives us our agency.
If all the sick were healed, if all the righteous were protected, & the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled & the basic principles of the Gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith.
Should all prayers be immediately answered according to our selfish desires & our limited understanding, then there would be little or no suffering, sorrow, disappointment or even death, & if these were not there would also be an absence of joy, success, resurrection, eternal life & Godhood.
I’m positive in my mind that the Lord has planned our destiny. We shorten our lives but I think we cannot lengthen them very much. Sometime we’ll understand fully, & when we see back from the vantage point of the future we shall be satisfied with many of the happenings of this life which seemed so difficult for us to comprehend.
We knew before we were born that we were coming to the earth for bodies & experience, & that we would have joys & sorrows, pain & comforts, ease, & hardships, health & sickness, success & disappointments, & we knew also that we would die. We accepted all these eventualities with a glad heart, eager to accept both the favorable & unfavorable. We were undoubtedly willing to have a mortal body, even if it were deformed. We eagerly accepted the chance to come... though it might be for a day, a year, or a century. Perhaps we were not so much concerned whether we should die of disease. We were willing to come & take life as it was, without murmur or complaint or unreasonable demands.
We sometimes think we would like to know what was ahead, but sober thought brings us back to accepting life a day at a time & magnifying & glorifying that day.
Everyone must die. Death is an important part of life. Of course, we are never quite ready for the change. Not knowing when it should come, we properly fight to retain our life.
Why are we so afraid of death? We pray for the sick-we administer to the afflicted- we implore the Lord to heal & reduce the pain & save life & postpone death, & properly so, but is eternity frightful? So awful?

The Prophet Joseph Smith confirmed:The Lord takes many away in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man & the sorrows & evils of the present world. They were too pure, too lovely, to live on this earth. Therefore I mightily considered,instead of mourning we have reason to rejoice as they are delivered from evil & we shall have them again. The only difference between the old & young dying, is one lives longer in heaven & eternal light & glory than the other, & is freed a little sooner from this miserable world.”

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude & humility. All that we suffer
& all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our character, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, & makes us more tender & charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . & it is through sorrow & suffering, toil & tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire & which will make us more like our Father & Mother in heaven. . . .” (Orson F. Whitney)

I would not dare to take the responsibility of bringing back to life my loved ones. Christ himself acknowledged the difference between his will & the Father’s when he prayed that the cup of suffering be taken from him; yet he added, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.”

We sometimes think we would like to know what lies ahead,
but sober thought brings us back to accepting life a day at a time
& magnifying & glorifying that day. . . .