Times of Trouble

If you have some free time today, I recommend reading this talk by Elder Holland called "Times of Trouble." It's about ten pages long so I can't share it all here, but I will share some highlights. It is one of the best talks I have read for a long time. It is about discouragement and depression. It was a talk given to the students of BYU back in 1980, but the concepts are just as relevant today as they were then.

"...I wish at the outset to make a distinction F. Scott Fitzgerald once made, that "trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement--discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint" (The Crack-Up, 1945). Troubles we all have, but the "germ" of discouragement, to use Fitzgerald's word, is not in the trouble, it is in us. Or to be more precise, I believe it is in Satan, the Prince of Darkness, the Father of Lies. And he would have it be in us... it will work and it will grow and it will spread. In fact it can become almost a habit, a way of living and thinking, and there the greatest damage is done."

After sharing a story about a paper he wrote in college, on which he did not spend any real time and received a very bad grade... he says, "The point is the same with school as with money or marriage or profession or any hope and dream. Prepare. Plan. Work. Sacrifice. Rework. Spend cheerfully on matters of worth. Carry the calm, and wear the assurance of having done the best you could with what you had. If you work hard and prepare earnestly, it will be very difficult for you to give in or give up or wear down. If you labor with faith in God and in yourself and in your future, you will have built upon a rock. Then, when the winds blow and the rains come--as surely they will--you shall not fall."

"Do you ever feel untalented or incapable or inferior? Would it help you to know that everyone else feels that way too, including the prophets of God? Moses initially resisted his destiny, pleading that he was not eloquent in language. Jeremiah thought himself a child and was afraid of the faces he would meet."

"You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. That's another satanic suckerpunch--that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, "I'll change"--and mean it. Of course there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make. You may well spend--indeed you had better spend--the rest of your life proving your repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as for Alma and the sons of Mosiah."

And finally, he ends with the story of Elisha...

"Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." [2 Kings 6:16–17]

We have lots of help. Many people are there to support us, and our Father in Heaven and our Savior will give us strength. I loved this talk and found it so inspiring.
If you decide to read it, have your highlighter ready.