Preparing Me For This

In his memoir Amkoullel, l’enfant peul, Amadou Hampâté Bâ told the story of his step-father Tidjani’s imprisonment and subsequent forced labors in Bougouni in Mali. Having been imprisoned first, he was later made part of a group with a very strenuous job of cutting down trees. Bâ related, “Tidjani Thiam, ses forces recouvrées, se montra un défricheur et un coupeur de gros arbres exceptionnel. Il était infatigable ! Heureux de se retrouver au grand air, il abattait sa hache à coups de bras puissants, tout en chantant de grands poèmes en langue arabe…. Tidjani récoltait les fruits du sévère apprentissage auquel son père l’avait soumis durant sa jeunesse et qui lui avait donné sa force et son endurance hors du commun. Tous les princes africains qui, pendant la colonisation, furent incarcérés à Bougouni en moururent, sauf mon père Tidjani…. Chaque fois qu’il donnait un coup de hache sur le tronc d’un arbre, Tidjani disait : « Merci, mon père ! Je croyais que tu ne m’aimais pas, je ne savais pas que tu me préparais à cela ! » Et il abattait l’arbre en un temps record !” (“Tidjani Thiam, his strength restored, proved to be an exceptional land clearer and cutter of large trees. He was tireless! Happy to be in the open air, he brought down his axe with powerful strokes, while singing great poems in Arabic…. Tidjani was reaping the fruits of the severe apprenticeship to which his father had subjected him during his youth and which had given him his extraordinary strength and endurance. All the African princes who, during colonization, were incarcerated in Bougouni died from it, except my father Tidjani…. Each time he struck a blow with his axe on the trunk of a tree, Tidjani would say: ‘Thank you, Father! I thought you didn’t love me, I didn’t know you were preparing me for this!’ And he would cut down the tree in record time!”) Tidjani was blessed with strength when he most needed it because his father had been tough on him when he was young.

            This reminds me of a story that Sister Joy D. Jones told about a friend who was in the U.S. military in the war against Vietnam. She related, “He was assigned to basic training in the infantry to become a foot soldier. He explained that the training was grueling. He described his drill instructor as cruel and inhumane. One particular day his squad was dressed in full battle gear, hiking in sweltering heat. The drill instructor suddenly shouted orders to drop to the ground and not move. The instructor was watching for even the slightest motion. Any movement would result in serious consequences later on. The squad suffered for more than two hours in the heat with growing anger and resentment toward their leader.” But that difficult training turned out to be critical to his survival when the stakes were much higher. She continued, “Many months later our friend found himself leading his squad through the jungles of Vietnam. This was real, not just training. Shots began to ring from high in the surrounding trees. The entire squad immediately dropped to the ground. What was the enemy looking for? Movement. Any motion at all would draw fire. My friend said that as he lay sweating and motionless on the jungle floor, waiting for dark for several long hours, his thoughts reflected back on basic training. He remembered his intense dislike for his drill instructor. Now he felt intense gratitude—for what he had taught him and how he had prepared him for this critical situation. The drill instructor had wisely equipped our friend and his squad with the ability to know what to do when the battle was raging. He had, in effect, saved our friend’s life.” She related this to how we raise our children and prepare them for the difficulties that they will face in life. She asked this powerful question: “Wouldn’t we rather have them ‘sweat’ in the safe learning environment of the home than bleed on the battlefields of life?” If we make life too easy for our children, continually bailing them out of hard things, they will certainly be unprepared for the great challenges they will face in life. A little figurative sweat now to prepare them is much better than symbolically bleeding later on in life because they are unprepared.  

            These stories also remind me of what Elder Stanley G. Ellis said several years ago in general conference. He related, “Before this calling I was a financial consultant in Houston, Texas. Most of my work was with multimillionaires who owned their own businesses. Almost all of them had created their successful businesses from nothing through lots of hard work. The saddest thing for me was to hear some of them say that they wanted to make it easier for their children. They did not want their children to suffer as they had. In other words, they would deprive their children of the very thing that had made them successful.” If we don’t help cultivate the ability to work hard in our children, we will be depriving them of something they will most assuredly need in their lives. When our children ask for an easier way out, even when we could provide it, sometimes we need to say no and encourage them, with the Lord’s help, to overcome hard things.

            Perhaps the most powerful example of this in the scriptures is when the Savior Himself reached out to the Father during the unimaginable agony of Gethsemane. He prayed, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). Despite His perfect love for His Son, despite the fact that He had all power, the Father did not take away the bitter cup from His Beloved Son. But He did send an angel to comfort Him: “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him” (Luke 22:43). Sometimes we will need to follow the same pattern as parents: not removing the trials and challenges of our children, but sending them aid to strengthen and help them through their difficulties. And if they don’t like it now, perhaps in some future day like Tidjani they will exclaim, “Thank you, Father! I thought you didn’t love me, I didn’t know you were preparing me for this!”