It Is Up to God

Elder Dube told this story about his mother in the most recent general conference: “Toward the end of her life, while Mother battled cancer, she lived with Naume and me. One night I heard her sobbing in her bedroom. Her pain was intense, even after taking her last daily dose of morphine only two hours earlier. I entered her room and sobbed with her. I prayed aloud for her to receive instant relief from her pain. And then she did the same thing she had done in the field years ago: she stopped and taught me a lesson. I will never forget her face at that moment: frail, stricken, and full of pain, gazing with pity on her sorrowing son. She smiled through her tears, looked directly into my eyes, and said, ‘It is not up to you or anyone else, but it is up to God whether this pain will go away or not.’” Her powerful expression of faith reminds me of that of Job who also suffered immense physical pain: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him. He also shall be my salvation” (Job 13:15-16). Both Elder Dube’s mother and Job knew that there was more to life than avoiding suffering. They understood that our greatest purpose in life is to trust God and do the will of the Lord no matter what happens: “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Abraham 3:25). Elder Dube commented on his mother’s acceptance of God’s will by reminding us of the Savior’s determination to likewise do what His Father required: “I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me” (3 Nephi 27:13). We too have come into the world to do the will of the Father and to trust Him no matter what challenges we face.

Elder Dube also referenced the prophet’s recent invitation to us to let God prevail in our lives. He said, “I reflect on our dear prophet President Nelson’s prophetic questions to us in the last general conference. President Nelson asked: ‘Are you willing to let God prevail in your life? Are you willing to let God be the most important influence in your life? … Will you allow His voice to take … precedence over every other ambition? Are you willing to have your will swallowed up in His?’ My mother would have responded with an emotional but firm ‘yes,’ and other faithful members of the Church across the globe would also respond with an emotional but firm ‘yes.’” We must each decide if we are willing to let God prevail, to accept His will, to say to Him, “Thou art the Potter, I am the Clay” no matter what life brings. This reminds me of a famous poem entitled The Weaver by Grant Tullar that I once memorized long ago: 

My life is but a weaving

Between my God and me.

I cannot choose the colors

He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;

And I in foolish pride

Forget He sees the upper

And I the underside.

Not ’til the loom is silent

And the shuttles cease to fly

Will God unroll the canvas

And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful

In the weaver’s skillful hand

As the threads of gold and silver

In the pattern He has planned

He knows, He loves, He cares;

Nothing this truth can dim.

He gives the very best to those

Who leave the choice to Him.   

As we “strive through grief and pain” in mortality we can be assured that He is the Weaver who, if we will let Him, will make of us a tapestry far greater than any we could imagine. He can indeed see a vision of the final tapestry that we cannot. And we can trust, as Elder Orson F. Whitney taught, in this truth: “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, and humility. … It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire.” I hope that I can have that kind of faith and trust in the Lord, like Elder Dube’s mother, to know that all suffering is in His hands and He will lead my life through all the challenges of this mortal journey.