Life isn’t always easy, is it?

So you know, I don’t have a lot of complaints in my life, besides my dang brain letting my thoughts get away from me and weakening my faith sometimes. I won’t go into details, but really, I know I am so blessed, I just have this one recurring trial in my head going off and on for the last while (namely about 5 years). In my study of the gospel and continuing to do as I’m supposed to (since I do know where the source of all my blessings come from, I can never turn away from the church! I could not deny what I know I’ve felt before), I was really touched by a story by Elder Hugh B. Brown, and wanted to share it because it has helped me a lot. I just don’t know the character of Heavenly Father as well as I should. I will definitely be working on that. So here it is, maybe it will help one of the few people who read my blog!

” ‘You sometimes wonder whether the Lord really knows what He ought to do with you. You sometimes wonder if you know better than He does about what you ought to do and ought to become. I am wondering if I may tell you a story. It has to do with an incident in my life when God showed me that He knew best.
I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and clipped it back until there was nothing left but stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it and smiled and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”

That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’ ”

http://www.living-prophet.info/LDS/073_Hugh_B_Brown.html

Another couple really good talks that have helped me lately are “Willing to Submit” by Elder Neal A. Maxwell. “The Grandeur of God” by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. “Lord, I Believe; Help Thou Mine Unbelief” by President James E. Faust, and “The Quest for Spiritual Knowledge” by President Packer.