Dear Bro. Gorton, Sir,
I am a life-long member married to a convert. We have four children and are expecting our fifth by Christmas. I tell you this to share where I am in this life. What I need to know is how to repair a relationship with our Father. I am angry with Him. My family has had more than it’s share of misfortunes starting around February this year. Lots of things have and are going wrong. A lot of trials. I know all of the right answers to why there are trials and what they are for. I’m sure that the things that are happening have some sort of reason. I have to believe that.
If I hear that phrase that “He doesn’t give us more than we can handle” I will throw up and it won’t be from morning sickness! I look at my children and think of how much I love them and how painful some of these experiences are. It makes me so mad at our Father. I know I cannot possibly comprehend “why”. I want to know how to salvage my relationship with a Father that I am terribly mad at. My thinking? He put me here with all these disadvantages, sort of like sending a gladiator into the ring naked and blindfolded. I cannot pray because I’m embarrassed of some of the things I screamed at Him. I’m not sure I trust Him. And there’s all of that anger.
My spiritual gifts were faith and patience. I never realized how much loosing those would mean. During this experience, I have lost most of my testimony and have made all of my family inactive. I know where to begin with those things. What do I “say” to Him? Are there some things that can be said that can permanently alienate us from Him? Thank you very much for your time.
C
Dear C,
We must start with the council in heaven where plans were proposed for the passage of man through mortality and return to the Father in eternity. You know the story. Lucifer proposed the following plan-
And [Satan] came before me, saying-Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor. Moses 4:1.
This plan was rejected, and…
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Rev.12:9
Since that time Satan has used all his powers to impose his plan on the human family. In his plan everyone would be forced to comply whether they wanted to or not. There would be no freedom of choice. And all the glory and honor for such doings would revert to Satan. We see his plan in operation in all the dictatorships that have been thrust on the world. Every one, without exception, has resulted death and misery and abject poverty of those under the power of the dictator. Each one in its turn has ended in miserable failure
To avoid such disastrous forms of government, God gave man the power to choose what he would do and who he would obey. The Father’s plan is one of happiness. He imposes no ill fortune on any of His children. He is their Father; He loves them-desires their happiness and well being. Because men are imperfect and deviate from the plan of God misery comes into the world.
Your problem is that you are mad at the wrong person!!!! Satan, not God, is responsible for all the misery to which you are subjected. If God were to intervene and prevent it all from happening, He would be following Satan’s plan of forcing compliance.
Since God is your loving Father, and is full of mercy and compassion, He will forgive you of your childish, tantrum-like behavior toward Him, if you just change your ways and ask Him to forgive you. Thus is it true that He never gives us more than we can handle of the difficulties of life. Satan gives all those to us; and it’s all part of mortality. So throw up and get on with your life.
Gramps
