7 A final word

These have been an interesting past couple of weeks. First, I was diagnosed with thrush, a painful yeast infection in my mouth and throat. The apparent cause is the multiple courses of antibiotics I've been on throughout the year for a chronic sinus infection. One that just won't go away. Antibiotics apparently wipe out the good kind of bacteria the body needs to prevent such things as yeast infections.

Second, our son Michael's basement flooded. Again. Other times the cause has been their four-year-old Ethan. This time it was a combination of a drenching rainstorm and a tennis ball stuck in the downspout of the rain gutter just above the window well where the water cascaded into the house. (There's probably a life lesson in that small ball creating such havoc, but that's a topic for another time). Could Ethan have gotten a tennis ball on the roof? A question worth pondering.

But I digress. Michael and his two oldest boys were not back from an overnight Scout camp out when we discovered the flooded basement. I helped Shauna move a large entertainment cabinet so we could pull the wet carpet up, thinking at the time I should not be lifting this heavy thing. I partially dropped my end and fell backward against the wall behind me. Two days later I woke up with excruciating back pain that has continued unabated pretty much since then.

Meanwhile, and third, a CT scan of my sinuses revealed that my chronic sinus infection was likely being caused by teeth or the roots of teeth or some such scenario. So off I go to a dental specialist, who confirms what appears to be a problem and schedules a root canal on a tooth right next to the one that he did a root canal on last January. What fun times!

And then Uncle Bill dies in Spokane. And I cannot make it to the funeral because plane tickets on such short notice to such a place are prohibitively expensive. And a car ride is out of the question because of the back pain. You simply can't get there from here.

And then our neighbor across the street from us, a man we've know for the past thirty-plus years, also dies. And all of this in just a little over a week. So, I figured there must be some lessons in all of this. And this is what I concluded:
 
Trials and tribulations are a standard part of life. I think it was meant to be that way. Like exams and assignments in school, we may not like to face them, we may dread the deadlines they impose, but they're what help us learn the subject at hand.

As a wise man once taught, "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" (Orson F. Whitney, quoted in Faith Precedes the Miracle [1972], 98).

My trials this week are largely incident to my growing older. And to my own stupidity. I realize some people carry far greater burdens. Dealing with debilitating illnesses and the loss of loved ones come readily to mind. Life is simply not for wimps.

Responded to properly, trials and tribulations help us grow. They stretch and expand us. They teach us patience. They teach us compassion and empathy. They help us, as the mere mortals we are, the ones who whine and complain and evade and backslide, stiffen our backs (ouch!) and strengthen our resolve and eventually grow toward our real potential. We are godlings, and our destiny, if we can pass the tests of life successfully, is to become like our heavenly Parents. That's what this whole thing is all about, after all.