What I learned - Lift up your Head and Rejoice

As we face hard things in the Lord’s way,

may we lift up our heads and rejoice.

by M. Joseph Brough

I love General Conference.  I love the spirit and the message of the talks there.  I love listening and learning and partaking of the good words. 
In the talk, Lift Up Your Head and Rejoice he tells the story about going to Alaska for a camp out and boxing up all their supplies so that they would not have to carry them.  They dropped them out the airplane and then landed in another part of the wilderness and hiked to where they dropped their supplies.  He says they never did find all the supplies and he learned two very valuable lessons from this experience;  one is don't throw your food out the window, and the second is that sometimes we have to face hard things.  Isn't that the truth!
He gave many examples of hard things that others have endured, including himself and his family.  We are all asked to do hard things.  We all get to choose how we face them.  I think that one of the hardest things we might do is to learn to face them with joy and thanksgiving. 

He ended with these words:

In President Russell M. Nelson’s worldwide devotional for youth, he requested some hard things of the youth. President Nelson said: “My fifth invitation is for you to stand out; be different from the world. … The Lord needs you to look like, sound like, act like, and dress like a true disciple of Jesus Christ.”  That can be a hard thing, yet I know you can do it—with joy.

 

Remember that “men are, that they might have joy.”  With all that Lehi faced, he still found joy. Remember when Alma was “weighed down with sorrow”  because of the people of Ammonihah? The angel told him, “Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, … for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God.”  Alma learned a great truth: we can always rejoice when we keep the commandments.

 

Remember that during the wars and challenges faced during the time of Captain Moroni, “there never was a happier time among the people of Nephi.”  We can and should find joy when we face hard things.The Savior faced hard things: “The world … shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.”

 

Because of that loving-kindness, Jesus Christ suffered the Atonement. As a result, He says to each one of us, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”   Because of Christ, we too can overcome the world.

 

May we all strive to face our own hard things with rejoicing.