Standing Fast Through the Storms of Life

Yesterday I taught the Relief Society lesson to the women in my church. The lesson was about how we can stand fast through the storms of life. I have had some stormy times in my life. Some brought on by making some poor decisions, and some that have come to me because my Heavenly Father wanted me to learn something or have me grow. I learned a lot from teaching this lesson. I learned that all of our trials "work together for our own good," that after we have been tried our true self is revealed.
I have often worried since becoming a mother how I could handle it if I was to loose one of my children? For me, that is such a scary thing. To loose one of my children or for one of them to be hurt in such an awful way. How would I endure that? How would I react to that? What would I reveal about myself?
Yesterday while having a class discussion on this topic, a lady whom I have complete respect for, raised her hand and shared some very personal storms that she has had to endure. She was a very young mother of two young children and she came home to find out that her babysitter had physically beaten her young daughter, and had sexually molested her young son. Many, many years later after her children are grown adults, through her tears she told of her struggles with these things. I could still feel of her pain. But she also spoke about how much she learned from it and how she has been able to help out others from living through that as well.
Things like this happen to all of us in some shape or form. Hard things that we have to bear, just as Joseph Smith had to bear his trials to bring forth the gospel of Jesus Christ. These storms force us to learn, to grow, and prepare us to be celestial beings. There was a quote from the lesson that really struck me that Joseph Smith had said in speaking to the quorum of the twelve-
"You will have all kinds of trials to pass through. And it is quite as necessary for you to be tried as it was for Abraham and other men of God. And said he, God will feel after you, and He will take hold of you and wrench your very heart strings, and if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God."

So how am I able to stand all these trials that come to me? The answer came to me very simple, yet it is sometimes seems hard to do because I get caught up in the world and forget it.

"I know in whom I trust; I stand upon the rock; the floods cannot, no they shall not, overflow me."
I know that if I remember to lean on the Lord and live my life by His teachings, that I will be able to withstand whatever storms may come my way. I am so thankful for this last weekend of General Conference, and the guidance we receive from our Heavenly Father through the general authorities. They assure us that even in these perilous times that we live in, if we are prepared, we shall not fear. I take such comfort in that.