Several years ago I starting cutting my own hair. It works well—usually. But one afternoon when the razor first touched my hair, I felt something uncomfortable, and heard a loud buzzing noise. It only took a half second for me to realize that something was wrong—I had forgotten to put on the attachment, and had created a bald spot in my head!
When my wife saw it, she was horrified. “You can’t go out like that,” she said. So she got a permanent marker and colored in the bald spot. But that just made it look worse!
Then she said, “After the haircut we’ll have some extra hair. Why don’t we just take some of the extra hair and superglue it to your head.”
And you know what, it worked!
Fortunately there was a quick solution to my bald patch—but there are many problems we face that are not so easily we resolved. Some times life is just plain hard. That is why I love President Susan W. Tanner’s motto, “I can do hard things!”
Three principles that may help are 1. Fear not. 2. Focus on what is in your control. 3. Go forward in the strength of the Lord.
First, fear not. The phrase, “fear not” appears 97 times in the scriptures. The phrase “be not afraid” occurs 35 times. Yet when we are in the midst of trials, it is easy to give into fear, and even allow fear to paralyze us.
Perhaps the Israelites felt paralyzed with fear when they stood between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army. But even in this case (where fear certainly seemed justified), Moses told them, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord… The Lord shall fight for you” (Exodus 14:13-14).
And then the Lord gave this important counsel. He “said unto Moses…speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward” (Exodus 14:15).
At times I think everyone feels afraid. Like this story I heard—Sacrament meeting was about to begin and a mother couldn’t find her son. She searched everywhere and finally located him sitting outside on the curb with his head in his hands. She said “Son, we have to go in now. Sacrament is about to start.” He responds, “Mom, I’ll give you three reasons why I won’t go. 1. Nobody will talk to me, and 2. Nobody likes me. 3. I’m scared of the youth.
The mother said, “I’ll give you three reasons why you should go. 1. You need to take the Sacrament. 2. You’re 42 years old 3. You’re the Bishop!”
Fear not. Instead, keep moving forward with the spirit “of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).
Second, focus on what is in your control. Elder Richard G. Scott shared a valuable experience from his life—he was recently married with a good job and church calling. Yet his various assignments produced so much stress he found himself in the doctor’s office, being checked for ulcers.
The solution came when he was prompted to divide all of his challenges into two categories. He said, “First, those for which I had some ability to control and to resolve, I put into a mental basket called “concern.” Second, all the rest of the things that were either brought to me or I imagined I had the responsibility to carry out, but over which I had no control, I put in a basket called “worry.”
I realized I could not change them to any significant degree, so I studiously strove to completely forget them. The items in the “concern” basket were ordered in priority. I conscientiously tried to resolve them to the best of my ability.” (“To the lonely and misunderstood,” http://speeches.byu.edu).
When a problem would arise he would ask himself if this was something in his control. If it was not, he would try to forget them, and instead focus on those things that were in his control. We can do the same.
Third, we can go forward in the strength of the Lord. As the Nephites faced many difficult battles, notice what they did:
- “And in the strength of the Lord they did contend against their enemies” (Words of Mormon 1:14).
- “Yea, in the strength of the Lord did we go forth to battle against the Lamanites” (Mosiah 9:17).
- “In the strength of the Lord they did receive them” (3 Nephi 4:10).
Every time the Nephites battled with “the strength of the Lord” they succeeded. When Alma was faced with a difficult assignment he prayed, not for his trials to go away, but that the Lord would give him the strength to work through them. This prayer was answered (see Alma 31:31, 38).
As I pondered the principle, “I can do hard things,” I realized that nearly every story in the scriptures is about people who did things that were difficult. Even when life gets tough, we can do hard things as we fear not, focus on what is in our control, and go forward in the strength of the Lord.