Happily Ever After?

I came across this statement today as I was looking at the Sunday School lesson I'm teaching next week. This lesson is about the Plan of Salvation. This statement is taken from an address by President Boyd K. Packer called The Play and The Plan. It compares the progress of the soul through the premortal, mortal, and eternal worlds to a three-act play. I found this excerpt very thought-provoking:

There are three parts to the plan. You are in the second or the middle part, the one in which you will be tested by temptation, by trials, perhaps by tragedy. …

Remember this! The line ‘And they all lived happily ever after’ is never written into the second act. That line belongs in the third act, when the mysteries are solved and everything is put right. …

Until you have a broad perspective of the eternal nature of this great drama, you won’t make much sense out of the inequities in life. Some are born with so little and others with so much. Some are born in poverty, with handicaps, with pain, with suffering. Some experience premature death, even innocent children. There are the brutal, unforgiving forces of nature and the brutality of man to man. We have seen a lot of that recently.

Do not suppose that God willfully causes that which, for His own purposes, He permits. When you know the plan and the purpose of it all, even these things will manifest a loving Father in Heaven (Boyd K. Packer, The Play and the Plan [satellite broadcast, 7 May 1995], 1–2).

It's hard to understand sometimes why bad things happen to us, especially when we're trying to do what's right. Don't the scriptures promise us that when we are obedient, we will be blessed? (Mosiah 2:41, for example.)

Yes, they do. But the scriptures do not specify in what manner we are blessed. And they do not promise us a life free from temptation, trial, or even tragedy. There are some things we learn only by overcoming challenges, even ones that seem impossible to bear or unfair to us. "Sometimes," as Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, "we learn 'by sad experience'".

What the scriptures do promise--what Jesus Himself promised--is the strength to overcome these things.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Perspective. Patience. Perseverance. Perfect faith. These are the things that carry us through the hard times, until we reach our "Happily Ever After".

Even so, we are to seek joy in the journey. And we are especially to help others find joy along the way.