Big Things Come in Little Packages

Last night I laid in bed and thought of little Graham. How much I missed him. I thought about his strong spirit, and the influence that he's had on not only me, but many with his short time on Earth. His spirit was so big and strong and yet he was in this little body. And as I look back at pictures I realize just how small his body was, but yet I think his spirit made his physical stature seem so much bigger. He surely was a great blessing that came in a little package.

I've been reading a little book lately from Neal A. Maxwell, "All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience," that has some big things in it as well. Big promises and reminders of God's love for us. He gives a quote by President Kimball that says:

"We knew before we were born that we were coming to the earth for bodies and experiences and that we would have joys and sorrows, ease and pain, comforts and hardships, health and sickness, successes and disappointments. We knew also that after a period of life we would die. We accepted all these eventualites with a glad heart, eager to accept both the favorable and the unfavorable. We eagerly accepted the chance to come earthward even though it might be for only a day or a year. Perhaps we were not so much concerned whether we should die of disease, of accident, or of senility. We were willing to take life as it came and as we might organize and control it, and this without murmur, complaint, or unreasonable demands. We sometimes think we would like to know what was ahead, but sober thought brings us back to accepting life a day at a time and magnifying and glorifying that day."

And I'm reminded of the plan we were presented in heaven, that we agreed to this all, and that it was for our good. Elder Maxwell went on to say "since there was no exemption from suffering for Christ, how can there be one for us? Do we really want immunity from adversity? Especially when certain kinds of suffering can aid our growth in this life? To deprive ourselves of those experiences, much as we might momentarily like to, would be to deprive ourselves of the outcomes over which we shouted with anticipated joy when this life's experiences were explained to us so long ago, in the world before we came here."

"And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." Ether 12:6