Sheri Dew - If Life Were Easy, It Wouldnt Be Hard: And Other Reassuring Truths

Chapter One

If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard

A few months ago, I had an assignment that required me to make a quick, long-weekend-type trip to Nauvoo, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a nephew and two nieces with me. My nephew had just received his mission call, one niece was preparing to turn in her mission papers, and the other niece was getting ready to graduate from high school. Realizing that all of their lives were soon to change, I couldn't help but seize the chance to spend a long weekend with these three spectacular young adults I love in a place I love.

We gathered at the Salt Lake City airport for a Friday evening flight to St. Louis, from where we would drive the remaining two and a half hours to Nauvoo. We knew we wouldn't get to Nauvoo until late, but there was nothing pressing early the next morning, so no problem. We arrived at the airport, checked in, and boarded the aircraft. A few minutes later, the plane took off and headed east toward Missouri.

The flight attendant had served refreshments to about half of the passengers on the relatively small plane when the captain interrupted our reverie with the kind of announcement you never like to hear coming from a cockpit when that cockpit is at 35,000 feet: "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to tell you we've got some good news and some bad news." He paused, then went on: "The bad news is that we just lost a hydraulic 'something-or-other.' The good news is that we've got a backup onboard and it appears to be working. Ground control advises us, however, that we must return to Salt Lake City. So we're turning back west."

The passengers groaned audibly, and the flight attendant began gathering up everything she'd just handed out. Then, we waited. And waited. And waited. We had been in flight about thirty minutes, which suggested it would take about that long to return to Salt Lake City. But after a much longer period of time had passed, and the tension among the passengers onboard the crippled airliner was starting to be palpable, the captain finally put us out of our misery with another announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the delay, but I've got only good news this time. Our mechanics now tell us that because the backup part seems to be functioning fine, we can resume our trip to St. Louis. So we are turning back east."

Once again, the flight attendant brought out the refreshment cart and began to make her way down the aisle. She had just about had time to serve everyone when the pilot broke the silence again: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is most embarrassing, but our mechanics are now telling us they feel uneasy about the backup part functioning properly all the way to St. Louis, and we have again been advised to return to Salt Lake City."

This time there were moans and groans all around. We finally landed back in Salt Lake City at almost precisely the same time we should have been landing in St. Louis. We'd been traveling nearly three hours and were right back where we started! By the time we set foot back inside the airport and were told we'd have to wait for a replacement plane to be brought to our gate, I had completely lost all enthusiasm for going to Nauvoo. So I turned to my nieces and nephew and asked if we shouldn't just bag the trip and spend the weekend at my house. To which my nephew instantly replied, "Are you kidding? This is an adventure!" I felt compelled to point out the obvious, that at the rate we were going, by the time we finally did get to Nauvoo it would be the middle of the night, if not the following morning. That was when one of my nieces interrupted with this piece of wisdom: "And besides, Aunt Sheri, don't you know? If life were easy, it wouldn't be hard."

What she said made me laugh right out loud. But then I began to think about how profound her comment was.

It's true that if life were easy, it wouldn't be hard. Meaning this: What if every prayer were instantly answered in the way we wanted it to be? What if a little bit of spiritual due diligence now and again kept us in constant and clear contact with our Heavenly Father? If nothing ever tested our faith or our resolve or our convictionsbecause we really don't know what we believe or believe in, for that matter, until we're testedthen what are the chances we would progress far enough spiritually in this lone and dreary world? Whether we like it or not, our trials and struggles can tend to accelerate our push toward godliness. In fact, it's possible we wouldn't go as far as we're capable of going without them. "For all those who will not endure chastening... cannot be sanctified" (Docterine and Covenants 101:5).

Brigham Young said that "God never bestows upon His people, or upon an individual, superior blessings without a severe trial to prove them" (Journal of Discourses, 3:206). Sounds a bit foreboding on the one hand. But on the other, surely we couldn't expect to inherit the gift of eternal life or to receive ongoing bestowals of charity or to be taught the mysteries of godliness or to learn to communicate clearly with the heavens without making a diligent, consistent effortin other words, without it requiring a lot of spiritual work.

A friend of mine has sometimes wondered out loud what the headline in the Rocky Ridge Gazette might have been if those who pushed, pulled, and prayed their handcarts over that forbidding Wyoming terrain hadn't kept going: "Turned Back Because of Rain." Or, "Turned Back for Fatigue." Or, "Turned Back Because It Was Too Hard."

They didn't turn back. And neither can we.

This life was designed to be a testa test to determine if we want to be part of the kingdom of God more than we want anything else. Mortality offers a wide range of experiences and opportunities, everything from countless ways to serve our fellowman to an endless array of distractions, deceptions, and modes of self-gratification. When all is said and done, perhaps the most fundamental question we each answer is, Do we want to be part of the kingdom of Godboth here on earth and eternallymore than we want anything else? And do we demonstrate by our choices and priorities, by how we live our liveseverything from the way we spend our time and energy to the way we spend our influence and resourceswhat we really care about?

After being expelled from the Garden, Eve capsulized the mortal experience in this spiritually powerful, single-sentence sermon: "Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient" (Moses 5:11). In short, during our mortal sojourn we can expect to experience joy and pain and everything in between.

Said the Prophet Joseph, "A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation" (