Because of Him All is Well

This hymn has always been a favorite of mine.  I used to sing it as loud as I could when no one else was home.  During times of trial, it was my anthem, my war cry, my hope that if I held on and tried to smile, one day I could say "all is well" and it really would all be well.  Then, I misunderstood adversity.  I assumed that happiness meant the absence of anything in my life that could cause me unhappiness. Experience has taught me that life is full of challenges, and that if we are waiting for these challenges to resolve themselves before we are happy, we will be waiting a very long time. 

I find instruction and hope in the promise the Lord gave to the prophet Nephi in the Book of Mormon: "I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you...and ye shall know it is by me that ye are led" (1 Nephi 17:13).  The Lord has prepared the way and the light by which we should travel, yet we still have to journey through a wilderness.  Our mortal journeys will definitely not always go the way we plan them to, but they will always go perfectly the way that our loving Heavenly Father has planned.  Our journeys through this wilderness are not pointless or hopeless.  There is purpose.  There are things to learn and experience to become fit for His home in the heavens.  There is only one path that leads there, and it cuts a straight and narrow way through a wilderness.  This truth neither limits nor overrides our agency.  Instead, it teaches us to rely and depend on the merits of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

As Elder David A. Bednar states:

"We are not and never need be alone.  We can press forward in our daily lives with heavenly help.  Through the Savior's Atonement we can receive capacity and 'strength beyond [our] own' ("Lord, I Would Follow Thee", Hymns, no.220).  As the Lord declared, 'Therefore, continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice; behold, and lo, I am with you even unto the end (D&C 100:12)."

This Easter season, I am overcome with gratitude for a Savior, a Redeemer, a "best and heavenly Friend" ("Be Still, My Soul, Hymns, no. 124). Because of Him, we can overcome weaknesses; who we are is not who we always must be, and we are never out of second chances.  Because of Him, no matter how overwhelmingly hard or long this journey appears to us, there is a power from which we can draw upon for strength.  I testify that because of Him, all is well.