like a reset button

Prayer has become like a reset button. “Every morning, I can step out of my time-bound world and see the big picture, becoming a faith-filled person again. It helps the universe fall back into place for me, especially when life seems so random and full of suffering.”

And sometimes, when there is no reprieve from her pain, the only answer has been the words “I know,” Sister Runia said, “which isn’t so much an answer as it is a guarantee from a loving God that I am not alone.”

When heaven feels silent, ‘keep praying,’ Sister Runia tells BYU–Pathway students: Sister Tamara W. Runia of the Young Women general presidency shares 3 truths she’s learned about prayer. Church News. April 7, 2026. 

you can simultaneously have peace

Please learn that as you wrestle with a challenge and feel sadness because of it, you can simultaneously have peace and rejoicing. Yes, pain, disappointment, frustration, and anguish can be temporary scenes played out on the stage of life. Behind them there can be a background of peace and the positive assurance that a loving Father will keep His promises. You can qualify for those promises by a determination to accept His will, by understanding the plan of happiness, by receiving all of the ordinances, and by keeping the covenants made to assure their fulfillment.

Richard G. Scott

"Trust in the Lord" General Conference October 1995

an experience in profound trust

This life is an experience in profound trust—trust in Jesus Christ, trust in His teachings, trust in our capacity as led by the Holy Spirit to obey those teachings for happiness now and for a purposeful, supremely happy eternal existence. To trust means to obey willingly without knowing the end from the beginning (see Prov. 3:5–7). To produce fruit, your trust in the Lord must be more powerful and enduring than your confidence in your own personal feelings and experience.

To exercise faith is to trust that the Lord knows what He is doing with you and that He can accomplish it for your eternal good even though you cannot understand how He can possibly do it. We are like infants in our understanding of eternal matters and their impact on us here in mortality. Yet at times we act as if we knew it all. When you pass through trials for His purposes, as you trust Him, exercise faith in Him, He will help you. That support will generally come step by step, a portion at a time. While you are passing through each phase, the pain and difficulty that come from being enlarged will continue. If all matters were immediately resolved at your first petition, you could not grow. Your Father in Heaven and His Beloved Son love you perfectly. They would not require you to experience a moment more of difficulty than is absolutely needed for your personal benefit or for that of those you love.

Richard G. Scott

"Trust in the Lord" General Conference October 1995

See also, Tracy Y. Browning "Seeking Answers to Spiritual Questions" General Conference October 2024

almost the entire visit happened in silence

A while ago, a stake president and I were visiting members of the Church in a local neighborhood. After we finished our scheduled visits, the stake president asked me if we could go see one more family. He felt impressed that we should talk with them.

We knocked on the door, and a sister opened it. She looked at me, but she didn’t know who I was, so she didn’t express much. I pointed my hand toward the stake president, who greeted her by name. As soon as she heard and saw him, she rejoiced. Standing there at the door, they both hugged each other and cried together. This set the tone for our visit. We didn’t know that the sister had received chemotherapy the day before. She felt too weak to care for her adult son. So I helped the stake president dress her son, and we put him in his wheelchair. We fed him the food that another sweet sister from the ward had brought earlier, and we helped with other tasks. Before we left their home, we were able to bless them.

All that was going through my mind during this visit was a confirmation that Jesus Christ loves them deeply. He understands them and personally knows the pain of their unique situation. Almost the entire visit happened in silence. On this occasion we did not give a big sermon or share our favorite scripture, but the Lord blessed us with His Spirit abundantly.

Gregorio E. Casillas

"God Loves All His Children", General Conference October 2024

a house of light, a house of hope

There is no pain, no sickness, no injustice, no suffering, nothing that can darken our hope as we believe and hold tightly to our covenants with God in the house of the Lord. It is a house of light, a house of hope.

Neil L. Andersen

"The Triumph of Hope", General Conference October 2024

stagger not through unbelief

As one’s will is increasingly submissive to the will of God, he can receive inspiration and revelation so much needed to help meet the trials of life. In the trying and very defining Isaac episode, faithful Abraham “staggered not … through unbelief” (Rom. 4:20). Of that episode John Taylor observed that “nothing but the spirit of revelation could have given him this confidence, and … sustained him under these peculiar circumstances” (in Journal of Discourses, 14:361). Will we too trust the Lord amid a perplexing trial for which we have no easy explanation? Do we understand—really comprehend—that Jesus knows and understands when we are stressed and perplexed? The complete consecration which effected the Atonement ensured Jesus’ perfect empathy; He felt our very pains and afflictions before we did and knows how to succor us (see Alma 7:11–12; 2 Ne. 9:21). Since the Most Innocent suffered the most, our own cries of “Why?” cannot match His. But we can utter the same submissive word “nevertheless …” (Matt. 26:39).

Neal A. Maxwell

“Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father”, General Conference October 1995

I truly am a son of God

Since finding my faith in my mid-20s, I have awakened to the realisation that I truly am a son of God. The more fully I internalise this gift, the more keenly I know who I am and how completely I am loved. Some things that have helped me grow in understanding are the words of scripture, my patriarchal blessing, temple worship, serving others, expressing gratitude, and sacred prayer with my Father. I marvel at how earlier sorrow, pain, and grief in my life would have been reframed, soothed, and much of it overcome had I known this beautiful truth.

Patrick Kearon

"Receive His Gift," General Conference April 2025

make friends with pain

“Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone.

Ken Chlouber, Colorado miner and creator of the Leadville Trail 100 mile race

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. by Christopher McDougall. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 2011. 

the HUGE majority of discomfort

Unless you are currently suffering from constant or recurring physical pain, the HUGE majority of discomfort that you face in any day will be psychological in nature. In other words, you are uncomfortable because you are thinking. As such, managing your thoughts will be the biggest part of your self-care practice.

Jason Seib

The (dis)Comfort Zone Workshop: Make peace with discomfort for better self-care almost immediately. Accessed 3/5/2024

while pain has her wanton way with you

It’s not a question of whether you will hurt, or of how much you will hurt; it’s a question of what you will do, and how well you will do it, while pain has her wanton way with you.

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown. Penguin Books. 2013

it would have been worth all that it has cost

I have said many times that if nothing else came out of all of the sorrow and travail and pain of the restoration than the sealing power of the holy priesthood to bind together families forever, it would have been worth all that it has cost.

Gordon B. Hinckley

Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley (1997), 475–76. As found in "The Sealing Power," by D. Todd Christofferson. General Conference October 2023

think celestial

To assist you to qualify for the rich blessings Heavenly Father has for you, I invite you to adopt the practice of “thinking celestial”! (see Alma 34:32-35) Thinking celestial means being spiritually minded. We learn from the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob that “to be spiritually-minded is life eternal.” (2 Nephi 9:39)...

When you are confronted with a dilemma, think celestial! When tested by temptation, think celestial! When life or loved ones let you down, think celestial! When someone dies prematurely, think celestial. When someone lingers with a devastating illness, think celestial. When the pressures of life crowd in upon you, think celestial! As you recover from an accident or injury, as I am doing now, think celestial!

President Russell M. Nelson

"Think Celestial" October 2023 General Conference

deep wounds deepen us

Let yourself cry as you grow. Don't stuff your emotions down. Growing in Christ isn't all smiles and laughter. Let your tears, and the wounds they reflect, take you deeper with Christ than you could ever otherwise go. As I've heard my dad say, "Deep wounds deepen us."

Dane C. Ortlund

Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners by Dane C. Ortlund. Crossway. 2021. p.135

your tears are his tools.

If you want to be a solid, weighty, radiant old man or woman someday, let the pain in your life force you to believe your own theology. Let it propel you into deeper fellowship with Christ than ever before. Don't let your heart dry up. He is in your pain. He is refining you. All that you will lose, Sibbes reminds us, is the dross of Self and misery that in your deepest heart you want to shed anyway. God loves us too much to let us remain shallow. How frothy and facile we would be if we lived all of life without pain.

Your tears are his tools.

Dane C. Ortlund

Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners by Dane C. Ortlund. Crossway. 2021. p.133. 134

pain will foster growth

Our natural instincts tell us that the way forward in the Christian life is by avoiding pain so that, undistracted, we can get down to the business at hand of growing in Christ. The New Testament tells us again and again, however, that pain is a means, not an obstacle, to deepening in Christian maturity. The anguish, disappointments, and futility that afflict us are themselves vital building blocks to our growth. We are "heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him" (Rom. 8:17). We most deeply know Christ as we "share his sufferings" (Phil. 3:10). "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Heb. 12:11).

Pain will foster growth like nothing else can - if we will let it.

Dane C. Ortlund

Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners by Dane C. Ortlund. Crossway. 2021. p.125

heal rather than hurt

The teaching that God created the earth and all things that are upon it gives to man a special task in the presence of suffering and pain. These were not found on the earth as God first made it. They came as a result of man’s fall. Man’s challenge then is to help reverse these consequences in every way he can. As God’s steward he must heal rather than hurt, build rather than destroy, love rather than hate all nature and its creatures. “How,” asked the Prophet Joseph Smith, “will the serpent ever lose its venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition, and continue to make war upon it?” Nature is under man’s dominion but not for sport. The Father marks every sparrow’s fall, and man must pay for every act of cruelty.

The Lord’s Question: Thoughts on the Life of Response by Dennis Rasmussen. Brigham Young University Press. April 1985. Chapter Two, “Do Not I Fill Heaven and Earth?” p.18

the furnace of affliction

At times it may seem that our trials are focused on areas of our lives and parts of our souls with which we seem least able to cope. Since personal growth is an intended outcome of these challenges, it should come as no surprise that the trials can be very personal—almost laser guided to our particular needs or weaknesses. And no one is exempt, especially not Saints striving to do what’s right. Some obedient Saints may ask, “Why me? I’m trying to be good! Why is the Lord allowing this to happen?” The furnace of affliction helps purify even the very best of Saints by burning away the dross in their lives and leaving behind pure gold. Even very rich ore needs refining to remove impurities. Being good is not enough. We want to become like the Savior, who learned as He suffered “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind.” 

Paul V. Johnson, "More Than Conquerors through Him That Loved Us." April 2011 General Conference.

a gauge of the healing process

Pain is a gauge of the healing process. It often teaches us patience. Perhaps that is why we use the term patient in referring to the sick.

Kent F. Richards, "The Atonement Covers All Pain." April 2011 General Conference

the paradox of vengefulness

No one could reach Louie, because he had never really come home. In prison camp, he’d been beaten into dehumanized obedience to a world order in which the Bird was absolute sovereign, and it was under this world order that he still lived. The Bird had taken his dignity and left him feeling humiliated, ashamed, and powerless, and Louie believed that only the Bird could restore him, by suffering and dying in the grip of his hands. A once singularly hopeful man now believed that his only home lay in murder.

The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer. In seeking the Bird’s death to free himself, once again, to his tyrant. During the war, the Bird had been unwilling to let go of Louie; after the war, Louie was unable to let go of the Bird.


Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. Random House. 2010. 496 pages.

it was too painful for Him

In the last revelation Joseph Smith received before he was permitted to organize Christ’s Church on the earth—in what was the capstone of Joseph Smith’s preparation to be an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ—the Lord gave the only first-person detailed account of the suffering He endured so that we would not need to suffer the full effects of our disobedience:

For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; . . .

Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink— [D&C 19:16, 18]

There is something curious about this narrative. Verse 18 ends with a dash. The Savior did not complete His thought. Why? I don’t know, but I am persuaded by the explanation that the Savior might have cut short His description of what He suffered because it was too painful for Him—some 1,800 years after the event—to complete the description (see Eugene England, The Quality of Mercy [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992], 52). Now what kind of a God do we worship? An awesome God who wants us to know that His love for us is infinite and eternal. A God who wants us to know that His love for us gave Him the strength to suffer for us. Knowing this ought to be enough to move us to submit our lives to Him in obedience and gratitude.

 
“The Very Root of Christian Doctrine” by Thomas B. Griffith (judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit when this devotional address was given on 14 March 2006). Speeches - Brigham Young University 2005-2006.