When I was in the 9th grade all of my friends and I tried out for the 9th grade basketball team. We had been playing for a few years together and we thought it would be so fun if we all got to play for our school team. We went to the try-outs and almost all of us made it. My close friends that didn't make it were much better than me, and should have made it. Height has always been to my advantage in basketball, I am 5'11". So, I made the team. In all honesty, it was probably because of my height, but none the less, I played on the Oquirrh Hills Middle School 9th grade basketball team! It was a fun year, and we played really well. Throughout the season I learned a ton of new basketball skills. I had two coaches, but the assistant coach, Coach Warnick, really helped me learn what it means to play the "post" or "center" position. He worked me for hours on my boxing out, pivoting, blocking....you name it...we did it! Coach Warnick saw my potential in basketball, and he made me work on the things he knew I could do with some practice. By the end of the year, I had improved immensely, I was not the M.V.P by any of stretch of the imagination, but I was better than I was when I first started the season.
As I was thinking about how much Coach Warnick believed in me, and how much he helped me see my own potential, I began thinking how much more our Heavenly Father sees our potential as His children. All this thinking reminded me of an awesome story told in the January 1973 New Era called "The Currant Bush" by Elder Hugh B. Brown. He related a story that helped him come to know how Heavenly Father really does know best. He said,
"You sometimes wonder whether the Lord really knows what he ought to do with you. You sometimes wonder if you know better than he does about what you ought to do and ought to become. I am wondering if I may tell you a story that I have told quite often in the Church. It is a story that is older than you are. It’s a piece out of my own life, and I’ve told it in many stakes and missions. It has to do with an incident in my life when God showed me that He knew best.
I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and went after it, and I cut it down, and pruned it, and clipped it back until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it, and smiled, and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush talk. And I thought I heard it say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me, because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring enough about me to hurt me. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’”
Time passed. Years passed, and I found myself in England. I was in command of a cavalry unit in the Canadian Army. I had made rather rapid progress as far as promotions are concerned, and I held the rank of field officer in the British Canadian Army. And I was proud of my position. And there was an opportunity for me to become a general. I had taken all the examinations. I had the seniority. There was just one man between me and that which for ten years I had hoped to get, the office of general in the British Army. I swelled up with pride. And this one man became a casualty, and I received a telegram from London. It said: “Be in my office tomorrow morning at 10:00,” signed by General Turner in charge of all Canadian forces. I called in my valet, my personal servant. I told him to polish my buttons, to brush my hat and my boots, and to make me look like a general because that is what I was going to be. He did the best he could with what he had to work on, and I went up to London. I walked smartly into the office of the General, and I saluted him smartly, and he gave me the same kind of a salute a senior officer usually gives—a sort of “Get out of the way, worm!” He said, “Sit down, Brown.” Then he said, “I’m sorry I cannot make the appointment. You are entitled to it. You have passed all the examinations. You have the seniority. You’ve been a good officer, but I can’t make the appointment. You are to return to Canada and become a training officer and a transport officer. Someone else will be made a general.” That for which I had been hoping and praying for ten years suddenly slipped out of my fingers.
Then he went into the other room to answer the telephone, and I took a soldier’s privilege of looking on his desk. I saw my personal history sheet. Right across the bottom of it in bold, block-type letters was written, “THIS MAN IS A MORMON.” We were not very well liked in those days. When I saw that, I knew why I had not been appointed. I already held the highest rank of any Mormon in the British Army. He came back and said, “That’s all, Brown.” I saluted him again, but not quite as smartly. I saluted out of duty and went out. I got on the train and started back to my town, 120 miles away, with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. And every click of the wheels on the rails seemed to say, “You are a failure. You will be called a coward when you get home. You raised all those Mormon boys to join the army, then you sneak off home.” I knew what I was going to get, and when I got to my tent, I was so bitter that I threw my cap and my saddle brown belt on the cot. I clinched my fists and I shook them at heaven. I said, “How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?” I was as bitter as gall.
And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.” The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness and my bitterness.
I arose from my knees a humble man. And now, almost fifty years later, I look up to him and say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.” I see now that it was wise that I should not become a general at that time, because if I had I would have been senior officer of all western Canada, with a lifelong, handsome salary, a place to live, and a pension when I’m no good any longer, but I would have raised my six daughters and two sons in army barracks. They would no doubt have married out of the Church, and I think I would not have amounted to anything. I haven’t amounted to very much as it is, but I have done better than I would have done if the Lord had let me go the way I wanted to go.
I wanted to tell you that oft-repeated story because there are many of you who are going to have some very difficult experiences: disappointment, heartbreak, bereavement, defeat. You are going to be tested and tried to prove what you are made of. I just want you to know that if you don’t get what you think you ought to get, remember, “God is the gardener here. He knows what he wants you to be.” Submit yourselves to his will. Be worthy of his blessings, and you will get his blessings."
I love that story because truly our Heavenly Father is the "gardener" in each and every one of our lives. He sees what we can become, and He helps us reach that potential if we let Him. Often times it takes a little practice, a little training, just like Coach Warnick had to push me to be a better basketball player, Heavenly Father sometimes has to push us a little bit, hurt us a little bit, cut us down a little bit, to help us become the person He knows we can be.
There is quote from Elder Richard G. Scott of the quorum of the 12 apostles, and he said, "Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore give you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion, which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain."
Let us remember that our Heavenly Father loves us. He is in charge, and He sees the bigger picture. If you are having a hard time, if you are hurting, if you are not exactly where you thought you would be, if you are seeing more of your weaknesses, just know that your Heavenly Father is helping you come closer to Him. He is helping you grow. He is helping you reach your potential.
"As we draw close to God, He will show us our weaknesses and through them make us wiser, stronger. If you're seeing more of your weaknesses, that just might mean you're moving nearer to God, not farther away."
("The Atonement: All for All", Bruce C. Hafen.)
I want to bear my testimony that I know that Heavenly Father loves each one of us individually and personally. He has a plan for you and for me. He gives us trials and struggles to help us grow. He gives us opportunities to reach our potential and sometimes that puts us out of our comfort zone, or hurts/stretches us a little. He does that for our benefit, and we may not always see the immediate results of this trial, we may not understand exactly why we had to go through that experience, but we will see it...one day. We will look back and see how much we've grown, and see what we have become with His help. He can and will help us become something more than we could ever imagine!
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